A long awaited movie?-an unwitting guest blogger movie review

There's a new movie out about a much beloved author, here's a little review for you Tolkien fans if you are wondering how it is.

Little bird, little bird

There seems to be an endless parade of holidays and special occasions that I tell myself, 'if I can just get through this day, everything will be okay,' but then Christmas or Mother's Day or a birthday rolls around again and the cycle of grief seems to start all over again.  Is this how Frodo felt, slogging through the Dead Marshes or scrabbling over the rocky wastes of Mordor?  Is this what Job went through, after losing everything and his friends show up to accuse him of some secret evil?  Is this how my grandfather felt after his wife of 65 years died?  Is this how the migrating birds feel, following winter's retreat north through wind and cold and snow and rain, when it seems like spring will never come?

Someone gave me a bird feeder a couple years ago and some really nice bird feed to go with it, but I've been slow to put it out and bad about keeping it filled because we don't live in a place where there are resident birds save in the spring, the winters are too cold and summers too dry.  I've had it out for about a year and have had exactly two birds (a house finch and a hairy woodpecker) anywhere near the thing, though the deer did find it this winter and made short work of what little there was inside.  But occasionally I'd fill it again and hope and watch and wait.  Nothing.  Then the other day I saw an odd bird in a tree near the feeder and finally got to check a pine siskin off my life list.  The day after I had a whole flock and they've emptied the feeder and they seem to have invited their friends, I have five species of sparrows, a couple warblers, and a pair of towhees hanging about, resting and refueling before their final push north.  My usually dead and dull yard is alive with singing and flitting wings, what appeared lifeless and lackluster is proving to be a refuge, a sanctuary, somewhere safe and comforting along an arduous and difficult journey.

Frodo found that in Rivendell and later Lorien.  And we each must find it in our own turn upon this arduous trek called life.  When sorrow or fear beset us, where can we turn to find rest and refreshment?  Where do we look for hope when the night of despair draws about us?  Even Jesus sought such comfort the night before His crucifixion, weeping tears of blood, praying in a night dark garden, but there was no delivery, there was no escape, only strength for the journey.  And it is that final, awful journey that has bought us each hope.  So when you walk through an interminable night, there may be something greater at journey's end than you can begin to comprehend.  Frodo's journey meant life for the world though it seemed only to lead to personal doom.  Where do you turn for hope?  What might lie at the end of your own disquiet night?

And remove all doubt...

There's an old adage about it being better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one's mouth and remove all doubt, well here's another example of the modern 'feel good' and 'be popular' philosophy triumphing once again over common sense and truth.  I recently cited the makers of the 'Les Miserables' musical movie and their interesting views of that particular work.  Liam Neeson, the voice of Aslan in the Narnia movies, also made a few odd statements about C.S. Lewis's beloved works being applicable to 'all people and faiths,' are also to be wondered at.  But I suppose this phenomenon should not be surprising in the age where the teachers of literature tell us to read into every work whatever it is we want to find there rather than ruminating upon the truths the author is trying to reveal.  I challenge Mr. Phoenix to find an ancient work outside the biblical narrative that treats women with such respect and significance as do the canonical scriptures.  I challenge each and everyone of us to find the actual truth in any given work or production, rather than reading into it only what we want to see.