Bonjour. @lilacharlotte - Tumblr Blog

The saddest thing about reading Tolkien’s books was the realization that I’m seeing a land undergoing decay. Everything about Middle-Earth is grown old and scarred with the toils of the past. Magic is scarce and the Elves are leaving, because like a fire left without fuel in the wind, the world is diminishing, and even her colors are not as vibrant as they were in the Elder Days.

Little by little, with each passing year of the Third Age, there is less of the enchanting world of Arda and more of the hardened, cooling world we currently inhabit.

iokheaira

OTOH, the other theme in Tolkien is about not giving up even if things are looking dim. There’s a lot of emphasis on rebuilding and making things anew and even just going on with your life - maybe Aragorn and Arwen’s Gondor is not Númenor, but then again, Númenor was corrupted and sank beneath the waves so who knows? Sam and Merri and Pippin - and even Frodo, for a time - put in a lot of effort to make the Shire happy again.

The Paradise may be lost, but Saruman’s tower becomes a garden. Ithilien is resettled. Elanor and her descendants keep the Red Book after Sam goes West. Life goes on.

While there is definitely a thread of nostalgia and a longing for the glorious past, interestingly enough, Denethor is an example of what happens when you become so mired in looking towards the past that you reject the present. Others deal with the issue in… more healthy ways. Tolkien acknowledges that you can grieve for what was lost and still be happy in the present; that joy and sadness aren’t always mutually exclusive. And it’s no mistake that Sam, one of the main characters and the one who in many ways inherits the earth, is a gardener.

design-is-fine

Louis Comfort Tiffany, design for a rose window, late 19th century. Watercolor, gouache, pen, ink and graphite.

journalofanobody

“Love is what carries you, for it is always there, even in the dark, or most in the dark, but shining out at times like gold stitches in a piece of embroidery. ””

— Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

cajunpatriot-deactivated2020010

iwasbossyheifer

Right?!

In 1989, Boris Yeltsin, the first President of Russian and the Leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, visited the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

While in Houston, Yeltsin requested to visit a local grocery store. He roamed the aisles of Randalls grocery store and couldn’t believe the bounty he saw for sale. He insisted it was a propaganda move.

He asked to stop by a randomly chosen grocery store. Again, he walked through the store in amazement, finally accepting the fact that all grocery stores in America were fully stocked and open to anyone who wanted to shop.

The story could’ve ended there — simply a fun moment of cultures colliding. But, later in life, Yeltsin admitted the visit made a profound impression on him. It cemented his growing view that the Soviet state-run economic system had left the Russian people far behind Americans, forcing them into a much lower standard of living. It set in motion a path that would lead him to become the figure that would lead Russia out of Communism.

saltycrackerass

academicssay

‪Did you hear the one about the academic who didn’t know how to use Zoom‬

‪.‬

‪How about now‬

omg-pictures

Math for grownups http://omg-pictures.tumblr.com

tamaradale-blog

“The way we do anything is the way we do everything.”

—

gothicchristian

“A Christian concept of personhood depends not on what I can do but on who I am – that I am created in the image of God, and that God has called me into existence and continues to know and love me. Human beings do not need to earn the right to be treated as creatures of great value. Our dignity is intrinsic, rooted in the fact that God made us, knows us, and loves us.”

— Nancy Pearcey, Love Thy Body