A Small and Pathetic Tribute to The Lord of the Rings

I have just finished reading The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.  This is my first reading of the work as an adult (I read it twice as a child.), and I must say that it was a journey well worth the undertaking.  I am sure that this post will add nothing to the utmost respect and merited fame which Tolkien already possesses in our time.  However, for myself, I wish to put down a few words of tribute for this modern author of genius, and to bestow upon him some small honor in gratitude for his epic work.

But enough with the hero-worship.  Why has Tolkien gathered such praise and cult-like adoration for his work of The Lord of the Rings?  If you are asking this question, it is most likely because you have not read the books for yourself.  I would have a difficult time relating to or understanding someone who cannot appreciate this fantasy masterpiece.  The Lord of the Rings is not so much a classic for its fantastic and imaginative world of elves, dwarves, hobbits, and orcs, but rather for its impeccable ability to strike at the core of man’s soul and inspire it to magnanimity.  Since you can read any number of books already dedicated to the subject of Tolkien and his works, let me simply reduce my commentary to a few concise bullet points which highlight why the Tolkien-cult may be well founded.

1. Tolkien is a brilliant author and poet.  

Really.  You will have a difficult time falling in love with books like The Hunger Games or Twilight after reading Tolkien.  His way of crafting literature is comparable to the formation of music by a master like Bach.   One may dislike Bach or Tolkien, but no one could legitimately criticize either for being a poor artist.  Tolkien’s vivid descriptions of Middle Earth capture the imagination of the reader in an unparalleled manner.  Tolkien, the philologist and philosopher, shows his mastery both of language and his understanding of the human experience through his graceful and fluent ability to manipulate, excite, and capture our imaginations in his writing.  He did, after all, create an entirely new language (Elvish) as the foundation for his novel.  I am truly embarrassed by attempting to write anything at all after reading his work.

2.  Tolkien is down to earth. 

Tolkien is hard not to love with his simple down-to-earth manner of writing.  His books possess a great amount of profundity and deep philosophical and theological allegory, and yet he never fails to integrate a simple and humble quality which preserves a welcome element of realism.  He strikes a perfect balance between intellectual loftiness and earthy humor.  One way Tolkien achieves this is through utilizing the comical, short, insignificant yet relateable hobbit creatures as the central protagonists of his tale.

3.  Tolkien artfully exposes the most fundamental drama and plight of man.  

Tolkien’s work is not simply about a magical ring, elves and bad guys.  The Lord of the Rings is ultimately not about a dark lord or ring at all.  The work subtly exposes the struggle man faces in his encounter with the world, the flesh, and the devil.   Ultimately,Tolkien’s world is about man’s plight for redemption and salvation.  And yet, Tolkien does not use the obvious allegories that his friend, C.S. Lewis, employed in his Chronicles of Narnia.  While the latter author unabashedly paralleled Bible stories in his fantasy works (e.g. Aslan as an allegory for Christ), Tolkien is much more subtle in his integration of philosophical and theological themes.  Tolkien’s works inspire both Christians and non-Christians in a way that may greatly surpass Lewis’ fiction.  Tolkien uses a more “classical” style, more reminiscent to the ancient pagan epics of Homer rather than to the modern Christian Milton.  But Tolkien’s work is nonetheless orthodox in its adherence to Christian philosophy.  The character of Gollum does not directly parallel any person in the Scriptures, but Gollum does uncannily incarnate any one who is suffering from addiction or subject to the powerful grip of vice.  The ring most definitely embodies the very essence of evil and sin, something which is truly alluring yet ultimately poisonous, deadly, and enslaving.

Finally, the proof of The Lord of the Rings’ greatness is ultimately only found in the personal encounter one has when entering into the mystery of Middle Earth.  I find that reading this classic dissipates my usual dry cynicism and depression.  It awakens and inflames in me a transcendent spirit of courage, nobility, and wonder.  I feel a longing to take up a sword or bow and fight in the defense of Middle Earth.  Then I remember that such a war really does exist in this life and that I must respond to its happening.  The fight that Gollum and Frodo have in resisting the lure of of the One Ring is really the same struggle I have in resisting the passions of my own flesh and addictions.  There is also found the exterior war.  Just as the evil Sauron poured out his forces to crush the civilized world of Gondor, so too I experience the ever darkening culture around me which promotes the destruction of life, family, and “common sense” principles.  I feel a renewed call to reject my apathy and to fight in the defense of life, family, and freedom.

Such is my phenomenological defense of Tolkien as a masterful author.  He has the singular ability to work his way into my mind, heart, and soul and to draw from these the highest of aspirations.

But c’mon…You want me to spoil all of this awesomeness?  Stop reading my stream of consciousness and pick up The Lord of the Rings; I dare you to enter onto this quest for yourself and to see where this journey may lead you.

Narcissus and the Death of the Incarnation

Recently I have been quite agitated and disturbed by two different thoughts.  First, I have troubled by several proclaimed Christians who are consumed with the idea that “institutional religion” is evil and that the Christian Faith must be practiced purely by an individual pursuit.  The hit You-Tube video, “Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus” sums it all up quite well.  The second is the recent news of yet another horrific act of violence that was appallingly directed at the most innocent in our society.  While these two thoughts are entirely in their own separate fields, it occurred to me that there may exist some minor connection between the two.  And before you jump to any conclusions, please graciously hear me out.

After yesterday’s horrific and inexplicable killing spree, people are inevitably asking  why and how any human being could be so heartless, mental, or morally depraved as to carry through to completion such a debased crime.  I don’t dare to presume that I have  any adequate explanation for those questions except to say that original sin and man’s fallen nature are much more intimately present and much uglier than we would like to believe.  Nevertheless, I think we can all resoundingly agree that one thing is certain: our world and our own American society have a deep-rooted problem.  We’re messed up and sick.  Something is wrong.

Viki Soto, 27, a first grade teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School was killed on Friday, December 14th, 2012 when a gunman took her life in a killing spree.

Something is wrong that a depressed graduate student feels some need to channel his aggression and angst by murdering dozens of strangers at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado or that a 20 year-old dude in Newtown, Connecticut would intentionally and pointedly carry through the insidious acts of matricide, the slaughter of children, and suicide.  And while the politically charged and “sensationalist” media is pouncing on this  event as an ‘opportunity’ to discuss whether our political leaders will act to change legislation on gun rights etc, I think it is evident and blaringly obvious that there lies within our society a problem that is altogether distinct from our 2nd amendment rights.  Our society is sick and disoriented, and while we have continued to ignore the gravity of our own infectious disease, innocent children have had to pay with the cost of their blood.

Weapons, poor parents, mental illness, and heinous crimes have existed since our earliest historical records.  However, what strikes me as a something particularly disturbing in our current world is the frequency of “random” acts of violence indiscriminately directed at innocent and unfamiliar persons.  There is a certain novelty in the murderous rampaging of complete strangers which seems to have no other directed motive than the sadistic and pathological end of the crime itself.  It is this enigma of pathological crime and the alarming  frequency in which it now surfaces that leads you and me to question the source of such utter madness.

I will not pretend to possess the wisdom to so easily pinpoint the answer as to what might be the source of such insanity.  Nevertheless, I do believe that our current religious and de facto philosophical  ethos (i.e. our “world-view”) will fundamentally dictate the nature of our actions and behavior, for better or for worse.  When you look back throughout history, you must only examine what gods were worshiped and which were rejected in a nation in order to have a basic understanding as to why they behaved in the manner they did.  What sovereign deity is worshiped today?  I believe the answer is “Narcissus”, the Greek myth of the young man who fell into an    isolated, self-consumed and ecstatic love with himself.  We are Narcissists.  We love and adore ourselves and our individuality.  Today’s modern man is quick to dispose of his institutionalized religions, his matrimonial fidelity, and his duties to society, but he is just as quick to demand that God accept his view of morality, that his sexual appetite be unrestrictedly indulged, and that his government afford him whatever rights he whimsically demands.  While we feel enlightened, progressive, advanced, and more civilized with our embracing of the modern democratic ideals of freedom and equality, we have lost touch with the basic principles that orient our nature toward the development of a healthy society.  The problem is that when society elevates the autonomous individual as sovereign, the essence of community and thereby civilization (L. Civitas-city) is lost.  When the pestiferous infection of self-love is all consuming, the family will soon dissolve.  Marriage becomes disposable.  Children become disposable.  And finally “Institutional” or communal religious worship will quickly be abandoned in preference to an individualized form of worship.

The most central, essential, and radical dogma within Christianity has always been that of the Trinity.  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—3 communal and loving persons totally and essentially united in self-giving, receiving, and reciprocal Love.  Of equal importance is that

Christian understanding of the Incarnation—the second person of this communal Trinity taking on human nature in order that men might become united to God.  Such a religion is imminently oriented toward communal love that seeks union with God and extends to love of one’s neighbor.  Christianity uniquely teaches that one will only find happiness and ‘fulfillment’ when one has totally given oneself in love to God and one’s neighbor.  Such a Triune and Incarnational Faith have no place for the god of Narcissus and a culture of exorbitant narcissim.

Or does it?  Today’s self-proclaimed Christians are scandalized by the failings and hypocrisies of fellow “religious” or “institutional” Christians and are quick to dispose of communal worship, objective moral teaching, and theological dogmas.  They embrace a “Jesus and me” religion that elevates one’s own conscience and Bible as sovereign authorities and thereby arrives at the eerily familiar home in the temple of Narcissus.  Religion is reduced to a mere “spirituality” where one has the liberty to practice a faith that does not oblige any particular form of commitment and moral conduct.  And while this democratic friendly religion seems civil enough, it loses touch with the very heart and essence of the Christian creed.  A ‘Christian’ Faith which rejects communal worship is one which has lost its pedagogical potency to orient men away from their self-consumption and to give of themselves in love.  The importance of relation and relationship are lost when Christianity turns away from the One Church instituted by the Incarnated person of Jesus Christ.  Soon, these “Christians” inevitably reject the sacredness of marriage, the gift and dignity of children and life, and the objective principles which form our moral conscience.  Divorce, abortion, and contraception are nearly just as prevalent among “Christians” as among non-Christians.

And here is where I make full circle.  The difference between our modern society and recent former ages is that the spirit of Narcissus has finally triumphed and the Incarnation has now died.  Although “Christian Civilization” may only be an idea which was never fully realized in political societies, nevertheless it was the Christian Faith and its principles of love and esteem for personal and familial communion which have at least implicitly guided the moral norms of our consciences and cultures for centuries.  Today, with the rejection of communal religion (i.e. authentic Christianity) and the total embracing of Narcissism, our society has cultivated the perfect foundation for pathological crime.  The sacredness, dignity, and value of another person is lost when we have utterly turned our gaze and worship inward.

What is the solution?  The answer is simple, evident, yet hard: Love.  We must learn to imitate the love of Jesus Christ which is total and absolute.  We must throw down the idol of Narcissus and restore our worship for the Holy and Communal Trinity.  We must allow this Triune Love to radically transform and sanctify our view of marriage, our value for family, our sexual practice, and the respect and regard for our neighbor.  And finally we must gather together as Christian believers united in our Faith, remembering the words of Christ, “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” (Matt. 18:20).  The only hope for a renewed and sane society is if this regard and esteem for community which is the very cornerstone of civilization can return.  For it is only when man learns to love as Christ has taught that sanity, reason, and freedom are restored to their proper place.

This Advent and Christmas season, as we simultaneously remember the victims of Newtown and the gift of Love revealed to the world in the person of Christ, let us solemnly remember His prayer to the Father before He died:

“As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.  The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” (John 17:21b-23).

The American Problem

Recently I stumbled a cross this passage from Archbishop Chaput from a talk he delivered recently entitled Life in the Kingdom of Whatever. The full text is worth reading but I’m only going to quote the first few sentences:

In the United States, our political tensions flow from our cultural problems. Exceptions clearly exist, but today our culture routinely places rights over duties, individual fulfillment over community, and doubt over belief. In effect, the glue that now holds us together is our right to go mall-crawling and buy more junk. It’s hard to live a life of virtue when all around us, in the mass media and even in the lives of colleagues and neighbors, discipline, restraint, and self-sacrifice seem irrelevant.

The Archbishop recognizes the heart of the American problem. In his book Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, Ross Douthat writes that Americans have become a “nation of narcissists.” Deeply ingrained in the modern American psyche is individualism. Americans are desperately alone as can be seen by the large amount of people claiming to be depressed and the drug prescriptions handed out to help these people. And certainly the amount of time and money and energy spent on therapy, self-help, exercise, etc. is in the millions. Douthat explained his line when he wrote that we have become a “nation of gamblers and speculators, gluttons and gym obsessives, pornographers and Ponzi schemers, in which household debt rises alongside public debt, and bankers and pensioners and automakers and unions all compete to empty the public trough.” Basically there is an overdose of entitlement.

Now going back to the Archbishop’s remarks. Can society really work if everyone lives their lives as if it’s “only about me”? Can a sense of law and order last without a sense of duty? Just driving down the Interstate here in Denver shows a concerning sign. People drive like mad-men at all speeds, slowing down and obeying the traffic laws only when law enforcement is nearby and it might cost them. There is a false sense of freedom at stake here. This is understood in the classical distinction of “freedom from” and “freedom for.”

“Freedom from” is license. It means I can do whatever I want and you can’t stop me. “Freedom for” means freedom for excellence, for virtue: to choose the good.

Of course the American crisis, while being alarming, really isn’t alarming. Ultimately it’s the sign of humanity’s disease: original sin. Original sin lends itself towards individualism and entitlement. It lends itself to narcissism. The sin of Adam and Eve was to act in disobedience to God and to sever themselves from Him and from each other. Adam blames Eve. Eve blames the serpent. And of course the whole story is prompted by the sense of entitlement that the devil puts in their head: “You will be like God.”

The solution is simple and yet difficult given the severity of the epidemic: Asceticism. Only by training ourselves to deny our personal preferences and doing what is in the best interest of another, that is being virtuous , can we combat what is weakened in our nature by sin and what  threatens to end the American Experiment. This is what Jesus meant when he said  “love your neighbor as yourself.” Of course in order for this to happen we have to cultivate the virtuous-self-love that Bernard of Clairvoux speaks of in his writings. This begins by receiving deeply in our beings that God loved us first, even while we were yet sinners. (cf. Romans 5:8) When we mirror the self-gift of Jesus Christ by emptying ourselves in service of our neighbor, we are transformed into the image and likeness of God we were created in. Then we find happiness, for to flourish is to imitate the God-Man, Jesus Christ. If America does that, then it surely shall be saved!

Published by Richard.