[Lyta_Underhill]

Is it possible to have the opposite outcome where "all is light and full of joy"?

For fleeting moments, sure. I am reminded of the beauty of the passage from "The Field of Cormallen," in which the story is told of "Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom," where Frodo's story is, for a brief, heady time, made legend, where all suffering becomes meaningful and everything has a sparkle of divine light that makes it all clear and worthwhile, and would, I think, qualify as the moment where "all is light and full of joy." But, as C.S. Lewis has observed elsewhere, joy is fleeting and full-realized only when unlooked-for, experienced in the moment.

And all the host laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all men were hushed. And he sang to them, now in the Elven-tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.

Joy, by its very nature, is a transient state, and cannot be prolonged into happiness. I think it has a different flavor altogether. Thus, on the opposite end, Frodo's episodes of darkness and despair do not last forever, but, while they do last, their effects are "like swords" that wound and devastate, rather than flow with sweetness, like the minstrel's song at Cormallen.

One of the things that strikes me is how generally moral the Hobbits are, a morality based on instinct rather than formal belief.

A good point, Child. The force that put Frodo on his path to Mount Doom seems inevitable, a logical outcome of this instinctive moral sense. Frodo knows he must take this path, because it is the right one, the one that can save his beloved Shire and the things and people he loves. One need not ascribe such a sense to a personified higher power for it to be a valid driving force in one's actions and thoughts. Frodo takes the path he does for others, for those who will never know the depth of his sacrifice and for those few who know and accompany him along his dark path.

It all comes down to suffering & its effects. Do we grow through suffering - & even if we do, is that enough to absolve the Creator, or fate. If the suffering is so extreme it breaks us (even if we're re-made into something higher, more spiritually aware) would that be enough to make it ok to have broken us.

davem, I think that it would be somehow limiting to ascribe suffering to the realm of "being wronged" in an absolute sense, because, in the end, it does open one's eyes, and often allows one to see into other realms, much like the Elves, I suppose. Again, I return to a quote from Child's insightful posts above:

Because the world has been marred, it will be different in its final outcome. But it will be no less beautiful or full of meaning. This seems to go along with that famous quote in the Silm where even Morgoth's evil acts will be used by Eru to fashion wonders that Morgoth can not even imagine.

I cannot say I have grief-counselling experience, but I do have experience from the other end, having been a sufferer of things I wouldn't wish on anyone. Yet, I cannot say that these evils have made everything empty; rather, they opened my eyes and allowed me to see aspects of the world (and even into the spirit-realm if you'd like to call it that) that I could never have known without them. So, is it better to remain asleep, blind in happiness or ignorance in the protected Shire, or to experience the depth of "reality" in all its wonder and, yes, horror. I think it is easy to look into a situation that is marred by great horror and see only the horror. But there are slow awakenings, lights that come on, that cause one to look beyond the horror; in many ways, they make the horror bearable. But the fact of the horror never goes away, and the "way things are in the world" can, at times, wound beyond imagining. Certainly, in Frodo's case, the cure and redress of suffering is appropriate. The small "lights" that have grown within him, his "clear light" can become primary in the West, so that this aspect can overshadow the horror that would always live too close if he had remained in Middle Earth.

Cheers,
Lyta