Christianity and Middle-Earth

Sunday, December 19, 2004

Amon Hen

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; the same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not...And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."

~~~

"For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish, foolishness; but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. For it is written:

I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.

Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe. For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness..."

~~~

A hundred summers lie as sweet as pipe-weed on the land,
But I go fear-footed o’er them up the hill.
The trees once quickened with their green now shorn and leafless stand
Bleak with winter, but my heart is bleaker still.

Unsteadily it echoes to the doom it long forebode,
As his fading voice cries havoc once again,
E’en as I stumble breathless on a time-disheveled road,
A mournful trace of other mortal men.

A hundred summers? Nay, a thousand cannot tell the tale
Of the labors writ here in this rocky stair;
Yet ever do the splendors of the ancient kingdoms fail,
Leaving naught but ruined shadows, waste and bare.

Long rains of sorrow, dreary-grey, fell from the passing years,
And searching, crept like secrets through the stone,
Til freezing nights came sudden to abet the questing tears,
Thus the toil of kings was broken and undone.

And ever on the hearts of those who dwell upon this earth,
Despair and grief spill out their vanguard brew
To trickle into cracks in joy and cheerfulness and mirth
And linger ‘til the shatt’ring cold comes through.

Behind, deep in the lonely wood, I watched a good man fall,
Thence I fled the raging splinters of his soul;
And stole the fatal frost away from him and from them all,
Lest none, not one, be left among them whole.

~~~

"None of us should wander alone, you least of all. So much depends on you. Frodo? I know why you seek solitude. You suffer. I see it day by day. Are you sure you do not suffer needlessly? There are other ways, Frodo, other paths that we might take."

"I know what you would say and it would seem like wisdom, but for the warning in my heart."

"Warning! Against what? We are all afraid, Frodo. But to let that fear drive us to destroy what hope we have... Don't you see? That is madness!"

"There is no other way."


 

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