What Elrond has to Say About Challenge by Choice

Buna Ziua,

Last weekend, our group spent a few days up at a cabana in Straja. We watched movies, played games, and celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving with some delicious chicken that really did taste like turkey - as well as a wonderful assortment of other food. We played poker with various kinds of candy, and I was introduced to The Bourne Identity.

We also watched The Fellowship of the Ring. The extended version. That's important because there was one part that they added for the extended version that hit me again this time.

The Fellowship is getting ready to leave Rivendell. Elrond, in traditional formal Elrond style, announces, "The Ringbearer is setting out on a quest for Mount Doom. On you who go with him, no oath nor bond is laid to go further than you will." A comment was made to the effect that it was ridiculous that everyone would only go as far as they wanted.

Maybe I should have said something then, but explanations for things like that don't always come to me off the top of my head. In fact, it's usually several hours or even days later that I realize, "Oh, yeah, that's what I should have said."

What I should have said is exactly what Elrond says in the book: "For you do not yet know the strength of your hearts, and you cannot foresee what each may meet upon the road."

What immediately follows is a back-and-forth dialogue between Elrond and Gimli, and goes something like this:

"Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens." (That's Gimli, by the way.)

"Perhaps. But let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall."

"But sworn word may strengthen quaking heart."

"Or break it. Look not too far ahead. But go now with good hearts, and may the blessings of Elves and Men and all free folk go with you."

Part of me wishes they had put that in the movie. It would have made it maybe a minute longer. But it speaks volumes, and means a lot personally to me - which is probably obvious from the fact that I didn't have to look up those quotes. Gimli charges in with an "I'm-going-to-stick-with-this-no-matter-what" attitude. Elrond sees deeper. It's important, eventually, that the others - particularly Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli - don't hold to Gimli's initial resolve to stay with Frodo no matter what.

Gimli had a plan. And plans are good, to some extent. Without a plan, the Fellowship might have ended up at the Lonely Mountain instead of Mount Doom. More likely, they would have been attacked and killed and the Ring taken. But, on the other hand, if they had stuck with the plan they had originally when setting out from Rivendell, they would have ended up going through the Gap of Rohan, or perhaps kept going over Caradhras and frozen to death.

But the plan changed. Again and again, the plan changed. Gandalf falling of the Bridge of Khazad-Dum wasn't in the plan. Merry and Pippin being captured by Uruk-Hai wasn't in the plan. And certainly Frodo and Sam going off by themselves to Mount Doom was nowhere in the plan. But, because Elrond forced no oath nor bond at the beginning of their journey, Aragorn was free to decide, "Frodo's fate is no longer in our hands" and rush off to rescue Merry and Pippin.

I've been keeping a prayer journal during our semester here in Romania. During our first week or so here, I wrote five quotes on the inside cover. One of them is Elrond's quote: "You do not yet know the strength of your hearts, and you cannot foresee what each may meet upon the road."

That could be seen as depressing advice, but, to me, it is an encouraging thought. I do not yet know the strength of my heart. I had no idea, when I came here, just how strong I was, how much I could do. I could not foresee what I would meet upon the road. But I did know, perhaps with a more Gimli-ish part of my heart, that I was ready for it.

I worked as a musician at a TEC retreat this past January. On the last day, known as "Go Day," one of the songs we sang was "Remember Me." I was particularly struck by the last verse. It goes like this:

Remember Me
When the children leave their Sunday School with smiles.
Remember Me
When they're old enough to teach,
Old enough to preach,
Old enough to leave.

That last line brought tears to my eyes. (Everyone cries on Go Day.) I looked around and saw people who were old enough - ready enough - to leave. And I saw the same thing in myself.

I've thought of that song quite a few times since then. I wouldn't be here, in Romania, if God didn't think I was ready for it. I was old enough, ready enough, to leave my home in Minnesota and my college in Iowa and come to a different country. I mentioned in a blog post the day before we came here that I felt like a Hobbit, completely overwhelmed by the journey in front of me. But, even then, I didn't call it off. Even then, I was ready.

This semester, we've heard a lot about the concept of "challenge by choice." When something is challenge by choice, we get to decide for ourselves whether or not a particular activity is going to push us out of our challenge zone and into our panic zone. This may be something like a ropes course, a sharing of personal feelings, a trip to an Orthodox church, or climbing up a big, scary ladder to the top of a mine shaft. From now on, every time I hear that phrase, I have a feeling I'm going to remember Elrond's comforting words: "On you who go with him, no oath nor bond is laid to go further than you will."

It's not an oath that brought me here, and it's not an oath that's keeping me here. And, especially now, so soon before fall break, I'm proud of the fact that I do not yet know the strength of my heart, and that I cannot foresee what I'm going to meet upon the road.

Pace si Doamne ajuta,
Beth