“Ding!” the bell warned the approach of the end of the line. Tapping out a few more letters, she briskly sent the carriage skating back to begin again. The ivory keys glided under her fingers as her thoughts flew furiously.

Her eyes scanned the page, running over the questions she’d typed.

Who are we when power is in our reach, in our grasp?

Who are we when authority seems ours?

Do our actions matter?

Who are we in the midst of the everyday?

How do we show up to the people in our homes? The ones who know us best?

What adds value to the world?

Do small acts make any difference?

Are we content with hidden work? Unseen acts of kindness?

What if someone else gets the praise rightfully belonging to us?

Where do our zeal, our diligence, our creativity intersect?

Where do we find beauty in the world?

What feeds our souls?

Are valiant deeds worthy of the time and sacrifice and perseverance they so often demand?

Absentmindedly, she twirled a curl around her finger. Stretching her arms high above her head, she arched her back and yawned.

Elbow on desk, she tap-tapped her pencil against her cheek, staring out the window, oblivious of the elm leaves creating graceful dance patterns against the background of blue sky.

What would her own answers be? What would her life reveal?

She knew what she wanted it to say.

Beauty and goodness and truth and kindness and compassion.

Wisdom and discernment and valuing.

Did she even have ready answers?

Too often she felt awkward and inadequate.

Incompetence prodded with annoying, bossy nudges.

Did she have “right” answers or right actions?

What lay within her?

Reactions too often won the day.

Swiveling her chair in lazy circles, she placed her Blackwing pencil on top of the open moleskin journal.

She longed for a deeply formed life.

A life littered with grace one could then scoop in handfuls and confetti-toss to other people.

Ever becoming, learning, growing.

Slow and steady work.

Unhurried, not forced, but forged, day by day by day.

For great wisdom is a cultivation of a lifetime.

It takes depth of character to look beyond one’s self. It requires intrinsic integrity to stand in the awareness of our desire for fame, our need for amplification. The corruption that can creep into the healthy desire to be seen and known and valued.

For how can one really recognize what lies deep inside? What reactions stirred when all that glitters is in our reach?

Turning toward her bookshelf she began to dig for the journal filled with jotted quotes. Flipping pages, she found words she’d written out one autumn evening. This test of herself by Galadriel had resonated in significant ways.

“And now at last it comes. You will give me the Ring freely!

In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen. And I shall not be dark, but beautiful and terrible as the Morning and the Night! Fair as the Sea and the Sun and the Snow upon the Mountain! Dreadful as the Storm and the Lightning! Stronger than the foundations of the earth.

All shall love me and despair!

She lifted her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illumined her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful.

Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.

‘I passed the test,’ she said. ‘I will diminish, and go into the west and remain Galadriel.”
~ The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien pg. 356

Outside the elms continued their dance as she re-read the words. Her fingers traced the last sentences and she thoughtfully laid the journal on her desk, fanned open, spine up.

“I passed the test,’ she said. ‘I will diminish, and go into the west and remain Galadriel.”

She murmured the sentence and mused,

How many times in the forming of a life of depth of grace are we called to diminish, to serve, to give, to sacrifice?

In humility is where we find our true selves. In choosing hidden, humble, quiet acts, we find ourselves “remaining Galadriel.”

Gazing out the window, this time the leaves dancing in the light captured her attention.

A few fluttered to the leafy carpet below.

Our lives are swift.
If it can be said of us that we remained who we are, we remained serving, we remained in offering beauty and truth to the wayfaring people who passed through our lives, our land, then no ring of power could shine any brighter or be a better prize.

Wisdom is found in recognizing how briefly our stories show up on the page.
How quickly autumn is upon us.

By numbering our days, noting them, we can delight in simplicity, embrace gentleness, and find the reminder to remain.

Turning the journal over, in gold ink, she began looping letters along the page edge.

Remain Galadriel.
Resist Gollum Ring Obsession.
Realize Brevity.
Remain Rooted.

Psalm 90:12 NIV Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Psalm 90:12 NLT Teach us to realize the brevity of life,
so we may grow in wisdom.