Mae govannen, friends!

Haha so… MaryAnn could not see anyone logged in to this conversation due to some quirk of Substack, but they were there! We ran the themes of Lord of the Rings through Ed’s standard signoff on his posts: GPLHJ, or Grace Peace Love Hope Joy.

Book recommendation: Everything Is a Story by Kaitlin Curtice

And here’s the quote MaryAnn read from Return of the King:

But even as hope died in Sam, or seemed to die, it was turned to a new strength. Sam’s plain hobbit-face grew stern, almost grim, as the will hardened in him, and he felt through all his limbs a thrill, as if he was turning into some creature of stone and steel that neither despair nor weariness nor endless barren miles could subdue.

We’ve got one more LOTR episode next Tuesday, February 3 at 1:00 p.m.: Category Crowns! Favorite villain, most annoying hero, and lots more fun. Link to join.

Catch all replays of PCPH at our dedicated Substack page or your favorite podcast app.

The Oscar nominations are out and Sinners dominated, Pluribus continues to confound and intrigue audiences, and we are… spending three episodes talking about movies that came out 25 years ago.

What can we say? The nerdery must flow. And the themes in the Lord of the Rings are RICH.

In honor of the LOTR trilogy’s re-release in theaters, we begin our series with a few rounds of “Will It Preach?” in which our magic wheel chose random scenes we had to wrestle some meaning out of. Tolkien being Tolkien, that wasn’t hard, but the conversation did take us in some unexpected places.

Watch this space for future episodes.

Thanks for joining us this afternoon!

Before we dive in, here’s the audio of Dr. King reading Letter from Birmingham Jail, as Ed referenced. And there’s a lot of videos of Willie Pearl Mackey King telling the story of putting together the letter from the scraps of paper Dr. King had available while in the jail, and her work for civil rights in general. Here’s one.

As for pop culture that was saving our lives (h/t to Barbara Brown Taylor for the question), we came up with quite an eclectic list of things that are keeping us going amid ~gesturing at everything~. Art is sustaining, illuminating, diverting, and more—and you see that full gamut reflected in our choices.

Viewer discretion advised on some of the items below.

MaryAnn’s list:

* Somebody Somewhere, HBOmax

* Hank Green’s comedy special “Pissing Out Cancer”, originally on DropoutTV, now free on YouTube

* “Killing in the Name” by Rage Against the Machine—the louder the better

* A Man on the Inside, Netflix

* Pachinko, Min Jin Lee

Ed’s list:

* The “Time” Quintet by Madeleine L’Engle: A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, Many Waters, and An Acceptable Time

* Rooted: A Spiritual Memoir of Homecoming, Christy Berghoef (and here’s her Substack)

* The Soundtrack Show (podcast)

* Clair Obscur (video game)

* Sports! (Go Broncos)

What’s saving your life lately? Thanks to viewer Mark who shared the song “This Is My Country” by Don Was and the Pan-Detroit Ensemble.