It all started when mom and I were driving to a Pro-Life meeting. Mom asked me to read to her the Council of Elrond from the “Fellowship of the Ring” by J.R.R Tolkien. I read to her for probably forty out of the forty-five minute drive to a friend’s house. After we stopped there, we were off again for another thirty minute drive.
After arriving, we got out of the car and mom walked through a garden area in between a scraggily bush and a tree with low branches. I said to her that she did not have to go through Ithilien. She laughed in reply. We entered the building and went down a thin hallway and walked into a room with four tables touching each other in a square, leaving an empty place in the middle. All the chairs were on the outside of the tables and we found a place in the back of the room. We then ate a boxed dinner and both agreed that the set up was like the “Council of Elrond” or in “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” when the senators question Mr. Smith about a contract that he was thought to have signed.
The meeting began by an introduction for the chairman of the meeting. (He was NOT an Elrond.) After that the chairman spoke and told us that each was to introduce himself/herself, the group he is representing, and the reason why he/she was there. The people then introduced themselves one by one with a few oohs and ahhs and applauding hands (totally inappropriate) until finally everyone introduced himself/herself. I had felt a little awkward being the only fifteen year old in the room, though I began to get used to it.
As the meeting went on (and got worse by the second,) these notes appeared on my notepad and my mom’s. (We both happened to have the same one: it was purple with a lily and the Serenity prayer written upon it. ) I hope you can make sense of these notes:

Me: Fruitless victories

Mom: This has been the whole meeting

Me: Nothing spoken of HOPE
JESUS

Me: No way can this subject be pushed in two hours. You need a whole day. “Do not be Hasty!” ~ Treebeard

Mom: Same old strategies

Mom: Nobody knows about Hands of Hope

Me: No one is really thinking about the women

Me: Bilbo stood up infuriated, sat down with a snort

Me: too bad there is no Gandalf. We need GANDALF!!

Mom: no one speaking so far wants to take the ring to the fires of Mordor

Mom: The Ring is in the center

Me: No one is listening to Gandalf. Saruman is sneaking to Sauron.

Me: Oh, the ring is in the Anduin, its right here!

Me: I feel like Frodo and Sam

Me: that’s a little better.

Me: became an embryo?! How about is now in Mary’s womb?

Me: You, Aragorn has spoken. The Dunedain are at work.

Me: I will never forget their faces!!

After the meeting, we walked outside into the warm spring-like night I said that we had to go through “Ithilien” and we did.