A New Beginning

A catastrophe's when our hearts shake;
Our fond dreams now have gone. We forsake
These, but hope that the dark
Silver-lined clouds will spark
Eucatastrophic joy to awake.

Sentiments such as "When one door closes another opens," "Every dark cloud has a silver lining," and Kipling's poem "If" underpin something significant in man's spirit. Or so thought J.R.R. Tolkien; he termed this eucatastrophe, meaning the sudden turn of events at the end of a mythic story which results in the protagonist's ultimate well-being. He developed just such an ending for his epic book The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien recognized this recurrent, fractal-like theme throughout mythic tales of many civilizations, and believed they prefigured the actual incarnation of Jesus Christ as the eucatastrophe of human history, and in turn Christ's resurrection as the eucatastrophe of the incarnation.