"Its a religious film" someone said to the person in front of me as we lined up for tickets yesterday .She was worried the person would be " threatened" by such a thing- how pathetic The things people are scared of- all the wrong things.Its the absolute best film of 2014 .
Sure you can live in your castle, even play merry meadows in the Shire, but if you want to be truly human as Tolkien reminds us , you have to venture beyond ; not just be a sheep, but draw swords.
Christianity is not for wimps, though some make it so . and ,,,, to be fair it seems so on the surface.
Point is,, if you want to go deeper than the superficial - which you do if you are a scientist or want to discover things - you don't fall for the slipping and sliding
Hobbits don't suggest strength and survival , but they can be strong in the right way
As a space scientist ( the earth sort) working through the two gardens concept of Genesis, its great to see Tolkien reminding us, as Jesus and that old Book does ,that whatever happens we have a place Just where and how big and what we do there is our special calling as Os Guinness has recently published in his book " The Call"
I have just finished preparing a paper for a science conference in March about the challenge of the wilderness. Wilderness is seen to be some kind of ideal in the world of today , but like most things its a superficial and incomplete view . Wilderness regions are just part of the picture of what can be. Yes it can represent the higher trophic levels, but its still a home for many - a community with mostly symbiotic not competitive associations , A sort of home too for things other than what it might naturally be home to too. A home with possibilities .The leaf appears in the Otways after surviving for eons on the very edge of Australia without any companions and a decent sized gene pool. What is it?
I love how man works again with his new friends in the film - the animals the Goats