A CONVERSATION

In J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, a young hobbit named, Frodo, is given the burden of bearing the one ring of power. It's a ring that has the potential to put Middle Earth under the suffering and pain of a deep darkness that is already exerting its influence. With a cadre of friends, Frodo determines to make the journey to Mount Doom, to destroy the ring by throwing it into the volcano from which it was constructed.

It would be a fearful journey through enemy territory, and imagining the road ahead of him, Frodo shares with Gandalf the Wise that the burden of the ring should not have been placed with him. In the conversation between Frodo and Gandalf we read,

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
                                      J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings 

(New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1994), 51.