Lessons of the Fellowship of the Ring

Lady Lee

Their friendship and loyalty to the end struck me as so amazing. Coming from where we do with so much dictated to us about loyalty and "Christian love" and being "God's happy people" I realize they don't have a clue. I realize this is a movie but there are people who are this loyal and stand by their friends no matter what.

"No matter what" MY mother shuns me and my daughters. For her there is no such thing as unconditional love and standing by those you love. For her there is loyalty to an organization and not to family or values.

Having values like unconditional love, loyalty, true friendship are so important. But so is the giving of our word and following through to the very best of our abilities regardless of the cost to us.

I have been through a lot in life. I have been betrayed by friends and family. I have been lied to many times by people who made promises they had no intention of keeping. Sam in the movie epitomizes the kind of person I want to be - who is there regardless of the cost - who takes that one step further from home than he has ever taken before to help a friend follow a path, not even knowing where it will take them - unconditional support and love.

And some people just don't get it. How sad.

OK enough of me on my soapbox

Black Sheep

A very nice post Lee.

I often wonder how my parents would treat me if I had been dunked and DFd rather than drifted.

Now that they know I am now longer merely drifted they are still treating me OK, but it has only been a short time. I will just have to wait and see if their love is truly unconditional.

Lady Lee

I lay in bed this morning thinking some more about this. We are all a little like the fellowship. Many here have come to know that there is danger and have struck out into the unknown and left family and friends behind.

But unlike Frodo and Sam and their friends we knew there was no going back. Up until the end Frodo and Sam thought they would go home. But finally they realized they might not make it. We knew we would never go back. But we have the hope that those sstill trapped will join us.

JamesThomas

When we create belief systems around concepts of God that are exclusionary, we have at that moment blinded ourselves to the nature of un-conditional love. j

Lady Lee

So true James.

Unconditional and exclusivity would be opposites

We were often told to hate the action but not the person but by their actions they show how little love they have for people - human beings they are supposed to be loving. And what gets me is they are so convinced that the practice of shunning is a loving expression

JamesThomas

And what gets me is they are so convinced that the practice of shunning is a loving expression.

Sorry Lee, but it doesn't surprise me. Once we believe in a "loving" god who will kill us and our young children if we do not meet his requirements, then practicing shunning is no stretch at all. In fact it fits well within such a limited and bastardized idea of love. j

Lady Lee

It was easy for me to buy into this "loving" murdering God image. Since I had a father like that it wasn't difficult to imagine a God like that. At the time I thought it was normal. Now I know better

JamesThomas

Perhaps that is why such humanlike concepts of God are created in the first place. They're easy to understand and "buy into". We recognize them (ironically) within what seems the least spiritual of our human nature. j

Lessons of the Fellowship of the Ring

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