Men of Gondor...

We were watching Return of the King yesterday. The extended version. I took a half-hour nap during the movie and still saw most of the important action. There is so much in those stories to chew on and contemplate and inspire, but this is what particularly struck me yesterday. Hopefully you'll forgive me if I get any of the details slightly wrong. I love Tolkien more than many people do (Really...Tolkien is Son2's middle name) , but my mind is not exactly a steel trap for all the place names and such. My husband's is. I don't understand how he remembers it all, but then again, his psychic space isn't quite as hijacked by schedules and appointments and medication dosages and social security numbers. So he can better remember the details of the Lord of the Rings and other stuff that I have no room for.

Anyway. In this scene of Return of the King, the battle for Minis Tirith has begun and the good guys are completely outnumbered, waiting for reinforcements. It looks like all the forces of hell are arrayed against our friends. Gandalf is standing with the men of Gondor, trying to steady their nerves because the steward of Gondor can't be bothered to do so. (He is busy planning his suicide and his son's death because he has lost all hope.) But the battle is on and something is battering the gates of the citadel, and clearly that something is about to break through. There is nothing the men of Gondor can do to stop it. So Gandalf says, "Men of Gondor, no matter what comes through that gate, stand your ground."

On the second day of the new year, that line rang true. There are good years and bad ones. I feel more hopeful at the beginning of this year than I have in the past few. Some things have shifted for me recently; I really didn't expect to enter this year with this little ballast of hopefulness. Yet I have, and I am grateful. But I know others who are now standing their ground, and my heart goes out to them.

I know these battles always come at us unforeseen. Things grow dark in our lives, and then darker still. Sometimes the very best you can do is stand your ground. You go on, somewhere well past hope, somewhere well past what feels like hanging on, but by grace you don't turn back or run away or do what Job's wife advised: curse God and die. Sometimes you can stand your ground so long that if it feels like you're not standing anymore and you wonder if you ever had any ground to begin with. But you did, and you do. Hope often arrives at the darkest moments, but not before you think you've already experienced the darkest moments. In the movie, a flower blooms on the barren white tree of Minis Tirith while the battle rages on. No one knows it's there, but that doesn't mean hope hasn't bloomed.