Precious?
Wow! This month has gone by rather quickly and it feels a bit like I'm getting this post in, just to make sure that something did get posted for January. It has been rather noisy around here of late - with work and other distractions (some imposed and others ... well, I guess indulged-in or allowed in).
As a result, things have been a bit jumble sometimes - thoughts come and then flit away when I ignore them, thinking that "I'll come back to it later" and as time passes it gets easier to just keep putting it off. So here's a quick something that I'm going to post. It is not necessarily deep or anything, but I need to start again somewhere and what better place to start than Middle Earth? :-)
I was reading "The Two Towers" again the other day and there was this bit in there that stayed with me for a good part of that day.
The scene is Isengard ("Flotsam and Jetsam") and the reunion of Merry & Pippin with Aragorn, Legolas & Gimli. They are sitting together catching up and filling-in the stories of their respective journeys and Aragorn is giving back to Merry & Pippin some items they had lost when captured by Orcs earlier in the story. One of those items was a brooch from Lothlórien that Pippin had left on the trail in the hope that it would allow Aragorn, et al to track them and know they were still alive.
"And here also is your brooch, Pippin," said Aragorn. "I have kept it safe, for it is a very precious thing.""I know," said Pippin. "It was a wrench to let it go; but what else could I do?"
"Nothing else," answered Aragorn. "One who cannot cast away a treasure at need is in fetters. You did rightly."
The emphasis at the end there is mine and I am still chewing on that thought - that if we hold on to something that is precious so tightly and to our detriment, when we can find hope in letting it go (or perhaps give hope to others), then maybe it is not so much that we posses a precious object but that we are possessed by it and it is no longer the beautiful thing that we thought it to be. That instead, it has become an ugly iron chain around our ankles or neck that is holding us in captivity and preventing us from the freedom and joy that is meant to be ours in Christ.
I pray that we are all blessed with beautiful and precious things and moments but I pray even more that we are blessed with the grace and wisdom to be able to let them go when doing so will bring joy and hope to others, and to ourselves.
Grace & peace,
Deji.