Team Treebeard

I don’t know about sides. I go my own way; but your way may go along with mine for a while. … I am not altogether on anybody’s side, because nobody is altogether on my side, if you understand me: nobody cares for the woods as I care for them, not even Elves nowadays. Still, I take more kindly to Elves than to others … And there are some things, of course, whose side I am altogether not on; I am against them altogether: these —burárum” (he again made a deep rumble of disgust) “— these Orcs, and their masters”.

Treebeard in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Two Towers

Merry and Pippin had just asked Treebeard to say which side he was on.

This is one of my favorite quotes from The Lord of the Rings, and it is the inspiration for the name of this blog, specifically the part about being pretty sure that "nobody is altogether on my side."

Everyone wants other people to join their side.

Many people assert that "you're on the side of X if you don't do Y, or do B, or don't denounce T, or believe Z, or read V."

Their binary thinking insists that you be on a side that they define. They usually only imagine that there are but two sides. 

Don't let them do that.

I'm on the side of Jesus and the Kingdom of God. I'm on my family's side. Those two are clear.

And, like Treebeard, there are clearly things I am against altogether. 

This blog will explore those things, for and against.

Assail the gates of hell.

We love dogs more than kids, I guess.

Isaac Morehouse wonders if we would care for our dogs this way.

"I’m not a dog owner, but everyone else seems to really love their dogs.  So much so, that if I offered the following service, most would consider it beneath them as pet owners to take me up: 

Every work day, you’ll wake your dog before it wants to get up, force feed it some breakfast, and tie it to a pole at the corner of your street, then go to work.  A giant vehicle with no safety harnesses will stop by and load your dog, along with fifty or sixty other dogs, and haul them off to a huge dog daycare center.

The dogs will be crammed thirty or forty to a room, and each room will have one person there to look after them, and make them go through a number of drills and activities that dogs hate, sitting still the whole time, not being allowed to do what dogs really want to do – run around.  This supervisor will be unionized and paid based on years of service, with little or no connection to how well your dogs fare under their care.  Some are good people who like dogs, though many found veterinary school too challenging and would struggle to gain employment as private dog trainers, groomers, or sitters."

Read the whole thing on his site. Every day millions of believers send their kids off to be trained by pagans. I guess we love our dogs more.