This winter seemed an appropriate time to read (for the third time) J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
The story of two brave little halflings summoning their courage and overcoming the odds to stop the all-encompassing Evil? Yes.
The story of beings of all persuasions–Elves, Dwarves, Men, Wizards, Hobbits, Ents, Trees, Eagles–uniting together despite their differences to defeat the return of evil? Yes.
The story of Evil, gathering its shadowy powers a second time, through lies, webs, and deceit? Yes, again.
I’m nearing the end of The Two Towers. If you remember, you know that this is some of the darkest of dark times. Frodo and Sam have followed Gollum up the winding, treacherous stairs of Cirith Ungol, which in Sindarin means the cleft of the spider. Even Gollum has made veiled references to the harrowing tunnel ahead. I have looked at the name of the next chapter, “Shelob’s Lair.” I know both what is immediately ahead, and further ahead. It’s the unpleasant-est of journeys.
I put the book down and wonder if I should continue reading now, or perhaps later.
My son texts me–the name of a podcast I should listen to. I text him back–I feel like we are climbing Mt. Doom with Frodo and Sam. Following after Gollum.
I close my eyes and consider. The sun is shining, but it is 18 degrees, with a wind chill of 2. Even with the sun coming through the glass, I am under a blanket on the couch. It’s only two o’clock. I will finish this chapter.
“In a dark crevice between two great piers of rocks they sat down…”
The two hobbits think perhaps it might be the last meal they share together. And then Sam begins to talk as if they were really in a story, wondering if it was a happy-ending kind of tale or a sad ending, and how the people in the tale don’t really know. And how it would be a bad story if they did know. Frodo laughs–the first laugh for many days. ‘But you didn’t put anything in about Sam,’ he says. ‘And Frodo wouldn’t have gotten very far without Sam, would he dad?’ And then Frodo says,
“You and I, Sam, are still stuck in the worst places of the story, and it is all too likely that some will say at this point: ‘Shut the book now, dad; we don’t want to read anymore.'”
Yes. That’s just how I felt.
In truth, it’s how I feel every day. Shut the book now, dad; we don’t want to read anymore. Turn the page, turn to the next chapter, where the villain is defeated, and the heroes are celebrating. Wounded, yes, but celebrating their bravery and courage.
It is true that the best stories often turn out to be the hardest of journeys.
But that is only if the heroes win.
But I can’t end there, can I? Because I believe that ultimately, heroes do win.
It’s just that right now, we’re in that hard part of the tale….
Last month I canceled my long time Prime account. Not only Prime, but also my Amazon Prime Visa Card, which I’ve had for twenty years. I know its probably small potatoes to you, but over those twenty years I’ve spent thousands of dollars at Amazon and Whole Foods and Kindle…
You see I live in rural America where I can’t just go to the local ethnic shop and buy my red miso or organic whole wheat flour. The nearest Trader Joes is 29 miles away; the nearest Barnes and Noble is 23 miles away in a different direction. And Amazon made it so easy for someone who hates to shop. But I’m done. If I’d had a Washington Post subscription, I would be canceling it too.
This is going to be a sacrifice for me, but I can do this. Because millionaires like you, who bow the knee to old rich white men with power are disgusting. Worse, you’re doing it under the guise of free speech. I remember the exact day when it crossed my mind to cancel Amazon. It was when you used free speech as the reason to not endorse a presidential candidate, and then you wrote an editorial trying to justify Insanity vs. Sanity.
Worse, you’re donating millions of dollars to the inauguration of a madman.
Worse, you have the power of the media at your fingertips and you are controlling what political cartoons you will publish. It’s called Bowing the Knee. Or Obeying in Advance. Or Kissing the Ring (and that’s just a polite way of putting it).
So I’m opting out of Amazon. Almost everything I can buy on Amazon, I can find somewhere else.
My books are now purchased at Bookshop.org which supports independent book stores.
My vitamins come from Naturewise.com; our refrigerator filters came from a small family business that enclosed a hand written note thanking me for supporting them; our cat food and supplies come from Chewy.com; and my brand new KitchenAid mixer came directly from Williams-Sonoma.com. (Why didn’t I get this ten years ago?)
It’s a bit of a hassle. But I’m looking at it as a game to see what smaller or better companies I can support.
Yes I miss Prime movies, but I can make do with Netflix. And with the money I’ve saved from axing Prime, I can donate to PBS and get Masterpiece. And have enough to spend on Britbox.com, if I want.
My new credit card is another account that still accumulates points, just not from Amazon. I am Amazon-free. I am X-free. I am Facebook-free. Next I will be trying to figure out an alternative to Home Depot. I’m hoping our local Ace Hardware will do the trick.
And I’m reminded that I also subscribe to the theory that all I need is less.
And now, I am going to go watch the speech of a Real. American. Hero. Whose day of honor has been overtaken, overshadowed, and stolen by a bunch of anti-democratic, anti-American, oligarchic cowardly millionaires. And the poor people that they have fooled.
It is the third Sunday in Advent: the Sunday of Joy.
I write this with only a little touch of irony, because in this season of dark, on a gloomy December day, one of the longest nights of the year, I’m struggling with finding joy.
And I know I’m not the only one.
Just today in church, two friends shared their own distinct struggles with the elusive words of the Advent season: hope, love, joy, peace…And then this afternoon another friend’s battle with anxieties became a prayer. And when I pray, I always remember my friends in Haiti, and that results in more distress. My prayers don’t bring me peace. It’s an anxious time–from the personal, to the political, to worries for the world.
So I’m sitting here wrapped in a blanket, staring at my beautiful light-filled mantle, praying for myself and my friends and the country and the world. Meditating on joy–how we miss it, how we long for it, how we try to make up for its lack on our own terms, in our own ways.
In the sermon today, I heard that Joy is a gift from God, but it is also a decision we make. Choose joy. It’s a familiar phrase, a book title, a piece of music, and the source of many quotes, both familiar and not, But often such quotes simply seem like platitudes when we are going through dark times. When there is nothing to look forward to? Perhaps a good thing to do is look back. Look back and see how God has blessed you through your life. Look back with gratitude at the good things that have happened. Acknowledge your grief of today, and remember things past that made you smile. That make you smile still. Yes, it’s a way of choosing joy.
Remember a few years ago when gratitude was a thing? There were books, there were gratitude journals, there were blogs on writing down your blessings. Isn’t it silly, Isn’t it human, that something like gratitude can be a fad? Gratitude and Joy are related–if we decide to be thankful, if we decide to live life gratefully, then joy will simply be a byproduct of those attitudes. Except, there is nothing simple about joy.
Especially if you are, if one is, if I am, a glass-half empty type of person.
I have a book on my bookshelves called Living Life as a Thank You. The subtitle is The Transformative Power of Daily Gratitude. I don’t know how I came by it; I’ve never read it. Looking at it now for the first time (the cover creaked and groaned when I opened it) the authors are Nina Lesowitz and Mary Beth Sammons and the copyright is 2009. And there is a chapter on Staying Thankful in Difficult Times. And the next chapter is The Power of Gratitude to Make a Difference in the World. Perhaps I need to read this book.
I think most of us who are struggling to find joy right now are really asking the question, How long? How long, Lord, will you allow this injustice to continue? Injustice can be the shape of the world and what the evil powers are doing to it. But injustice can also be the personal–illnesses that can’t be cured, problems that have no solution, anxiety that won’t be calmed, poverty that can’t be escaped, sorrow that can’t be assuaged…And the feeling that you’re tired, exhausted, actually, and nothing that you can do will relieve the endless suffering.
“The persistence of the prayer ‘How long?’ issues, apparently, from a deep, unshakable conviction that God will bring an end to injustice even though he shows no signs of calling the court room to order…So what accounts for the incredible persistence of the cry? In the general abandonment of prayer, in which great crowds of people give up on God and plunge into the streets to get what they can with their fists, what accounts for the remarkable minority who do not, but who stay, and cry, and wait? We are accustomed by now to St. John’s answer: Worship…St. John’s recurrent representations of worship are not pious, escapist fictions, but theological convictions. The conviction is that God’s action, not the world’s action, is what we want to be involved in. The world is not the context for dealing with God; God is the context for dealing with God (and the world)….Worship is the act of giving committed attention to the being and action of God.”
It is God’s actions, and not the world’s actions that we want to be involved in.
But there’s also one more important thing to remember, or we could easily just try to withdraw from this world’s ugliness. Everything we do is of eternal importance. (I’m summarizing Peterson, here) : Everything we do is political and we can choose the way of God or the way of the world. Every one of our “…encounters is a significant detail in the life of faith. But we are not aware of it. Most of the time we are not living in a crisis in which we are conscious of our need of God, yet everything we do is critical to our faith, and God is critically involved in it. All day long we are doing eternally important things without knowing it…”
At the grocery store, talking with a friend, taking someone a meal, choosing silence over argument …it all counts.
If you are still reading after all of this meandering, thank you. I’ve no answers on finding joy except two: Focus on gratitude and Focus on God while we are waiting (and working) for the injustices of this world to end.
He promises that we will know someday.
And it will be joyous.
And there will be no more sorrow, no more injustice, no more grieving.
And in the meantime, turn off the news and focus on the good; focus on the small things of everyday life that make up those “eternally important things”. I think I will try a Choose Joy project of my own: each day I will take a photo of something that gives me joy or makes me thankful. I’ll report back in a couple of months….And here’s my first photo:
The Christmas tree is outside this year, and it snowed just enough to make it pretty.
the circle of life 