On this all Saints' Day, I remember and celebrate the life of my grandmother, Dr. Shirley Felman Moritt. A child of Russian immigrants, she achieved a new level of education and became a school principal. She kept her family afloat on her salary despite my Grandfather's gambling addiction. She tolerated no fools and once sent me out to buy new clothes because I'd brought a (long) denim skirt on a visit to her. Denim, in her mind, was not an appropriate fabric for going to dinner. She told me my mother (her daughter) was a hard ass. Even though she wasn't crazy about women on the bima, she was prepared to come to my ordination, but she died just 3 weeks before. Her brother died with no children, so my daughter has her maiden name, Felman, an honor to this incredible woman whom I miss regularly.
At one point in The Lord of the Rings, the royal elf Galadriel describes her life and experience and says, “… we have fought the long defeat.” Galadriel, like other elves and the Hobbits and many others, is depicted as being on the right side of things in the books. The Company of the Ring (the Fellowship) wins and defeats the forces of evil. Why would she consider this a “long defeat”? Furthermore, why would J.R.R. Tolkien, the author, apply the same term to himself. He wrote in a letter, “Actually, I am a Christian, and indeed a Roman Catholic, so that I do not expect ‘history’ to be anything but a 'long defeat’ – though it contains (and in a legend may contain more clearly and movingly) some samples or glimpses of final victory.” (Letter #195) Tolkien, a Brit, fought in World War 1. Though he was on the side that “won”, he saw the devastation following the war on all sides- how the “winners” struggled with what they had seen and done and how the “losers” were galvanized to see ...
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