My boys and I really enjoyed the recent Hobbit movie. We expected to enjoy it with adventure, fun characters, nobility, courage, perseverance, loyalty- what’s not to like? But I found myself captivated by a certain scene in a way I did not expect. And later I discovered it captivated my boys as well. I am [...]
Archive of posts tagged Tolkien
Hobbits & Hope
“Hope is more than an engine for endurance; it is the deep, heartfelt understanding that though we may fail in our mission, and though we may perish alone in the dark, the Shadow will pass away and goodness will triumph.†Louis Markos, On the Shoulders of Hobbits: The Road to Virtue with Tolkien and Lewis [...]
“Fools for Christ,†An Inklings Weekend
I am excited about participating this weekend in “Fools for Christ, An Inklings Weekend at Montreat,†a conference sponsored by the Inklings Fellowship and organized by my colleague, Hal Poe. Here is the official conference description: FOOLS FOR CHRIST I Corinthians 1:18-25 “…for the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom…†Join us to [...]
Tolkien, Old Norse Poetry and Preaching
J. R. R. Tolkien was captivated by Old Norse poetry and described it this way: “Old Norse poetry aims at seizing a situation, striking a blow that will be remembered, illuminating a moment with a flash of lightning- and tends to concision, weighty packing of the language in sense and form …†(The Legend of [...]
Tolkien’s Rangers as Pastors
Reading The Return of the King (third volume of The Lord of the Rings) to my boys a comment from Halbarad, a Ranger and kin of Aragorn, struck me as paralleling pastoral ministry. Speaking of the Shire, the peaceful land of the Hobbits, he said: “Little do they know of our long labour for the [...]
Tolkien’s Roverandom
Roverandom, J. R. R. Tolkien(Houghton Mifflin, 1998), hb.., 106 pp.[various editions available]Ages 7+ This is a fun story to share with your children. It is not a grand epic like Lord of the Rings but a light-hearted story Tolkien spun for his own children. The introduction in this edition is nice because it explains the [...]
Tolkien, Read Books Above You
I recently came across a great comment from one of J. R. R. Tolkien’s letters (written in April 1959). Tolkien is advocating reading books with more difficult books to children rather than confining the reading to easier books. Tolkien states: “A good vocabulary is not acquired by reading books written according to some notion of [...]
Tolkien, Reconciliation
This scene between elves and dwarves in The Fellowship of the Ring is a powerful description of reconciliation: “And the Dwarf, hearing the names given in his own ancient tongue, looked up and met her eyes; and it seemed to him that he looked suddenly into the heart of an enemy and saw there love [...]
The Emptiness of Sin
“All the ‘great secrets’ under the mountains had turned out to be just empty night: there was nothing more to find out, nothing worth doing, only nasty furtive eating and resentful remembering. He was altogether wretched. He hated the dark, and he hated light more: he hated everything, and the Ring most of all.â€(The Fellowship [...]
