A whole book series wrapped into a line, after the characters have been run through the ringer and the plot has nearly wound itself up into a beautiful tapestry this one line plays the chord through the entire series.
It begins with the attempted saving of the innocent, and ends with its lose. The story in the middle could really be anyone’s. Yours, mine, whomever you want to put in the hero’s position.
I won’t turn this into politics.
I will turn this to point at you.
Will this be us? Is this you? Does this line paint us?
I can’t answer this for you. I can’t yet even answer this for me.
We’re all in the story, every one of us. There’s no escaping our character’s development, no avoiding the tragedy and comedy, no stopping the coming crescendo.
But in the night, when it’s dark, we feel the vacancy of our economy, the economy of our hearts, the one that pines to be more and less, all and nothing. Really wanting to be carried away in something bigger than us, something, some cause which is worth our lives and deaths.
Still this quote rings true in my ears,
“I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.” (Lord of the Rings)
So.
Here it stands.
We are playing the part we were born to play.
We are not our own.
We never were.
Yet hope.
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