Snapdragons!

Tonight, I am sitting up thinking about the future of The One Ring Roleplaying Game now that a new partnership has been formed between Sophisticated Games and Free League Games (Fria Ligan). I was highly involved with Cubicle7 Games, helping them at GenCon for many years, and just being a devoted fan, commenting on their forum until it came down, but then on BoardGameGeek for awhile. Now, I'm happy to report that Free League has started a forum for the game. It feels like going back home after a long while. In fact, the forum setup is very much like the old C7 one.

Enough catching up! Let me get to the point of this particular blog entry. It has to do with a word that Tolkien used in the opening chapter of The Hobbit, and that word is snapdragons.

"They used to go up like great lilies and snapdragons...and hang in the twilight all evening!"

Funny thing, for many years I have used the term "Snapdragons!" as an exclamation like one would say the word, "Shoot!" But, I never remembered where I got it from or what it meant...until now.

There's a great book I'd like to recommend to you by Oliver Loo called A Tolkien English Glossary: A Guide to Old Uncommon and Archaic Words Used in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. You can download it on Kindle for free here.


Here is the the definition of snapdragons:

A plant of the scrophulariaceous genus Antirrhinum, esp. A. Majus, an herb long cultivated for its spikes of showy flowers, of various colors, with a corolla that has been supposed to look like the mouth of a dragon.

That sounds like a pretty cool looking plant to me!

Tolkien's attention to geography and flora, especially, has always impressed and intimidated me. I'm no botanist and I feel very uneducated when it comes to the science of geography and ecosystems, etc. When I write, I have to study so much about flora and fauna and recently I found a website to help with this called iNaturalist.org. I highly recommend it to anyone writing adventures for The One Ring or Adventures In Middle-earth roleplaying games and you want to add some interesting descriptions to give your gaming sessions a more authentic Tolkienian feel. If anyone finds a geography site with land and water descriptions, please let me know!

Oh, look here! I found a picture of snapdragons. Beautiful.

Diversity Makes Us Complete

Here's another word from the book Write Well, Speak Well (Houghton Mifflin) that caught my eye. It's a word that is often misused and confused. The word is...

com.ple.ment (kŏm′plǝ-mǝnt); noun; Something that completes, makes up a whole, or brings to perfection.

Example: The large beautiful tree still held its full complement of leaves.

Looking at the definition for this word made me think of some other things that have come up recently in my church. We have been studying our fundamental doctrines lately and one of the teachings focused on the church and its mission. The apostle Paul writes in the book of Romans, chapter 12, verses 4 and 5:

4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, 5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. (English Standard Version)

This basically teaches individual Christians that even though they are unique individuals, performing different functions, they all belong to one another and only together do they make up the full body of Christ—the Church. One member cannot say to another, "I don't need you." Each member is needed to make up the full complement and to bring it to perfection.

The diversity of Saints around the throne of heaven.

Where there is division and hate, there is brokenness.

Now, think about that in the context of the human race. God has created each human being in His image and in His likeness. Yet, we are all unique persons. I think the greatest picture of God can only be obtained when a diverse group of individuals comes together and learns to appreciate differences. And diversity to me is way more than language and culture (although the Bible gives a great picture of heaven when it says there were individuals "from every tribe and language and people and nation" worshiping God around the throne; see Revelation 5:9). Diversity involves personality, interests, skills, dreams, gender, and color. Think of all the wonderful things we could bring to the table if we would only believe that we belong to one another.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I am not advocating that we should all lay down our beliefs and convictions in the name of unity. I am, after all, unapologetically a preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ. I cannot help it. After some deep and sincere soul searching, Christ saved me and called me into the ministry twenty-eight years ago at the age of fifteen. He is as real to me as everything we see. I talk to Jesus every day and I have dedicated my life to spreading the Good News that there is hope for everyone who calls on the name of Jesus! But, I try to do it in accordance with the Scripture with gentleness and respect.

What I am proposing is that we remember we are all first born of God. There is something to be appreciated in each human being. There is something to respect about the image of God they bear. They may not recognize they bear His image and likeness, and their behaviors may sometimes make it hard to see, but in them are the attributes of their Creator. And our Creator loves us. We should love one another too. It is through His love displayed that people have a chance to respond to God and love Him back.

We, friends, belong to one another. Together we make up the full complement of the human race. One race made up of diverse peoples. To our Creator we are worth more than the stars that shine in the universe. Why can't we see it that way too?

Abjure

Studying vocabulary is something most people haven't done since high school. And yet, words are wonderful, powerful, and advance our communication ability in so many ways. Being a pastor, most of my time is spent writing sermons for my congregation, but I also spend a fair amount of time writing adventures for The One Ring roleplaying game along with additional rules and helps for players of the game. It brings me great joy!

When I write, I keep a tab on my internet browser open to www.thesaurus.com. It's one of my favorite sites. Writing in the world of J.R.R. Tolkien is extra challenging though - if you really want your stories to sound like the professor's, you've got to learn his words...but that is a subject for another post.

Write Well, Speak Well, 2005 Houghton Mifflin

Last year, I was yard-saling with my wife and I stumbled across a vocabulary book for 25 cents. "You can't go wrong" for that price, so I picked it up. (I first heard that saying from my father-in-law and it has proven true.) Today, I want to share a word from the book: abjure.

abjure

1. To recant solemnly; renounce or repudiate: Here and now, I abjure my violent temper. 2. To renounce under oath; forswear: The prisoner abjured his previous state. 

RELATED WORDS:
noun - abjuration
noun - abjurer

We all make mistakes, but one of the hardest things to do is abjure them. Mom first taught us how to say, "I'm sorry," but it has proven to be a tough lesson. Yet, when we renounce our poor behaviors or attitudes with sincerity of heart, it can unlock the door of our isolation chamber and restore the relationships we should have been enjoying all along.

I want to be an abjurer and practice abjuration even in the little things. So, to all that I've ever been off-putting, I abjure my egotism and impatience. I pray to do better the next time we communicate.