Monday, August 29, 2011

Tolkien Quotes: The Danger of Light and Joy

“Torment in the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting, even if I were to go this night straight to the Dark Lord.”
This is Gimli’s response to his parting with Galadriel and all of Lothlorien. This struck me the last time I read The Fellowship of the Ring, and it strikes me anew after a year’s time as I connect with Gimli’s emotions. Many people react strongly to bad things that happen, but I’ve met only a few who react with the same kind of passion to things that are beautiful.
When I was a kid, we visited the Outer Banks of North Carolina every year, and the Atlantic Ocean was so immense and ancient, I could hardly stand it. I ached for the first taste of salty air, the first sight of trees twisted by sea breeze, and the first glimpse of the oceanic horizon, a rim of molten-metal blue. When we had to leave to head back to the Midwest, I perched in the backseat of the minivan and stared out the window, straining for a final picture of the ocean. My heart always felt lovesick for days. 
As I’ve gotten older, the painful wonder has been hidden a bit in the jadedness of age. That’s not to say it isn’t there, however. Far from it. But I think adults bury their sense of awe as a coping mechanism. If our eyes were opened to the true beauty of things— wind tossing the silver maple’s leaves, the delicate motions of a housefly grooming its eyes, the paint-fleck patterns in a person’s iris— we might spend all our days weeping for joy. On the flip side, if we experienced the truest pain of something wrong in the world— a butterfly’s broken wing, a tree withered from the roots, the wrinkles and decaying bones of age— we might spend all our days weeping in sorrow. It’s impossible to deaden your heart to sorrow and still keep it alive for joy. The only solution is to be brave. Brave when faced with decay and horror. Brave when faced with unbearable beauty. Light and joy are more dangerous than we think, but it’s a danger that is well worth the pain it takes to endure them.
~Lisa Shafter


2 comments:

  1. Lisa, I'm loving this series of reflections prompted by Tolkien quotes. This one is magnificent.

    PEACE
    Kerry

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  2. Lisa, here's a quote from The Madonnas of Leningrad, describing how a mother with Alzheimer's sees her world:

    "The slow erosion of self has its compensations. Having forgotten whatever associations might dull her vision, she can look at a leaf and see it for the first time. Though reason suggests it otherwise, she has never seen this green before. It is wondrous. Each day the world is made fresh again, holy and she takes it in, in all its intensity, like a young child.”

    Very poignant example of what you're talking about, I think.

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