Context for this quote: through Pippin’s foolish actions, he placed himself and everybody else in an extremely dangerous situation. Although things turned out all right this time, he could have ruined his entire life. He is terrified by the gravity of the situation, and this is his response.
“I wish I had known all this before,” said Pippin. “I had no notion of what I was doing.”
“Oh yes, you had,” said Gandalf. “You knew you were behaving wrongly and foolishly; and you told yourself so, though you did not listen.”
This is a truth that constantly keeps on circling around and smacking me in the face: the vital importance of small decisions. So, to this quote I add two more quotes. The first is from a man who is not only one of my favorite author, but an amazing artist and philosopher as well— Bill Watterson.
I made a big decision a little while ago.
I don’t remember what it was, which prob’ly goes to show
That many times a simple choice can prove to be essential
Even though it often might appear inconsequential.
I must have been distracted when I left my home because
Left or right I’m sure I went. (I wonder which it was!)
Anyway, I never veered: I walked in that direction
Utterly absorbed, it seems, in quiet introspection.
For no reason I can think of, I’ve wandered far astray
And that is how I got to where I find myself today.
Second, I quote a paragraph I included in a blog about children that I wrote when I was in Wyoming.
“We don’t understand that our actions have consequences. Sure, when we grow up we (hopefully) realize that throwing rocks in the neighbor’s yard isn’t the best idea, and yet we are completely blind to the consequences of telling a white lie, of brushing off an inner prompting, of eating too much food, or of obsessively checking Facebook. In a month or a year, any ‘small’ vice may be the foothold that opens a person up to horrors he couldn’t imagine before. The ripples, both physical and spiritual, extend far beyond what we can comprehend.”
The message that keeps staring me down when I try hardest to ignore it? Sin is sin, great or small. Don’t excuse yourself off as being foolish when you’re really being wrong. And don’t underestimate the power of small things done right.
~Lisa Shafter
"It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations.... There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilisations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors." - C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory
ReplyDelete