With everything that's going on, there's a big part of me that wants to retreat. To burrow under the blankets, to watch Netflix and sip a cup of hot chocolate. To hide out in a world where I already know the ending, so I know that evil will be defeated, at least this time.
But those stories can also be a source of inspiration. When I was a Christian, I tried to ask myself "What would Jesus do?" Trite though that may seem.
(Of course, if you asked different Christians what they thought Jesus would do, they would often come up with different answers. Funnily enough, Jesus generally ended up agreeing with whatever Christian was asking themself the question.)
Being a Christian, I thought, meant that I did already know the ending. That the triumph of good over evil was preordained. I found that comforting.
But now, when I no longer believe I know the ending? When I'm groping my way forward, blindly, in the dark? It's the stories that I have that inspire me. Because the heroes, the ones I truly love, don't always know that they are going to win. Sometimes they honestly believe that they are doomed to go down fighting, but choose that rather than surrender.
Sometimes, like Samwise Gamgee, I am only holding onto the belief that there are things -- ideals, and people -- worth fighting for.
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