Hunger games

A new book I am reading. It is addictive. I'm not sure how good it is yet. But it is definitely addictive.

I have been thinking a lot about a quote from a very good book indeed, LotR. Tolkien thought the image was important enough to include it twice (once in a dream at Tom Bombadil's and then at the Grey Havens). Though I really didn't understand it when I first read the book, it is becoming important to me now.

And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled sweet frangrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.


I love the image of the grey haven and the rain receding behind the ship, while the shore and the morning sun approach. The atmosphere feels familiar, except I am always in the rain, looking forward... 

I wonder if that is what my life looks like to God. Just as human lives seem to be a passing dream to the elves in LotR, perhaps my grey self is receding quickly under the light of eternity.  It just feels so wretchedly slow to me. 

Maybe I can begin to wake to this kind of life now? Do I dare to hope that my waking is watched over eagerly, by one who longs for my eyes to be opened and filled with light today?

Or must I, like Frodo, wait until my journey is over, my task complete, my quest has been settled? Oh, I am hungry for the light of Aman to be in my eyes.