hallof-fire

[hallof-fire]

I didn’t want to write about this yesterday, because I wanted at least one bit of time to honor RBG and her legacy without immediately reacting to “but what does that mean about us?” But even with that, I could see those reactions occurring as people shared the breaking news, heartbroken and terrified.

People are terrified because Justice RBG over her time on the Supreme Court was seen at first as a moderate liberal, and by the end a strong, nearly radical liberal - not because her opinions or rulings changed, but because the other justices on the court continued to shift more and more strongly conservative. Her views of human equality were more strongly challenged.

And here is where I want to talk to you, the evangelical voter, my white sister or brother who told me in 2016 that while you didn’t like Trump, the supreme court vacancy was important because of abortion cases.

Well, Trump was elected. A conservative justice was confirmed. The court had a conservative majority.

Rulings to limit abortion rights, the single-voter issue, did not pass.

Let me repeat that. WITH A CONSERVATIVE MAJORITY, ABORTION RIGHTS CONTINUED.

So if I hear one of you dare to tell me that the only reason you are choosing to vote for Trump again is because of your single-issue stance on abortion since there is yet again an open seat, tell me why you think that will make a damn difference this time around. (Also, do you know how many steps a case has to take before it would even get to the court to be decided on? This is not a one and done people.) Abortions have been declining since they were made legal.

When you said to me four years ago that you didn’t like that he was racist and misogynist, when you felt he was morally corrupt, but damn it you were going to go for that supreme court seat, that CANNOT be your argument this time around. So maybe don’t vote for the guy who allegedly is allowing forced hysterectomies on his watch or who forcibly separated parents and children who were seeking asylum (seeking asylum is a legal action) and claim it for your pro-life conviction.

[hallof-fire]

It’s okay to be Fatty Bolger

You know, Fredegar “Fatty” Bolger? That brave hobbit from Lord of the Rings?

No, not the one who carried the ring. That’s Frodo. Nope, not his best friend. No, you’re thinking of the troublemakers.

It’s not surprising that Fredegar isn’t a beloved and remembered character – he only appears in three chapters of the book, and he never made it into the movies. But Fatty is an essential character in the journey that Frodo and company make to destroy the One Ring and usher in an age of peace for all of Middle Earth’s inhabitants.

In the Lord of the Rings, the reader is introduced early on to Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, Sam Gamgee, Merry Brandybuck, and Pippin Took. They all play important roles over the course of the three volumes, and most people will recognize their names or their photos from the movie. Fatty also comes into the book in the beginning as a friend of Frodo. He joins them all as they confront Frodo about his decision to leave the Shire, and he is a part of all the conversations about the Ring. But where Sam, Merry, and Pippin leave the Shire with Frodo, Fatty stays behind.

He chooses to stay, and then goes on to show the courage all hobbits have ‘hidden at their core.’ “I am more afraid of the Old Forest than of anything I know about: the stories about it are a nightmare; but my vote hardly counts, as I am not going on the journey. Still, I am very glad someone is stopping behind, who can tell Gandalf what you have done, when he turns up, as I am sure he will before long.” Fatty stays in Frodo’s house, pretending to be Frodo, throwing off spies and servants of Sauron who were watching the home.

Fatty is essential in this role. – days after Frodo and company leave, five ringwraiths descend on Frodo’s house, and Fatty flees to rouse the town. By staying in the Shire and deceiving the spies, Fatty gives Frodo and company a head start – enough that they evaded capture before reaching the safety of Bree and Aragorn.

Then he drops out of the story until the penultimate chapter, “The Scouring of the Shire.” As Frodo and company return home to the Shire, they find it vastly changed. Saruman has gained control there and it has become an industrialized, suspicious town. As the returning hobbits set everything to rights, they release those Saruman had put into prison.

"The day after the battle Frodo rode to Michel Delving and released the prisoners from the Lockholes. One of the first that they found was poor Fredegar Bolger, Fatty no longer. He had been taken when the ruffians smoked out a band of rebels that he led from their hidings up in the Brockenbores by the hills of Scary.”

Fatty, in the story, is able to be both the first hero and the final hero. He confronts the ringwraiths before any of the others and defies Saruman months after the rest believe the battle is over. Though he plays little role in the large events elsewhere, his behind-the-scenes actions influenced how those events played out.

Sometimes you may sit out of the action, doing tasks that let others do the visible work (the “real” work, some may say). Sometimes you may struggle to see how you really relate overall to big things going on the world. But I learn from Fatty, and he provides a comforting reminder that though I may be spending my time behind a computer instead of meeting elves, my work is real and valuable nonetheless.

[hallof-fire]

The Importance of Church Community

a write up of a talk I gave

Today I wanted to take a look at Psalm 127, a psalm “of Solomon.” Most likely this means it was written by Solomon, but some commentators have made the case that it was parting guidance for Solomon by David. Whichever it was, we know that Solomon had a lot of experience with the topics in it!

Unless the Lord builds the house,    the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city,    the guards stand watch in vain. In vain you rise early    and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—    for he grants sleep to those he loves.

Children are a heritage from the Lord,    offspring a reward from him. Like arrows in the hands of a warrior    are children born in one’s youth. Blessed is the man    whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame    when they contend with their opponents in court.

I don’t know about you, but this psalm is incredibly familiar – except as two different things. Whenever I hear pieces of this psalm, I never hear the whole thing. We have the “builders building in vain” wall hangings and the arrow-filled “heritage of children” plaques, but what does it mean to look at the entire psalm together? How does that change how we may read it?

It is quite easy to see the first half talking about where our dependence lies, but that theme actually is there throughout. When we look at this psalm, we see that Solomon is telling us that people depend on many things – architects, materials, resources, craftsmen, walls, weapons, gates, physical abilities, personal successes, hard work, and family.

These two parts together also give us some questions and answers. Who do we build homes for? What are cities for? We build a home as a place for a family to live. We build cities for families to live together in safety and to interact with one another. We work hard to care for our families, to earn a living that will feed many mouths and have clothing for everyone. Read together, these two sections are strengthened into a psalm that overall looks to God as providing for the family unit. The central verse notes that the Lord is the one blessing and gifting the family in the form of children. The first half involves adults caring for family, and the second half is the children carrying on the legacy of the family that came before them.

The talk last week was about the unity of believers and how unity is a blessing that comes from God, with the ultimate result of life forevermore. As we see also in this psalm, family is a blessing that comes from God. Wealth and circumstance may be determined by other things, but even the poor Israelites could have children if God gave them, and so show the favor they had from God.

One of my favorite holidays growing up was Thanksgiving. For my family, Thanksgiving was the holiday to get together for. Easter and Christmas were done in our own immediate groups, but at Thanksgiving my mom’s entire side of the family would descend on my aunt’s house for the whole day. We’d all show up with some dish – never missing out on cheesy potatoes and scalloped corn – at about 11 in the morning. Then there was a lot of “helping” whoever was in the kitchen with the turkey, while we kids would run around wherever was most inconvenient. Eventually when all the food was ready all 40 of us or so would fill the long dining-and-living room to say grace and get the food. Every possible space would be filled with tables to eat at, though once lunch was over the people at the ping pong table would need to move so we could play around the world. Everyone would stay the rest of day, playing card games and board games. I can always remember Thanksgiving being filled with laughter. One of my fondest memories is right after we all learned how to play “The Couch Game.” If you never played this, it’s partly musical chairs and partly a memory name game where you try to fill a couch with your teammates. The important thing is, if you don’t know everyone’s name, you are going to have a hard time winning. This year my cousin’s boyfriend was meeting the extended family for the first time, and the poor man got pulled into this game not knowing anyone’s name…and not being nearly as competitive as the rest of us. We still welcomed him in in our family’s traditional mode of giving him a hard time and his team trying to make house rules in his favor. My family could have a great time together with just a few pieces of paper and a bunch of chairs. Thanksgiving was always a place of belonging, of having the people around you caring for you in so many different ways, from providing food to the generations watching and playing with one another to teaching you games.

How do you care for your family?

These days, I care for my family by telling my kids about Jeremiah, by cooking a meal for them after work, or by praying for their needs in the morning.

Did you know I had kids? I have, on average, 15-20. They’re 4 th and 5 th graders at my church. And while yes, I have occasionally cooked for my roommate, I frequently invite friends over for dinner and love to cook meals for them. And while I’m not as consistent as some of the others in this room, I try and make it to the daily prayer meetings in the prayer room to pray for staff in this office and around the country. Can you see where this is going? You may have thought it a bit odd that this single woman with no kids has chosen to talk about a psalm that is about family and children. But when we look at what’s going on in the passage and how bringing Jesus into it changes everything, I hope it makes more sense.

In Isaiah, God gives a promise to the foreigners and eunuchs, a promise that resonates strongly with the Ethiopian in Acts:

“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,    who choose what pleases me    and hold fast to my covenant—  to them I will give within my temple and its walls    a memorial and a name    better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name    that will endure forever.

When we become Christians, our family is no longer limited to those who share our DNA. Instead, we are part of a large home that is connected by belief and a promise. Our name is no longer dependent on biological children who will continue a family lineage, but instead our memorial and name is wrapped up in everything that God is doing in the world, enduring forever. I may not have kids to pass my card games on to, but I do have kids that I can pass scripture on to, kids that I know and love and help to grow and develop into godly men and women. I may not have the close family Thanksgiving anymore as everyone has spread across the country, but I can choose to bring my spiritual brothers and sisters into my apartment and overflow my own dining and living room.

In his book, You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit, James KA Smith talks about how participating baptism should change how we think about who becomes family. I grew up in the United Methodist tradition, so I pulled out the particular section of the baptismal office that illustrates what the congregation says in response to a new believer being baptized:

With God's help we will proclaim the good news   and live according to the example of Christ. We will surround these persons   with a community of love and forgiveness,   that they may grow in their trust of God,   and be found faithful in their service to others. We will pray for them,   that they may be true disciples   who walk in the way that leads to life.

We can see from this text that the entire church commits to be a community that will help this new believer grow in their trust of God and be faithful in service. Smith highlights this role of the congregation with these thoughts:

“The rituals of political liberalism (whether one is ideologically more “liberal” or more “conservative”) paint a picture of the family as the incubator of good citizens, dutiful producers, and eager consumers at the same time that it shuts up the family in a private, closed home as part of the American ideal of independence.”

“If Christian congregations are truly going to live out of and into the significance of baptism, they will need to become communities in which the bloodlines of kin are trumped by the blood of Christ--where “natural” families don’t fold into themselves in self-regard.”

(These are just two quotes from about five excellent pages on this topic, so I highly recommend finding this book and reading it.)

What Smith highlights is the idea that churches have internalized, that once we have a “family unit” we’re expected to be self-sufficient. We are now independent nuclear families who come to church and talk with the people a few seats down from us, but who make sure we’ve cleaned and picked up the house before people come over, or that we have a toolbox full of all the things we might need for everyday projects. After all, asking someone to borrow their hammer or drill can feel like we haven’t quite made it, that we’re not really as together as we should be.

And I know right now some of you are like me, thinking “oh I’ve totally asked to borrow someone’s drill” or “I’m okay with people seeing my mess.” And granted, working in ministry and the limited budget that often accompanies that does help us press into this.

But over the course of this past year, God has been talking to me a lot about how much independence I like to have, and just how little I depend on others. This was vividly brought home to me right around Jan 1. And no, this is not about Urbana. Some of you have heard the dryer saga of my apartment, but right as I was doing all my laundry to prepare to leave for Christmas and Urbana at the end of December, my dryer died. It still turned, still acted like it was working, but it wouldn’t actually dry clothes. I exasperatedly toted my wet laundry to the nearby laundromat and made a call to our maintenance, hoping that it would be taken care of by the time I returned from St. Louis.

It was not.

Aside from making yet another phone call, what would your reaction be? Do you have a first immediate thought? Mine was – well, I could go to the laundromat, but who knows how long this will take. Our management is notorious for not managing. That’s a lot of hauling loads back and forth. I’m going to go get an indoor drying rack.

So off I went to the store, got a reasonable rack that could hold a smaller sized load of laundry, and went about my business. Anyone else likely to have chosen that route?

My roommate asked our neighbors if she could use their dryer.

Who thought about that option?

It had not crossed my mind – I would say not in a million years, but certainly literally not in weeks. I knew the dryer was out in Dec, I knew there was a chance it might not be fixed, and yet not once during that whole time had I considered asking someone if I could use theirs. I only thought about the ways that fit into my independent life. (I did, after that, use other people’s dryers three separate times while we waited two months for it to be fixed.)

In this psalm, the blessing of children is very like the blessing of the in-unit dryer. They offer the ideal of an independent family unit. When you have kids, they’ll look after you when you’re old and can’t do all the things you used to. Like the arrows the warrior shapes with skill, aims, and directs, your kids will watch out for you when they are adults, and they can carry on your family name and legacy. But some people don’t have in-unit dryers. Some people’s dryers break. Some people don’t have kids. Some people have broken relationships with their kids.

What do we do then?

We, as the church, need to do better at living out the call in scripture to consider ourselves as brothers and sisters. We need to take seriously the promises in Isaiah 54, and to enlarge our tents. Church fellowship is not something that we should “fit in” around our family life or our goals and plans. It is an integral part of discipleship, of understanding who we are as adopted children of God, and of our witness to a world that is so hungry for intimacy and connection.

But it’s hard. Family implies mess. When you live with a family, you’re in the same house, multiple people trying to use the bathroom at the same time, dishes piling on the counter, everyone’s stuff scattered around places, long discussions on just which movie to watch on Netflix, and so on. It’s not always peaceful and arguments happen. People get frustrated with one another and conflict arises. We air our dirty laundry. When we already have that with our families or roommates, it can be easy to choose to step away from it within the church! But that’s not what we’re called to.

This is why understanding that this whole psalm is based on depending on God is so fundamental. We can’t do this on our own, and we’ll come apart if we try. Now, I always like it when the application is something like study your Bible, pray, think about something…you know, things that you can do on your own without having to talk to other people. But I am challenging all of us to grow in our dependence on God by doing it with others. And this isn’t even doing those things like praying or reading the Bible with others (though those are good and I encourage you to do them). I’m talking about doing the things that are a little uncomfortable and stretching, the things that open up the possibilities for a messy family – but can lead to the depth of family love, too.

What is something you are gifted in? What material objects are you wealthy in? What can you offer to other people? I’ve lately taken to offering organization to my friends. As someone who actually enjoys cleaning and organizing – truly, a gifting from God – and who is wealthy in time without having an immediate related family to care for, I can bless my church family struggling to “do it all” and “be good homemakers” by dusting, vacuuming, arranging medicine closets and pantries for easier access, folding clothes… How can you care for your family in a way that makes the world wonder what is different about you?

[hallof-fire]

The Shadow of the Past: Forgiveness

I don’t remember why I chose that theme for this chapter, but here it goes.

We start the chapter in the pub, with Ted Sandyman often laughing at or making fun of our heroes. They are small moments, with plenty of conversation and discussion around them, but Sam and Frodo both allow it to roll off them. Even when he laughs at things they hold dear--elves and Bilbo--they keep quiet without returning in kind. No outright acts of forgiveness are spoken, but we see the forgiving hearts each have when they refuse to join in or fight back. (We see it more deeply when they return, but that’s another chapter...)

Gandalf does many things in this chapter that require Frodo to forgive him: he disappears without word for many years, he shows up with wild tales about great rings, he throws Frodo’s ring into the fire, he forces Frodo off onto a journey. And true, all these things are good, and right for him to do, and what need to be done for Middle Earth to be saved! So here we learn that sometimes forgiveness is needed even when your actions are right and just. Forgiveness is about relationship, so any time that relationship is impacted forgiveness needs to be extended. (He also has to forgive Gandalf for his comment that he was not chosen “for power or wisdom, at any rate.” Ouch, Gandalf. Harsh.)

And of course, we get Gandalf’s famous quote:

“Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.”

Frodo must forgive Bilbo for his actions that led to Frodo being placed in this position, for letting Gollum live and therefore endangering Frodo’s life and the Shire. But we would hope that forgiveness is made easier by the knowledge of Bilbo’s character, by thinking how those actions contributed to the good that is coming out of it.

[hallof-fire]

A Long-Expected Party: Hospitality

It may feel a bit like cheating to use “hospitality” as a lens to look a chapter literally about a party, but oh well. I did anyway.

While hospitality is not the same thing as generosity, we see from the very start that Bilbo is a generous hobbit. He gives away money freely, he invites Frodo to live with him. Bilbo opens his heart and home to others. And he doesn’t only do this physically, but he also is generous socially.

“Bilbo was very polite to him, calling him ‘Master Hamfast’, and consulting him constantly upon the growing of vegetables”

The Gamgees are much lower social class than the Bagginses, but Bilbo gives dignity to others -- a true part of being hospitable. Along with this, Bilbo greets all one hundred eleven of his guests personally. Technically, he greets more than that because people sneak out to get more gifts.

Let’s also take a moment to talk about Gandalf’s hospitality in the gifting of his fireworks. He could’ve had a pretty limited stock selection but the text tells us he the fireworks “were not only brought by him, but designed and made by him”. Let’s face it: he’s got better things to do than design fireworks.

I love that hobbits give away gifts on their birthdays. I love the extra mile Bilbo goes by leaving more gifts for after he leaves. While it is essentially a will, the fact that he wrote personal messages to everyone is hospitable - and cheeky. We should all aspire to the fine like of generous hospitality and passive aggressive insults that he leaves in the messages.

Something else we see leading up to the party itself are the limitations of hospitality. In the “No admittance except on party business” sign, we see a humorous, but clear, example of the energy needed and the stresses possible when someone decides to be hospitable. In this, we are freed up to remember that sometimes it’s okay to shut people out in order to create capacity to let even more people in.

I have no pithy thoughts on this chapter, so I’m just going to end here.

[hallof-fire]

Lord of the Rings...and the Sacred Text?

Firstly, if you haven’t been listening to the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text drop everything and go now to listen to it. (Assuming you even remotely have an interest in Harry Potter.) I’ve been listening for a while now and love the way it enriches the reading of a favorite book. In fact, I love it so much that I decided to steal flatter it by theming my next reread of Lord of the Rings in a similar way.

For each chapter of LotR, I will choose a theme to look for while I read. I don’t know how the @hpsacredtext (go follow ‘em) team chooses theirs, but I’ve been picking ones that have a vague connection to the story overall and just seeing how it turns out. It’s been a lot of fun so far (I’m up through Fog on the Barrow Downs) and enough has come out of the reading that I’ve decided to blog about it while I go. Follow me or track #themedLOTR to follow along!

[hallof-fire]

Thank you! I appreciate the kind words.

[hallof-fire]

I already wrote up a few thoughts in proper tumblr-speak about the new Anne series made this year, but after a long conversation with a co-worker who considered a bad adaptation (though good show) I wanted to go a little more in depth.

The main complaint my co-worker put forth about the show was that it lost the tone of the books. To her, Anne has an optimism and a wonder about that world that failed to come across with a gritty reboot. Anne's sunny outlook is a desperate one, showing Anne to only be grasping at any possibility of happiness but not carrying that inside of her.

Where she saw desperation, I saw perseverance.

For me, the dark realities of a past full of neglect, abuse, and trauma didn't change the fact that Anne still looked on the world as a place full of wonders and mysteries to explore. Her deep love of words and reading, her infatuation with beautiful things, the way she held on to every good moment with tenacity showed me that Anne continues to carry within her a deep and abiding love of the world. But instead of an innocence frequently portrayed (and yes, evident in the book), she loves everything more because she knows the darker sides of life as well. Anne isn't desperately clinging to every good moment that happens because she thinks it will be snatched away. Instead, Anne is pushing through the bad moments that happen because she knows there's good out there to be had. I felt this clearly in the second episode, when her hopes for living at Green Gables have been dashed and she is trying to get a train to Halifax. Desperation would place Anne racing to the station, pleading for passage, and running to Matthew in relief. Perseverance has Anne cheerfully helping the milkman do his rounds, chattering all the while. It gives her the ability to give theatrical speeches that entertain and inspire for a ticket. And it has her refuse to be at the beck and call of tantalizing hope, holding out instead for a future of her own making until she understands that Matthew is in earnest. The life Anne led is dark, and it influences her outlook. But it makes her cheerfulness, her love of life, far more compelling and truthful when you can fully understand what she went through - and how she refuses to let it overtake her.

As a person of faith, I also saw in her perseverance and joy a taste of what Paul talks about in the book of Romans.

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed...we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently."

Optimism has different lenses that, depending on which you look through, either are or are not revealed in this series. Truly, the innocent optimism of a nostalgic, carefree simple life is gone. In its place is an optimism that is somewhat synonymous with the idea of a future hope. Anne is no longer an optimistic child who sees nothing wrong in the world. Anne is now aware of the darkness living within people, but chooses to hope that every new thing she comes across will prove her wrong. This Anne still will adorn her hat with wildflowers because they look beautiful, and because she hopes that it will endear her to her classmates. This Anne views the hired hand with suspicion because she knows when people no longer get the work they want out of orphans they discard them, yet she also gives away her most precious gift to save her adopted family. (Showing, in one gesture, how deeply she believes they will not stop loving her or get rid of her.) Anne hopes to see the good of the world revealed to her each day, and once she comes to Green Gables she often has that hope fulfilled.

While you may be able to look at optimism different ways, or see Anne's cheerfulness through different lens, there's one aspect of the tone and content of the book that solidly finds its way into the adaptation, and to me is more relevant to the story than anything else could be: the formed family. So much of Anne's life in the story revolves around the fact that she is now part of a family, doing things that most children experience without a second thought. I think of Marilla and Matthew having this conversation:

"I suppose--we could hardly be expected to keep her."

"I should say not. What good would she be to us?"

"We might be some good to her," said Matthew suddenly and unexpectedly.

This story is about two siblings who, though they clearly care for one another, don't often express themselves or give in to strong bouts of feeling. When they take Anne in, they certainly are some good to her. They provide her with safety, security, and love. But Marilla is wrong to think she'd be no good to them. Anne's presence brings joy and feeling back to the forefront of their lives, allowing them to connect in a deeper way with the people around them as well as each other. The makeshift family that arrives when Anne sets foot in Green Gables is at the core of the story, and we see it played out beautifully in the series. Marilla's moment sitting on the fallen tree with Anne, Matthew and the "Avonlea Ace", and signing her name in the Bible are just small moments in the overarching theme that keep this an adaptation that still fulfills expectations.

(Now, as long as the additions to the story don't go too far afield in season two...)

[hallof-fire]

The Hardwiring of Conversation

My roommate has Facebook conversations all the time. Every night she sits and types away in messenger, talking to friends around the country and keeping up with, what seems to me, everyone she's ever made eye contact with.

I have had, on average, three of these kinds of conversations.

(Some of this has to do with how we view social media, and what we see the platforms for. I use them mainly for connecting, while conversations should happen as...well, face to face conversations. For her, conversation happens everywhere. But that's a social media discussion for another day.)

Today, I was struck by what she said to me when I asked her about the multitude of conversation she has:

"We're wired differently. The way you recall things," she said, "like facts, or scripture, or what you read in a book, is totally foreign to me. I can't remember hardly anything of the last book I read, but you can pull it out and say it was about this and this and that. But I can do that with people."

I'd never heard it put that way before, and it was such a comforting thought. Maybe, just maybe, my inability to remember the same volume of information about other people like she does doesn't mean that I don't care, or don't try, or lack empathy or connection. Maybe it just means that people aren't books.

I certainly wish people were more like books. It would be so much easier if they said all the things they thought and felt and experienced, and let it all sink into me in a long wave. Instead, people do things like hold conversations, expecting you to talk too. I've never truly gotten the hang of conversations. I'm fine at the beginning --"How was your week? Anything exciting? Why are you pursuing that career again?"-- and I do well later on --"No, I think the themes evident in this work really point to the strong desire to be valued and respected by your peers, and even the underlying acceptance of you as a peer"-- but the in-between part has always lost me. And once the in-between pause appears, I have to rely on someone else to make transitions from topic to topic. Books do that flawlessly. After all, that's how a book holds shape!

Even though I have practiced and worked hard at my listening, questioning, and connect-the-dotting, I've still never felt confident nor comfortable in the situation. I assumed that was simply because I wasn't trying hard enough -- or maybe that I actually don't care, and so I'll never be there. Then here I am, being told that to some people it comes like the plotline for that one movie I saw eight years ago comes for me. So maybe I am trying hard enough--it'll just never be effortless like I expect it to be.

I truly want to be an empathetic person, and I know that my personality can't be an excuse for not trying. But it's nice to know that I'm not a machine, that I can still love you more than a book character, when I forget that you went on that one trip last month to that exciting place.

Even if I can remember every detail of the Company of Thorin Oakenshield's trek across Eriador and Rhovanion.

[hallof-fire]

I’m sorry I didn’t keep in Touch

When I went off to college, I kept in touch with about 7 of my friends from high school. By the time I finished college, I was still in fairly regular contact with 2 – both of whom went to the same university I did. It’s not that I didn’t care about my old high school friends or deliberately tried to cut them out of my life, it was just that we weren’t in the same place anymore. We didn’t have the same classes to talk about, the same sporting events to cheer for, or the same group of friends. We drifted, and grew closer to others who were closer in proximity.

When I left college, I told my friends, “I don’t want to lose touch with you guys. Please bug me if I don’t try and talk to you regularly.” I did fairly well the first six months, still keeping up with a good amount. (I think it was even in the double digits – preposterous!) But then I got into the swing of job hunting, new part time work, and the usual routines. Another city and two years later, I still keep in touch with about 6 of them – 2 of whom live in the same city I do.

I think there’s just something to be said for proximity. It’s much easier to continue a friendship with someone you can grab lunch with, instead of having to set up a time for a phone call. It takes less effort to talk for five minutes after church than it does to write a letter.

Friendships take intentionality.

I do like writing letters to my friends – those that I do still keep up with out of town I do so through snail mail. It’s slow enough to update them with big chunks at a time, and I can write it over a period of a week instead of sitting down at once to compose a Facebook message of everything.

But when you’re with one group of friends, it becomes very easy to lean on them for your daily needs, to turn to them when you are looking for encouragement, to share more of your self with them.

I think that is why I was so drawn to Merry Brandybuck during my last reread of Lord of the Rings. If you haven’t read the books, you may not know this fact – but Merry was Frodo’s closest friend at the beginning of the story, not Sam. Merry was the first to notice things were wrong. He was the one to gather the friends together to confront Frodo about it. He made the decision to leave the Shire with Frodo, even if it meant he was risking everything. Frodo leaned on Merry once Bilbo left, and their friendship was close.

 Throughout the first volume (Fellowship of the Ring), Merry and Frodo interact more than the Merry-Pippin combo or the Frodo-Sam relationship. They discuss ideas, keep the other two going, and pick up on the more intellectual parts of the conversations around them.

 But in The Two Towers, Frodo and Merry are separated. Merry and Pippin end up being taken by Saruman’s servants westward, while Frodo and Sam journey alone eastward. And inevitably, they become the two parings more well known – Frodo and Sam, Merry and Pippin.

Were they all friends before? Of course. Are they all still friends when they are reunited? Most definitely. But I think there’s something telling in the way the relations shift from chapter one to the final page.