I've never been much on religion, to tell the truth. I was raised a fundamentalist Baptist, and as soon as I was old enough to "escape," I was out the proverbial chapel door. Over the years, I don't think I've cared enough to even be called an agnostic; whenever anyone asked, I used a line from a character in Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon—"I am not a follower of the Christ."
And so I'm not. But as I've traveled the edges of the Known Universe — the ice of Alaska in the darkness of winter, the flooded caves and caverns, the great mountains and even the holy places of other cultures — I began to see that there comes a place where cause and effect break down, where the curtain that separates "what is" from "what was" or "what might be" ripples to an unfelt wind. I have seen and heard and felt things beyond my knowledge and understanding, and I think I've come to understand that beyond explanation lies acceptance.
I'm still not much on religion. But I guess after two days of LOTR, I'll defer to the words of Gandalf the Gray, when Frodo the Ringbearer wished aloud that the Ring and the task had not fallen to him. All who live in such times as these wish that, the wizard said, but that is not to be. The only option we have is decided how to live the time we are given. And know that there are other powers in the world besides the power of evil.
My thoughts are with my friends in harms way tonight, and all those who stand watch in our name.
Merry Christmas, and peace.
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