FRODO: I can’t do this, Sam.

SAM: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?
But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.

FRODO: What are we holding on to, Sam?

SAM: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.

~~~~

The above text is from the film The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (not the book, but these three films were so well done that I forgive the slight departure from source material in this case). I desperately cling to Sam’s speech and its sentiment in times when despair threatens to overtake me. I find myself reaching for it more lately than I ever have before. I’m reaching for anything at all that might bring me a spark of hope that things will, someday, get better.

If we have to fight…may we always be fighting for the good in this world.