Where is hope?

For days when we're just over it

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

This is a famous scene from The Lord of the Rings. In the movie version, the conversation takes place in front of the Doors of Durin. The night is dark, the wolves are howling, and Gandalf delivers his dose of comfort for a frightened hobbit.

I assume many people take comfort in this quote, given the frequency with which it’s making the rounds on my social media feeds. It’s a good line, but it loses some of its power out of context.

In the book, the conversation occurs back in the Shire by Frodo’s fire. Interspersed with grim warnings, Gandalf delivers his line about deciding what to do with the time we are given. And then a page or two later (depending on your edition), he offers comfort to Frodo again:

“I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that may be an encouraging thought.”

“It is not,” said Frodo.

I love this part of the conversation because Frodo isn’t buying it. And Tolkien isn’t either. Tolkien lived through two World Wars and knew evil intimately. He wasn’t going to let Gandalf offer an inspirational speech and have Frodo respond with relief. There’s no tidy resolution for evil this dark.

Tolkien’s works consistently balance the tension between fate and agency. I see this particularly in Tolkien’s use of prophecy. As a child of Pentecostalism, I grew up around a lot of “prophecy,” and it always felt as though my agency was stripped away. Prophecy doesn’t force the hand in Middle-earth; it merely clarifies the options and leaves the choice to the actors.

When Elrond discovers that Aragorn loves Arwen, he offers a less-than-hopeful prophecy: “A great doom awaits you, either to rise above the height of all your fathers since the days of Elendil, or to fall into darkness with all that is left of your kin.” (No pressure there.)

Hope is in short supply these days. My friends in Chicago are waking up at 3:30 am to protect workers from ICE kidnappings. Trans friends are being targeted with a potential terrorist designation of “Transgender Ideology-Inspired Violent Extremism.” Even in my relatively cushy academic job, we’re faced with daily indignities like “campus custodians will no longer…provide cleaning supplies or equipment, soap, or paper towels for staff areas.”

I don’t have any hopeful conclusions to share. I’m grateful for authors like Tolkien who write unflinchingly about loss and disrupt tidy endings with chapters like “The Scouring of the Shire.” I’m glad to live in a world where good people are choosing to protect the vulnerable, even if it feels like a losing battle.

Sometimes, I’m able to find a ray of hope. On other days, I feel like dour Aragorn, who responded to Arwen’s cheerful predictions of victory, “I cannot foresee it, and how it may come to be is hidden from me. Yet with your hope I will hope.”

When we cannot find our hope, perhaps our communities can hold it for us.