When I first looked at this assignment, I was kind of scared. I didn’t know anything about the Lord of Rings, I’ve never seen any of the movies, read any of the books, or known anything about J.R.R. Tolkien. Although I was intrigued at the idea of researching a massively popular series. While doing searching about Mr. Tolkien I was fascinated by his quotes. One of the ones that I liked the most was “I am a Christian…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”. This quote proved to enlighten me before I started my reading. I say that Mr. Tolkien was a realist who appreciated the beauty, simplicity, and, finesse that is within Christianity.
From the start of the Lord of the Rings reading, I immediately found theological meaning that’s connected to Christianity. The first thing that I noticed was the diction. Right off the bat, on the first page (256) of chapter 11 Frodo says “I feel ready for anything”. This is the exact mentality that we must have when exploring religion. We must be hungry and curious for exploration and be ready with an open mind to accept God. Another thing that I noticed is that Gandalf appears to be a leader of sorts. I can see him as being someone like Moses who is going to lead people away from danger and into a new, safe area. Something else that reminded me of scripture and mass especially is on page 259, when it says “For a while we had news and it seemed good” although my comment doesn’t necessarily fit into the context of the remainder of the sentence, this reminded me of church when the people are told to spread the good news. Lastly, something else that reminded me of Christ was on mage 263, it says “a hundred and ten days I have journeyed all alone”. This reminds of when Jesus spent 40 days and nights in the wilderness through the devils temptations. This was in the Judaean Desert. During this time he also fasted. A similar thing happened with Moses when after the 10 plagues Moses led the Exodus of the Israelites out of Egypt. They wondered in the desert.
Through this reading there were multiple parallels that I noticed. It was very evident that Mr. Tolkien had a great influence by religion when he was writing the story.
Lucas' Blog 
For our final blog, I think you did a great job. You poignantly discussed how the diction represents more catholic meaning. I think your connection with Gandalf and Moses is very interesting. This idea of wandering in the desert and avoiding temptation is similar to Moses, Jesus, ad Gandalf.
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