In the Middle of a Good Story

I notice the low-pressure car tire and the picture hanging crooked. I see the clean lines of a freshly mowed lawn, the shoe that is untied, the bird of prey gliding through the sky. I can’t really explain why. It’s just how I’m wired up. I notice things.

And, I miss the pile on the floor — a pile I created — and walk past it for weeks. I miss subtle body language cues, a non-verbal communication that too easily eludes me. I don’t see the pattern that’s always been there until someone else points it out. Sometimes I seem not to notice the very obvious things.

How can one notice so much and miss so much at the same time?

One of my all-time favorite stories, both book and film, is The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien’s three-book story — four if you include The Hobbit — had its own strong following even before Peter Jackson brought it to life on the big screen at the turn of the century.

The effort in the films to get the details just right is part of what makes them so good. The clothing that looks worn and battle-tested. The sweeping landscapes that stir emotion, like characters in the story playing their part. The ancient ruins of the descendants of Númenor, or the living Shire, or the Elven city in the trees. All beautiful, breathtaking, and believable. All things I love to notice in the film.

The other thing that makes the films and the books so good is the story itself. The individual characters. Their relationships and experiences. Their growth and setbacks. The wins and their losses. The shared mission that first unites the Fellowship, and then the peoples of Middle-earth. The sacrifices they were willing to make. And the people they became in the process. It took Tolkien three books to tell this tale. Jackson had to intentionally cut to keep his film version to a trilogy.

Perhaps you’ve seen the 90-second satirical version that goes like this. Bilbo passes the Ring to Frodo, who hops onto the back of a giant eagle for the short flight to Mount Doom. Frodo then tosses the Ring into the mountain core, where it is consumed and destroyed. The End.

That story is not worth telling or reading or living. This story that I love, and have for decades, inspires me because of what happens between the beginning and the ending. It’s worth reading because of everything that happens and everything the characters overcome. Because of who the characters become.

Living through last year helped me notice something I did not fully see before: I’m in a good story too.

Standing in front of our neighbor group, explaining one more setback with the finish line still in sight. Feeling the same doubts, frustration and prolonged uncertainty they are, and still telling them we are living a good story together.

Navigating a downturn with business partners, wrestling with who we are becoming as a company and as leaders through the adversity.

Watching my family, individually and collectively, figure it out. Grief. Deciding what’s next. Recovering from injury, accident, rejection, or debilitating illness. Career change and continued waiting on the wilderness exit.

Receiving my daily bread. Wanting the desert circumstances to be in the past. Yet receiving God’s provision, with deepening faith and trust, in the present.

I admire so many characters from LOTR. Frodo, Aragorn, Gandalf. Samwise, Faramir, Éomer. Each of them tested, rejected, wilderness residents. All simultaneously living their own story and playing an important part in the bigger story. Each, at various points, conflicted, faced with doubts, wishing circumstances were different. Even wanting to give up and turn back. Instead, finding the courage and faith to continue. I hear Samwise’s voice even now, as he wonders with Frodo about what stories might be told about them after their quest is complete.

There’s an exchange between Frodo the Ring-bearer and Gandalf the guide early in the trek of The Fellowship. In the film, deep inside the decrepit Dwarf mine of Moria, with the dark of their location and task ahead pressing heavy on the Ring-bearer, Frodo says these words, “I wish the Ring had never come to me.” In that moment, I understand Frodo, I am Frodo.

But Frodo isn’t abandoned to his doubt and dread in that moment. Gandalf the Grey, the wise wizard, offers this comfort to his companion, “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

Having lived through last year, I also better understand what’s required to become like Gandalf. And for that I am grateful.