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Not All Tears are Evil
T
here is a passage in J R R Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, the meaning of which I have pondered over for the past forty-seven years since I first read it as a twelve year old boy. It occurs at the very end of the final volume, The Return of the King, when close friends face the shock of realising that they must say farewell to each other for the final time. Tolkien writes: Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middleearth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.1 As a school boy I just didn’t understand the phrase, “for not all tears are an evil”, because then the only tears I knew were those caused by the illnesses, and the scrapes and blows of childhood. The rare times I cried, I felt better for it. How could tears be evil? However, as an adult, experience has taught me the meaning of Tolkien’s enigmatic phrase “for not all tears are an evil”. Of course, I still experience ‘good
Finding God in Anger and Bitterness.indd 5
13/08/2018 15:3
