"This task is appointed for you"

As I sit here this quiet Sunday afternoon, my heart feels like writing something, but my tired brain can't seem to get in gear.

So here's another installment in my "Lord of the Rings" appreciation posts. This snippet comes from the first book, The Fellowship of the Ring, from the very end of the chapter titled "The Council of Elrond." Frodo and his companions have reached the safety of the home of the elf lord Elrond, and have gathered with Gandalf and representatives of the races of men, dwarves, and elves to debate what is to be done with the One ring. After much consideration, Frodo volunteers to take the ring to Mordor, after which Elrond says a profound thing, again hinting at an unnamed providence governing the events of Middle Earth. The movie version of Fellowship used many lines from the book, but not these, and I regret that it did not. Enjoy.

No one answered. The noon-bell rang. Still no one spoke. Frodo glanced at all the faces, but they were not turned to him. All the Council sat with downcast eyes, as if in deep thought. A great dread fell on him, as if he was awaiting the pronouncement of some doom that he had long foreseen and vainly hoped might after all never be spoken. An overwhelming longing to rest and remain at peace by Bilbo's side in Rivendell filled all his heart. At last with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice.

"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."

Elrond raised his eyes and looked at him, and Frodo felt his heart pierced by the sudden keenness of the glance. "If I understand aright all that I have heard," he said, "I think this task is appointed for you, Frodo; and that if you do not find a way, no one will. This is the hour of the Shire-folk, when they arise from their quiet fields to shake the towers and counsels of the great. Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Of, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck?

"But it is a heavy burden. So heavy that none could lay it one another. I do not lay it on you. But if you take it freely, I will say that your choice is right; and though all the mighty elf-friends of old, Hador and Hurin, and Turin, and Beren himself were assembled together, your seat should be among them."

I like a great many things in this passage, and I know that if these lines had made it into the movie, I would have liked the cinematic character of Elrond much more than I did. The whole idea that the task is "appointed" for Frodo speaks of a providential will at work. The concept that an "hour" is appointed for the simple Shire folks to do great deeds echoes the Christian teaching of the dignity and worth of each human, no matter how small and weak. And the idea that the Wise could not have foreseen such a thing rebukes the haste with which we so often cast aside the weak and lowly, especially the unborn.

I am thankful that Tolkien was appointed to write "The Lord of the Rings."