I sit stunned as the closing credits roll. Though I've seen The Lord of the Rings series in its entirety several times, once again I find myself speechless. Sam has just lovingly gathered his youngest child into his arms, followed his wife and other child indoors, and pulled the door shut behind him. And as the music swells, I'm overwhelmed by what I've once again experienced.

The credits list those responsible for overseeing production, those who manage the sound design, those who man the cameras, those in charge of special effects. The credits roll for those who wrote and performed the music, for the soloists, for the foley artists, for the hair stylists, the costume designers, the set designers, those who created the miniatures. The credits continue rolling for the actors, the assistants, the caterers, the physicians, the storyboard artists, the stunt artists, the horse trainers. The credits continue scrolling up the screen for minutes.

It really is overwhelming to experience the fruit of such intentional collaboration.

One person could not bring such a monumental work as The Lord of the Rings into being. A handful couldn't do it. A hundred weren't able to do it. It took thousands of people hundreds of thousands of hours over the course of years to bring Tolkien's masterpiece to the screen.

Over this past weekend I finished reading the manuscript for Alex and Brett Harris's forthcoming book Do Hard Things. In it, they identify five "kinds of hard" that, when engaged, propel us into the realm of the extraordinary. The third "hard" is the power of collaboration: "How to do hard things that are too big for you to do alone."

Reflecting now on The Lord of the Rings leads me to wonder what great things I might be able to accomplish in collaboration with others. It certainly takes a team to pull off the Boundless webzine, blog and podcast. Couldn't do that on my own. And I've seen great things when folks at church come together to work on some common goal.

But I wonder what other vision I could gather together that requires collaboration to bring to fruition. I wonder if there's something the Lord would have me invest my life in that simply can't be accomplished on my own. Hm.