Theoden utters the first line (of the title of this article) in The Two Towers Lord of the Rings movie. Aragorn answers with the second line, and they rally against the Uruk-hai at Helm’s Deep and win the day. Theoden says this in the moment that it looks like they have been beaten. The Uruk-hai do not care who they kill, they only want to kill because they hate all. And they have decimated the people of Rohan, pillaging, burning, and killing everyone for months.  In both the movie and the book, this speech is said in response:

“Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
They days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?”

J.R.R. Tolkien experienced the first World War first hand. He also experienced the second. He saw reckless hate. He saw horrors. And he questioned why. He tried to answer those questions through literature. I have a tendency to look at these same problems through the lens of literature, music, movies, etc. I find it helps me to process better, and to find courage and light.

In the last hour I’ve been really trying to process all the hate that is happening in a country that I have loved for so long. My heart physically hurts for the people in England. I read news reports of the first hand accounts of what happened and what people heard. There is reckless hate. The people who are killing are killing because they want to because they hate everyone who isn’t like them. They are so consumed with hate that they can’t think straight. They think they are doing a good thing, which hurts even more. They have strayed so far from the light that they can’t even see it anymore.

And yet, you always find stories of people helping the victims and helping each other after the horrors. You find stories of people running at the attackers to stop them with no thought to personal safety. You find stories of people running to help those severely injured, even in the midst of the attack, with no thought of themselves. The rallying that happens is inspirational.

And in that moment, you realize that there is still good. Sam Gamgee answers this in one of my favorite inspirational speeches in The Two Towers.

“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”

Frodo asks: “What are we holding onto, Sam?”

Sam answers: “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.”

There’s some good. When I was a kid, my favorite TV show was Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. His quote has been circulating the internet lately in light of all these attacks.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” – Mr. Rogers

I question God. I ask why he allows this. I ask why he doesn’t seem to help. And then I realize, he does help. He sends the helpers. He sends the light. It hasn’t left. It is still there. Through it all, there is still hope. There will always be hope as long as we keep it alive. God hasn’t abandoned us.

There will be more attacks. There will be more people killed all over the world. But we will ride out and meet it. We will fight it. We will find the helpers. We will be the helpers. And we will pray for the world. Because love and hope always trump hate. And they always will. Because God has already won against the hate. We just have to keep the fight going. We aren’t done yet. There’s good in this world, and we have to find it. We have to keep it. We haven’t made it to the climax. We are still in the fight. Just like any good story, there has to be darkness before we can find the end. We just have to keep that goal, that light, that end, in mind. We need to make it to the climax. And then, then the denouement will be the best one yet. Then like C.S. Lewis said it will be chapter 1 of the Great Adventure.