The Purpose

    
    "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 had 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 are 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.
  They kept going. Because they were holding onto something.. that there is some good in this world. And it's worth fighting for."
                                                                          
                                                                                                                ~ Samwise Gamgee, The Brave     
 
    Dear Reader,
 
   Sam says these words when he and Frodo are at one of the very lowest points in their journey. When evil seemed to be winning, when the road ahead seemed to go on forever, when their limbs and hearts ached with weariness at the troubles that lay ahead. When all hope seemed lost. For it is at these times, these pivotal moments, we see what a person ( or hobbit ) is truely made of. The moment when we have to choose whether or not to press on or turn back.
  Most of us, if not all, would want to be like Sam. Bravely speaking against the foe, even when no light could be seen on the horizon. And in doing so, becoming the vessel for the light.
  But how, do you suppose, would one come to be so brave and true? It is a question with many answers I bleieve, and Sam Gamgee gives us a rather good one. "The Great Stories..." he calls them "...full of darkness and danger..." but "...those are the stories that stayed with you, that meant something."
  These stories meant something because they involve real life morals even if the situation is a fictional one. When the brave knight slays the deadly dragon we cheer because the knight has rescued the princess from the evil that  had entrapped her. When the princess who has been unjustly poisoned is restored to her former self by her true loves kiss, we rejoice because good has triumphed over evil yet again.We think this way in our daily lives, only not in the terms of knights and dragons.
 
     When C.S. Lewis was asked about this very subject he said this :
     
  "Since it is so likely that they ( the children ) will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker...let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let villains be soundly killed at the end of the book."

  Through stories such as these we adopt a desire to be "one of the good guys". This is one of the most essential longings we must obtain, because it sends us on a journey to seek out the truth of what it means to be a "good guy". And inevitably, invariably where we find truth we will also find Christ.
  Unfortunately in a culture were children, teenagers and young adults are exposed to violent, senseless, dehumanizing horror films, dirty comedies and misleading moral codes in books and movies, these "Great Stories" which urge us to be like one of the "good guys" and seek out the truth, go unnoticed, unlearned and even unknown to todays generation.
  Thus this invaluable tool we have been given is left by the wayside as we travel through life. And we never see ourselves in the brave knights and courageous heroes. Nor do we ever desire to seek out what makes these heroes good and brave and true.
   However, there have been many who have sought out this truth and thus found, at it's core, the essence of all goodness and truth, which is Christ.
  I for one, long to be one of these "good guys" and will spend my days pursuing truth and goodness. As I seek, I invite you to seek with me. Together, with God's word as our guide, we can delve into these stories and learn about what is at there core, the goodness and truth that comes from Christ alone.

                                                                                                                                               Your's Truly,
                                                                                                                                                   The Writer