A Journey of a Different Sort and I am enjoying every page <3

I told you I am nearly finished with the first of three in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I have used some extra time this week to attempt to finish but still am 76 pages from completion.

Having watched the movies, I am enjoying the written story as much or more. I read The Hobbit a while back and found that the descriptions on the page, while often gripping, are not as overstimulating as Hollywood’s attempt to bring this wonderful story to life on the screen.

I loved the movies, don’t get me wrong, but reading them is a nicer pace and many parts were left out so that it is a richer tale. My imagination is filling in the scenes nicely and I have to say, I have plugged in the cast of the films in the roles so that it is fun to read and remember.

On Monday I mentioned dog-earring some pages where quotes were too good to just leave buried in this paperback that I will need to return to the lender at some point. I can’t mark it up since it isn’t mine to keep, so I am jotting down the ones I love in a journal.

This is the first page I marked and I hope and pray Tolkien would understand me recording them here for you. It is taken from a description of the Shire early in the book on page 6:

Forty leagues it stretched from the Far Downs to the Brandywine Bridge, and fifty from the northern moors to the marshes in the south. The Hobbits named it the Shire, as the region of their Thain, and a district of well-ordered businesses, and there in that pleasant corner of the world they plied their well-ordered business of living, and they heeded less and less the world outside where dark things moved, until they came to think that peace and plenty were the rule in Middle-earth and the right of all sensible folk. They forgot or ignored what little they had ever known of the Guardians, and of the labours of those that made possible the long peace of the Shire. They were, in fact, sheltered, but they had ceased to remember it.

The Lord of the Rings; Part 1 The Fellowship of the Ring, J. R. R. Tolkien; Ballantine Books, 1954

I was only six pages in when the description of the Shire and the forgetful residents who ceased to remember they lived protected lives…who had begun to think that all it took was to be sensible and life would go smoothly…who were so focused on their little world that they stopped thinking about what was going on outside and ignored what was happening….stopped me up short and I thought how it somewhat has described our human nature.

A tale as old as time, as it were.

People, businesses, cultures, communities, countries.

As peace becomes the norm and things are going smoothly, we forget. We forget that in times past the peace and prosperity were hard won through battles of all kinds…personal or corporate.

We forget that there are dark places outside of our happy little well-ordered lives and we assume if everyone just did the right thing, all would be well with them as it is with us.

This paragraph has been one I have mulled over and prayed about often, along with other quotes from the pages I have bent the corners on. It has brought a conviction to me and settled me in a place where I am listening more to what God might be wanting me to hear and what He might be wanting me to do about it.

So there you have a snippet of my thoughts on this last book.

I may be writing some more from my heart when I finally finish and get all the other quotes jotted down to ponder.

I hope you have enjoyed some of what I read this past month and as always, would love to hear what YOU are reading <3

Thanks for stopping by and chatting with me a bit. We are almost to Friday, my friends. The week has flown, and I hope all is well with you and yours <3