"A cage," Eowyn said, "to stay behind bars, until use and old age accept them, and all chance of doing great deeds is gone beyond recall or desire."
I have always loved fairytales. One of my favorite CS Lewis quotes is...
"Someday you'll be old enough to start reading fairy tales again."
I think that time has come. Princesses and elves and all that teaches us, as women, not that we are damsels in distress that are helpless and whiny and powerless, but that we are valued, that we literally bear inside of us the imago dei (image of God), and that we deserve to be protected and honored. Our power doesn't come from physical strength, but from our unique participation in God's creation and love.
I always really thought I identified more with Arwen and Galadriel in Lord of the Rings than the other female characters. The elven princess and queen, who are more super-natural than they are earthly. I've always felt... different. It was always hard for me to fit in and I wanted those powers and that grace - it still is in some ways hard for me to fit in, but I realized today that I actually feel more connected to Eowyn, Shieldmaiden of Rohan.
In Eowyn, Tolkien creates the epitome of the Celtic woman. She can lead a nation through the greatest peril. She longs to do great deeds be they simple acts of kindness or incredible triumphs. She can fight and slay the king of demons and dragons. She can care for the dying, and bear the grief of the loss of those closest to her. She falls in love with a good man, the greatest of kings, but bears losing him. She never is cruel or hateful towards men; she respects herself and them too much for that. She finds a man who is as broken as she is, and though they come together late in the epic story, they love each other until the end of their days.
At the end of it all, in her greatest moment, Eowyn does not deny who she is -
"No living man my hinder me!" [said the witchking]
"No living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you if you touch him."
She doesn't try to be a man. She doesn't harshen herself or androgynize herself. She rips the helmet that was disguising her off and lets her long hair fall, and she proclaims who she is. She doesn't deny herself or where she comes from, but she still has the biggest kill on Pelenor Fields that day. She is a great lady, that when the war is over makes a home.
We live in strange times. The best of times and the worst. We are invited to forget our heritage and who God made us to be, and to become something all together other. We are invited into loose morals and told its the better way. We are pitted race against race, and taught to feel guilty regardless. We are taught to be illogical, and to deny the reasonableness of faith and God. We are told to be liberal, free, all the while the chains tighten more and more around us blinding us to the truth that what is offered is not freedom, but slavery. We are taught to ignore the signs that something far greater is going on, and to pay attention to the petty squabbles of materialism and fake politics. We are convinced to deny what we were created to be while we embrace our sin nature. We forget how honorable it should be to be a woman.
