Frodo's Journey and Joe's Soul
Wayne has been reading Lord of the Rings and watching sections of the director’s cut version of the movie. This story, mainly the movie, has served as an omnipresent background to our children’s lives and played a formative role. And we recently watched the new Pixar movie Soul two times. So a podcast by Caroline Leaf making a connection between the closing lines of the Pixar movie Soul and Frodo’s journey caught my ear. (Spoilers for both movies ahead).
In Lord of the Rings, Frodo has to carry the ring. He volunteers to carry it, but it soon becomes clear that no one else can do it. It’s his job, his journey. He’s the only one who can get the ring to Mordor to destroy it. The ring is heavy, the journey is exhausting and disheartening, and the ring’s temptation is constantly pulling at him. But this is his task. No one else can do it for him.
Likewise, in Soul, Joe sees no one else can live his life. And he almost didn’t get to live it. When he gets a second chance and his guides ask him what he will do, he says he doesn’t know but he’s going to live it fully. What he does is not as important as how he does it. He realizes life is unpredictable and you can’t control it, so you just live each moment fully, even when it’s hard and it’s not how you thought it would be.
The journey Frodo goes on is difficult and harrowing. It nearly kills him and he wouldn’t have made it without his friend Samwise.
Joe’s journey into the afterlife realm is not so harrowing (this is a children’s animated movie, so there are limits here), but it’s challenging and pushes Joe to reconsider things. And he does. He goes back changed.
And Frodo does, too. He’s so changed that he realizes he can’t actually go back to his old life. He has to create a new life.
Both Frodo and Joe have a journey to take that only they can take. It’s a hard journey and it pushes them to their limits, but it’s a temporary journey. The end will come. Jesus tells us, “In this world, you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) And when the end of the journey comes, and they try to return to their old life, they find they can’t. Changes have to be made. They are new people. You can’t pour the new wine into old wineskins, or the old skins will burst (Matthew 9:12)
This is the journey we all have to take. Frodo and Joe represent the ordinary, unremarkable person, all of us. And we all have to take our journey and no one can take it for us. It may be challenging and harrowing, but it will end. And we will be changed. At that point, we have to be ready to accept a new life – not an easy life, but one the King James calls “abundant” and the New Living Translation calls a “rich and satisfying life” (John 10:10). Like Joe, we don’t know what’s ahead, but we decide to live it fully.
