Let Us Hunt Some Orc

When Frodo flees for Mordor, Boromir dies, Merry and Pippin are captured and those who remain behind have lost the purpose of the Fellowship (to defend the carrier of the One Ring), there remains practically no hope.

Their number of 9, matching, body-for-body, their opposites, the Ring-Wraiths, has disintegrated with shocking acceleration:

Gandalf to the Balrog
Boromir to the arrows
Merry and Pippen to the orcs
Frodo and Sam to the mission

Leaving 3: Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas, an exile, a mourner, and an alien. A large group was decimated, its purpose thwarted, its new mission unclear.

They had options: return to Rivendell and regroup, seeking revised orders from authority, disband, or focus on the next possible objective: to rescue the captives from an army.

In the real world, group decay results in full dissolution 9 times out 10.

What about that 10th time? What are the dynamics that separate a renewed sense of purpose, an enriched belief in success against even greater odds?

A seed grows that causes a man to stand up after a hurricane of violence and a crisis of identity and say, "Let us hunt some orc."

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race that is marked out for us.

Hwaet, Me Worry?

If I seem on edge, it isn't because Ragnarok partially describes the future. It's because it accurately describes the near past and present.

The old Norse didn't know everything, but they had a pretty good handle on the strength of the world and its people, but also the fire and ice that burns and freezes inside creation and evelopes its destruction.

Ice can heal a wound, fire can light a path. But what did Smeagol scream when put in chains? "It burns! It freezes!" Destruction, too, can be ice and fire.

I see Ragnarok, not in a mythical time, but in ours, today. Today, I acknowledge the martyrs.