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blogging101, Creative Writing, Faith and Writing, Journaling, Memories, Movies, Quotes, Reflections
In response to The Daily Post’s Writing Prompt: Silver Screen
Take a quote from your favorite movie — there’s the title of your post. Now, write!
*****
Boromir (to Aragorn as he lay dying after coveting the One Ring and failing to protect the hobbits): “Forgive me, I did not see it. I have failed you all.”
Aragorn (as he holds him and weeps): “No, Boromir, you fought bravely. You have kept your honor.”
I never expected to learn something important about myself from Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Rings, but Boromir’s words as he lay dying haunted my heart. His confession of failure to Aragorn that he had failed to protect Merry and Pip, and Aragorn’s reply that he had “fought bravely and kept his honor” puzzled me, for Boromir had indeed failed them all.
Pondering those words through 43 viewings of the movie at the theater, their meaning crept slowly into my heart: people are good and bad all at the same time. And though we sometimes fail at our goals, it doesn’t make us failures in our lives.
That insight brought a tremendous amount of emotional healing to memories of my relationship with my mother. I had felt at fault for the difficulties with her most of my life, and then guilty for not being with her when she died. Even seeing a grief counselor didn’t bring me any closer to resolution, closure, and peace.
But this one thing I’ve learned from the movie: all my life I’d done the best I could with what I had. And four years after her death and a lifetime of regrets later, the guilt and sorrow began to slip away.
Not long after that realization I dreamed my mother came to me, hugged me, and kissed my cheek — difficult for her while she lived to say the least. But in that twilight moment I realized she suffered from the same human frailties as Boromir . . . as me.
I’ve finally been able to forgive myself and mom for being human and have moved beyond all the bad memories to the good ones that were lurking behind the grief. What an unexpected blessing to find such deep healing in Middle Earth. It felt as if Peter Jackson had made that movie especially for me.
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badfish said:
Deep, lady. Very deep. Emotional. Wonderful. Powerful. This rocks.
BUT…43 viewings??? Really?
On the other hand, if you got some kind of peace from all that film, who’s to judge…
BUT…who kept count? And why?
On the other hand, you wouldn’t have been able to write this without the 43.
BUT…43…really? And “at the theater” …you paid each time?
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calensariel said:
That’s how long it took God to get it through my head what he was trying to show me. All I can say, fish, is it’s his timing. I did pay every time AND I bought a hotdog and coke. And they were nearly all consecutive days. I was a woman obsessed. I knew because I’m an avid journaler. Nuts, huh? (It was worth every penny…)
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badfish said:
WoW! that’s either very, very cool. Or…weird. Or weird in a very, very cool way.
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kimcoull said:
Badfish, lol…weird and cool pretty much sums Calensariel up!!
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calensariel said:
😀
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loristrawn said:
Wow. Just wow. This one knocked my socks off!
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calensariel said:
Just goes to show you God can use anything to bring about a miracle.
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Susan said:
This is indeed a beautiful moment in the movie, and shows Aragorn’s qualities of brotherhood and forgiveness. We know Aragorn will be a strong but fair king.
Another of my favourite comforting lines from this movie is what Gandalf says to Frodo in the mines of Moria: “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.” I think of that line often when I can’t find direction in my own life.
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calensariel said:
That would have been my other choice. It’s funny, though, that out of a movie I loved SO much I had so few lines that were memorable to me. Unless, of course, I think of: “Pints? It comes in pints? I’m getting me one!” LOL
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platosgroove said:
I feel reluctant to comment on that with your momma. There are no words
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calensariel said:
Thanks, friend. It’s not necessary. I’m at peace now about it all. And that’s one of the main reasons I do what I do with the seniors I visit. It’s my way of paying tribute to my mom. Still, I wish I had five minutes with her to tell her what I learned. (It was cheaper to go see the movie 43 than to pay the therapist. Even with the 43 hotdogs and cokes I bought!)
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platosgroove said:
death brought him sight
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calensariel said:
Well I hope to heavens we don’t all have to die to figure that out. But how many death-bed confessions would bear that out…
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platosgroove said:
I heard somewhere a long time ago “I want to be alive before I die” That has slowly become my motto. I think it was from D W Winnicott, a British Object Relations Psychoanalyst. That was back when I was “smart” and read such things. I was reminded of him lately. There is a good article on him in wikipedia. Well, a decent overview. I still think in terms he wrote about after 25 years.
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calensariel said:
It’s a good saying. I always told HL I wanted my headstone to read: She was so busy regretting the past and fearing the future that she failed to live in the present.
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kimcoull said:
Another saying I like and that gives me great pause is by Herman Hesse “Die before you die”…Boromir’s death focuses us on our life.
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calensariel said:
Existentially you mean, Kim?
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platosgroove said:
And at his death he recognizes the reluctant and conflicted king speaking into him the blessing and perhaps the birth of his reign
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calensariel said:
It was a beautiful, reconciling moment.
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