I choose films pretty carefully; cancer is taking much, these days, and I need to find ways to build my morale, to build hope.
I picked the wrong movie, as it turns out.
Ridley Scott's Alien Covenant is stylishly made with seamless special effects, a plot that generally cracks right along, a number of building climaxes...and a thoroughly nasty ending which not only makes the whole film a waste, but leaves a really bad taste for along time afterwards, because evil not only wins, but it's presented as something almost attractive.
Good doesn't always win through; I know that, and cancer's brutally knocking home the point every day.
But we need our stories to give us something besides the sneering reality that we're fodder for an indifferent if not evil universe.
Our stories have to give us hope.
A happy ending may be bittersweet...look at Ghost, or Brian's Song...but the stories to which we turn to make sense of the world build the moral framework upon which we find the courage to stand against the things that rightly scare us.
Our stories tell us that our lives mean something, especially when in the depths all seems wrecked and futile.
Samwise Gamgee said it best in the second Lord Of The Rings film, The Two Towers:
Frodo : I can't do this, Sam.
Sam : I know.
It's all wrong
By rights we shouldn't even be here.
But we are.
It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo.
The ones that really mattered.
Full of darkness and danger they were,
and sometimes you didn't want to know the end.
Because how could the end be happy?
How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened?
But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow.
Even darkness must pass.
A new day will come.
And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
Those were the stories that stayed with you.
That meant something.
Even if you were too small to understand why.
But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand.
I know now.
Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t.
Because they were holding on to something.
It's all wrong
By rights we shouldn't even be here.
But we are.
It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo.
The ones that really mattered.
Full of darkness and danger they were,
and sometimes you didn't want to know the end.
Because how could the end be happy?
How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened?
But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow.
Even darkness must pass.
A new day will come.
And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
Those were the stories that stayed with you.
That meant something.
Even if you were too small to understand why.
But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand.
I know now.
Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t.
Because they were holding on to something.
Frodo : What are we holding on to, Sam?
Sam : That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.
Music from Maureen mcGovern, with The Morning After.
Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.
Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.
Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.
Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.
Yes Andrew. That's why we have hope and cling to hope. I love how you said our stories help us make sense of this world, at least our own world, when we can find no sense any place else. I am finding out that my own stories are helping to reveal some real issues in myself that I was blind to. I think it is the start of a healing process. You said it all so perfectly.
ReplyDeleteYou've lived and brought that conversation between Sam and Frodo to life, Andrew! You've held on to life with such tenacity and invincible spirit! And I only hope it carries you through many more days in 2019, my friend! Merry belated Christmas to you and Barbara, as well as a wonderful New Year!
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