Good Friday, and the Lord of the Rings

It's Good Friday and I'm alive. I'm still a bit irritated with myself when I remembered that I was supposed to be FASTING and ABSTAINING (one full meal and two smaller meals that do not amount to a single meal, plus zero meat), but by then I'd already eaten up all that was left of the Rice Krispies treats we made yesterday.

In other news: Mitzie said during this month's recollection that if you're bored, something's wrong with YOU--not your environment. There's so much work to be done and at the end of our days God's going to make us account for every single minute, and I hope he'll be pleased that I'm trying to really finish and appreciate LotR this summer. A lot of people don't know this but The Lord of the Rings is actually high up on most Catholic must-read booklists. It's beautifully written, totally innocent without being sugary, and--like The Chronicles of Narnia (what I mostly think of as its protestant counterpart)--acknowledges the faults and perfections and temptations of man while showing how very CLEAR is the distinction between good and evil. No moral relativism here.

I read LotR when I was little (it was my dad's present to me when I was... eleven? twelve?) long before I heard of any movie, but I couldn't match my father's enthusiasm. I understand why. It's very much a man's book, full of travel and manly fighting and gallantry and all that. I read it (though I'm not sure I finished The Return of the King), watched the first movie and just decided that (like Star Wars) it would be something I'd never appreciate.

I'm glad I've taken a second look. I just could not put The Fellowship of the Ring down. Out of mortification and penance I did try to read for just one hour a day, but then when I spent two days alone in my new condo unit in Manila I was just so lonely that I read while eating, washing the dishes and drying my hair just to drive away the loneliness. I ended up finishing it pronto. I'm in the middle of The Two Towers right now.

I feel like I've been left behind and am only catching up. Why did no one tell me it was so great? :D It's totally everything I could have asked for in a book. It's fundamentally Christian (Tolkien said it himself... "The Lord of the Rings is of course a fundamentally religious and Catholic work; unconsciously so at first, but consciously in the revision. "), though of course it can be appreciated by those who aren't even remotely religious. There is none of our modern angst and, lo and behold, there is an actual plot. The multitude of names and the places is sometimes wearying but I think I can get used to that. And the characters! I'm positive I love Sam the best. He reminds me of John the Baptist who said repeatedly (of Jesus, as Sam might say of Frodo): He must increase and I must decrease. A more humble character I have never found.

Most surprisingly perhaps is that it's made me think a lot about the struggles of good and evil. It doesn't belong to old songs and history; it belongs to the present, to the here and now. I feel a renewed solidarity with the Church Militant.

Have a good penance-filled Good Friday, everyone, and a Happy Easter this Sunday.