Standing On the Edge

This entire summer I have been anticipating the semester that begins on Tuesday. I have poured myself out time and time again in my thoughts about this semester. And now that I stand on the brink I feel entirely unprepared. Coming off of last semester, I anticipate the semester to strike my life as a storm as brutal as the last, and my defenses are not in place.

I am reminded of a moment I just read of in The Return of the King. Gandalf and Pippin ride into Minas Tirith after a restless gallop all the way from Rohan to the North. This haste is brought about when Gandalf realizes that the enemy (Sauron and his armies in Mordor) are further in their plans then Gandalf had thought them. When Gandalf enters The City of Gondor, he passes a force of men working on building up a battlement of the outer wall. He says to them that the storm is already upon them and it would be better for them to begin sharpening their blades.

Later in that same chapter, Pippin goes to the gates of Minas Tirith with a newly acquainted friend to watch the arrival of armies that are coming to help. The armies ride in with glorious cheering from the people of Minas Tirith, but after they pass there is a murmur through the crowd, "too few have come". As I read there is a troubling sense that the battle that is being brought to Minas Tirith, the storm that is about to be unleashed upon the stronghold is more terrible then could possibly be prepared for.

I feel that I cannot prepare much further then I have, that I am expending all of my resources, yet the storm is coming upon me more violent then I could have predicted. I feel as ready as I could, yet not prepared enough; that I am standing on a diving board, facing backwards and all that is left is to jump.

So I look upon this storm, and I say "do your worst" for I would have nothing else. I jump and I run head first into the pouring thunder.

It's a good thing I have some great friends who will pick me up when I fall, and who will push me forward when I am discouraged. I suppose that the best thing to remember is that the storm never falls upon just one person.