Eucatastrophe -a definition

Well, this is my very first blog. I suppose, then, I should explain my title (which I'm super-duper excited about, by-the-by). Eucatastrophe was a term first coined by J.R.R. Tolkien in his lecture and later essay, "On Faerie-Stories." I chose this title for my blog because it represents a lot of me - a love of God, a love of creativity and fantasy, and the constant search for where our creativity and imaginations can glorify God (and where they do not). So, I will quote Tolkien at length to explain exactly what a "eucatastrophe" is:

"The consolation of fairy-stories [is] the joy of the happy ending: this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentialy "escapist," nor "fugitive." In its fairy-tale - or otherworld - setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world.

But in this "eucatastrophe" we see in a brief vision that the answer may be greater - it may be a far-off gleam or echo of evangelium in the real world...it is a serious and dangerous matter. ..the Birth of Christ is the eucatastrophe of Man's history. The Resurrection is the eucatrastrophe of the story of the Incarnation. The story begins and ends in joy...there is no tale ever told that men would rather find was true, and none which so many sceptical men have accepted as true of its own merits."

Good and right fantasy should ultimately point back to Scripture and absolute truth. I believe Tolkien's concepts of imagination, sub-creation, and Joy relate to many of us. I appreciate that in The Lord of the Rings there is suffering, as Christ promised that we too would suffer. There is loss, death, war, and - perhaps most importantly - an unabashed and horrific study of the caustic effects of sin and pride (Lewis would argue they are one and the same). This represents so much of my life - when all was dark and hopeless, Christ has provided the 'joyous turn,' and changed what was meant for evil to good. Unexpected and unlooked for mercy and help arrived just in time and called my heart to His. Just as Gondor's despair in The Return of the King lifts with the call of Rohan's horns, or our hearts rejoice at finding Eowyn only hurt, not dead, so too has God turned my catastrophes into the most painful but refining and joyous experiences - eucatastrophes, you might say - so that through a little sorrow and correction, perhaps a rash and immature young woman might someday attain wisdom and maturity.