The Hobbit

I just got home from viewing 'The Hobbit" part 1. I have mixed feelings about it. It kind of followed the flow of Tolkien, but added quite a bit. Now, I get Jackson's desire to forge a connection to "The Lord of the Rings" and all, but some of the action in this movie really doesn't belong and doesn't add anything. Tolkien did a great job without any help from Jackson and associates.
Tolkien's genius shines in the book. There is so much 'richness' in the pages that simply cannot be transferred to the silver screen. In the first chapter, Bilbo finds his home invaded by a clutch of dwarves. After all of the social amenities are dispensed with the dwarves settle down to an after dinner singalong. This snippet of Tolkien's writing reveals a deep understanding of the creativity that Yahweh has given to us. He wrote about Thorin Oakenshield's harp, "when Thorin struck it the music began all at once, so sudden and sweet that Bilbo forgot everything else, and was swept away into dark lands under strange moons, far over The Water and very far from his hobbit-hole under The Hill." The music transported Bilbo to other strange, exotic lands. Places that he was unfamiliar with. Places that had new and different heavens and tastes and smells. The music took him.......
For those of us who have been blessed, (or cursed), with music in our souls, this is not an unusual image. I have been transported into the presence of Yahweh on the wings of song. The melody and harmony, pleasant or dissonant, are part of the gift that God has lavished on us. As Julia Cameron wrote in the Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity, "Creativity is God's gift to us. Using our creativity is our gift back to God." God has gifted us with creativity. Creativity that can move and transport us to places that only God has seen.