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Up and around a bit early. I found this e-mail I had sent to my daughter in school that had to write a theology paper using a movie that spoken to her Christian convictions. Thought I might share it this A.M. with all who are there...anyway, various thoughts and ramblings on Tolkien...
to my daughter:
beginning of e-mail I sent:
"A quote from Philip Yancey in "Soul Survivor" pp.6, "If the gospel comes as a 'eucatastrophe', J.R.R. Tolkien's word for a spectacularly good thing happening to spectacularly bad people, why do so few people perceive it as good news?"

From "Over The Chasm Of Fire: Christian Heroism in The Silmarillion and The Lord Of The Rings" by Stratford Caldecott (Director of the Centre for Faith & Culture in Oxrford, Assistant Editor of the European branch of the C.K. Chesterton Institute,):

"Tolkeien's Tree Of Tales grew from a single seed. In one of his letters he describes the exact moment when that seed began to burst to life. In 1913 he happened to be reading a poem called Crist by the eighth-century Anglo-Saxon writer Cynewulf, when he was struck by a single haunting verse (in translation as follows):

"Hail Earendel, brightest of Angels,
Over Middle-Earth sent unto men."

He felt a "curious thrill as if something had stirred in me".

Over the years, 'Earendel', now 'Earendil', became for Tokien the great ancestor of the kings of Numenor, a messenger of the Two Kindred to the Lords of the West. After he had saved Middle-earth he was unable to return but was set in the skies to voyage forever as the Morning Star."

A portion of the Morningstar is captured in Galadriel's phial given to Frodo and Sam as a "Light when all others go out".

"The Lord Of The Rings" takes an unmistakable Christian form. Each of the three main heroes I have mentioned is a kind of 'Christ figure'. Each offers his life for others, each passes through darkness and even a kind of death to a kind of resurrection. Gandalf defends the Campanions against the demonic Belrog on the bridge of Moria and fell with his enemy into the fiery pit. victorious in death, he is eventually 'sent back' no longer as Gandalf the Grey but endowed with even greater authority as Gandalf the White. Strider/Aragorn also 'harrows hell' by daring the Paths of the Dead under the haunted mountain, and summons the spirits of the dead oathbreakers to his side at the black stone of Erech. Finally, Frodo passes through Shelob's immenetrable darkness under Minas Morgal, through an uncousciousness that Sam cannot distinguish from death, into The Land of The Shadow itself, but in his case, futher indintfication with the suffering Christ continues even after victory achieved by so many sacrifices. His wounds, even through he becomes increasingly 'full of light', can never entirely be healed in Middle earth and he has to go to the Gray Havens."

Me: My augument here is, Christ did not fail as Frodo did, who did in fact, become comsumed by the Ring at Mount Doom where God had provided Gollum as the way of escape.

Later in this article Caldecott really says the same thing;

'As Tolkien saw, without help from 'outside', from beyond ourselves (In theology, this is called grace.) The self cannot unmake the self. 'I can will what is right, but I cannot do it.' as St. Paul says Romans 7;18-19)."
"On the brink of success, Frodo's free will having taken him as far as it can, the Ringbearer dramatically renounces the Quest and claims the Ring for his own. His freedom to cast it away has been eroded by the task of bearing it to Mount Doom. What finally saves him is an apparent accident, which is in fact the direct consequence of his own earlier and freer decision to spare the life of Gollum. That was the act of pure compassion. Thus in a way it is not Frodo who saves Middle earth at all. Even less is it Gollum, who bites the Ring from his hand and in so doing falls into the Fire. It is not Sam, who has learned compassion from Frodo,, and without whom Frodo would never have reached Mount Doom."
"The Savior Of Middle earth turns out to be The One who works through the love and freedom of his creatures, and who forgives us our trespasses 'as we forgive those who trespass against us' (letters,p.181), using even our mistakes and the designs of the enemy to bring about our good."
"The ending of The Lord Of The Rings is a triumph of Providence over fate, but it is also a triumph of Mercy, in which free will, supported by grace is fully vindicated."

I could go into further ramblings, but those are in fact my ramblings, not yours. It's your paper and what has spoken into your life. It may not be LOTR, I don't know. Anyway these are my ramblings and the comfort God has given us Ragamuffins over here.

Lots of Love from the Masses who need opium of Christianity (Stalin)