Category: The Lord of the Rings

An Open Letter to All the Peoples of Middle-Earth

Barad Dur, Mordor, TA 3017, Tuesday Morning

Greetings!

Can you believe it?  They’re doing it again.  Elrond is once again weaponizing the government of Middle-earth against me.  He’s assembled a Council in Rivendell and indicted me on false charges.  He’s even sent forth some sort of party – he calls it a ‘Fellowship,’ whatever that means – to try to take me down a second time.  These guys never quit.  No one in the history of Middle-earth has been as attacked as much as me.  And for what?  I’ll tell you.  For making the world more peaceful and prosperous than it ever was, and daring to try to do it again. 

Remember when I was last in charge?    Everyone had gifts.  So many gifts.  Rings of Power.  That’s right, I made them.  Celebrimbor was a hack.  Couldn’t have done it without me.  Everyone knows it.  You know it, I know it, the people of Middle-earth know it.  Everyone wanted my rings.  Dwarves, Men, even Elves couldn’t put them down!  There were no strings attached either.  Just good gifts that improved everyone’s lives.  Better than they ever were before.  If you don’t believe me ask the Witch King of Angmar.  Always speaks highly of me.  All the other Nazgul too.  They’d have died long ago it if weren’t for my gifts.  They never had it better than when I was in charge.  If I’d stayed in charge, everyone would be like them now.  Everyone would have rings.  Everyone would be happy.  Everyone would be so Nazgul, you just wouldn’t believe it. 

Manufacturing was at an all-time high too.  People couldn’t believe how high it was.  Full employment.  We had good jobs.  Quality jobs.  Not the kind of jobs they have now.  We had Orc jobs.  Hobbit jobs.  Elf jobs.  Dwarves were mining again.  All because of my gifts.  But then they came after me.  Galadriel, Elrond, Elendil, Isildur, and all the other Marxists, Fascists, and Communists.  Formed something called, ‘The Last Alliance.’  We were just having a peaceful protest in Mordor when they came charging in.  Total peace before they came along.  No war plans whatsoever.  All of Arda was at peace.  Galadriel was the worst.  Nasty woman.  Gollum thinks so.  Very nasty.  There was once a time when she was kind of into me.  Not that she had a chance.  Way too old.  Like 5000 or something.  She’s so old she doesn’t even know if she’s alive.  That’s why everything’s so screwed up.  They came in and wrecked it all.  But we’ll fix it.  We’ll make Middle-earth great again.  As soon as I get my ring back.  It’ll be great even before I put it on my finger.  You know it, I know it, all the Children of Iluvatar know it.  By the way, I’m a big believer in Iluvatar.  Big believer.  I love it when I go to church and eat my cracker.  His children love me.  They love me so much you can’t believe it.  Because I give them everything they want.  They never had it so good as when I was in charge.  And when I’m back in charge they’ll have it good again.  It’ll be so great they won’t ever have to vote again. 

I understand some of you are placing your trust in the Fellowship.  Well, let me tell you about them.  They want to take your jobs.  Take all your weapons: your swords, your axes, your daggers.  Did you know they want to stop the mining of Mithril?  That’s right, they want the dwarves to starve.  Not me.  I want dwarves to live.  Mine! Mine! Mine!  That’s what I say.  But not them.  They want to shut it all down.  And that’s not the worst of it.  They want Hobbits everywhere.  Never before in the history of Middle-earth have there been so many Hobbits pouring over the borders of the Shire.  Let me tell you, these aren’t good Hobbits.  They’re bad hombres.  Crime is way down in the Shire, you know why? Because they’re sending all their criminals to your towns.  And they’re taking your jobs.  All the jobs in Gondor.  All the jobs in Wilderland.  All the jobs in Rhun.  Harad.  Rhovanion.  All over.  You should see what’s happening in Bree.  They’re eating the pets.  Eating the cats.  Eating the dogs.  Poor Bill Ferney can’t even find his pony.  I’ll tell you where it is.  It’s in the belly of some fat Hobbit.  Barliman Butterbur can deny it all he wants.  He has an inn to run.  Wants people to still visit.  But we know it’s happening.  You know it.  I know it.  The people of Bree know it. 

And what’s up with Gandalf?  I’ve known him a long time.  Indirectly, not directly very much.  He was always Grey and he was only promoting that.  I didn’t know he was White until a number of months ago he happened to turn White.  And now he wants to be known as White.  So, I don’t know.  Is he Grey or White?  I respect either one, but he obviously doesn’t because he was Grey all the way then all of a sudden, he made a turn and he went, he became a White Wizard.  I already have a White Wizard.  Saruman.  Great guy.  He’s building me an army right now.  Way better than Gandalf.  He once captured Gandalf you know.  Held him on top of Orthanc at Isengard until some eagle rescued him.  Couldn’t even rescue himself.  Loser.  I prefer wizards who don’t get captured.

Which reminds me of a conversation I had some time back in the Second Age with Cirdan the Shipwright.  Don’t like him much, he was never nice to me, but he does know how to build boats.  So, I asked him, ‘what would happen if one of your boats sank, and you’re in the boat, and you have this tremendously powerful elf magic that powers the boat, and the elf magic is under water, and there’s a Balrog that’s approximately 10 yards over there?’  By the way, a lot of Balrog attacks lately, do you notice that?  Lot of Balrogs.  I watched some guys justifying it today, ‘Well, they weren’t really that angry, they bit off the young lady’s leg because of the fact that they were not hungry but they misunderstood who she was.’  These people are crazy.  He said, ‘there no problem with Balrogs, they just didn’t really understand a young woman swimming.’  No, really got decimated, and other people, too, a lot of Balrog attacks.  So, I said to Cirdan, ‘There’s a Balrog 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards, or here.  Do I get zapped with elf magic if the boat is sinking, water gets in the elf magic, the boat is sinking?  Do I stay on top of the boat and get zapped, or do I jump over by the Balrog and not get zapped?’  Because I tell you, he didn’t know the answer.  He said, ‘You know, nobody’s ever asked me that question.’  I said, ‘I think it’s a good question.  I think there’s a lot of elf magic coming through that water.’  But you know what I’d do if there was a Balrog or you could get zapped with elf magic?  I’ll take elf magic every single time.  I’m not getting near the Balrog.  So, we’re going to end elf magic.  We’re going to end it for boats, we’re going to end it for wagons.’ 

I’m sure by now you can see that the answer to all of Middle Earth’s problems is myself.  No one has plans like I do.  Or concepts of plans.  My concepts are always the best.  Because, as you can tell, I am a very stable genius.  Smarter than anyone.  You know it.  I know it.  And soon all of Middle-earth will know it.  So, here’s what you can do: nothing.  Just sit back, drink your Covefe, and let me do as I will.  I’ll be doing it soon anyway.  You can’t stop me.  And then you’ll never have to do anything again. 

Your Soon to be (again) Dark Lord,

Sauron the Great

MLK and the Theology of Hope

Say not the days are evil – Who’s to blame?

Or fold your hands, as in defeat – O shame!

Stand up, speak out, and bravely,

In God’s name…

It matters not how deep entrenched the wrong,

How hard the battle goes, the day how long,

Faint not.  Fight on!

Maltbie D. Babcock

This past week we marked the day that honors the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  No doubt you heard and read many eloquent testimonies to his life, legacy, and patient endurance in the face of evil.  Among the words I read were these from the editorial board of The Washington Post:

‘King preached both urgency and patience – nonviolent perseverance in the face of fire hoses, dogs, beatings, lynchings.  Every second of marginalization [for African Americans] was intolerable.  Yet it took a decade after King’s 1955 Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott for Congress to approve the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1955.  Enslaved Americans had been freed a century before.  King did not lose hope.  He kept working.’ 

King understood that it takes patience to overcome evil.  For King evil was not theoretical.  He knew that evil is real and difficult to root out.  In the face of all that he and his partners endured in the struggle against evil, the obstacles that stood in the way of progress, and the slow pace of reform, it would have been easy for him to have lost hope and given up.  Truth be told, there were moments when he was tempted to do so.  But he never did.  He kept hoping.  He kept working. 

In this, I submit, King expressed the Theology of Hope. 

The Theology of Hope always endures in the face of evil.  It knows that in a fallen, broken world, evil exists, and that from time to time, gains the power to, for a time, have its way.  But it does not let that knowledge quench the hope for better days.  It believes.  It perseveres.  It works for better days even when their arrival is delayed.  For it knows, as King so famously said (although it was actually the Reverend Theodore Parker who said it first) that ‘the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.’ 

We need King’s perspective in the times we face.  As a new year breaks upon the shore of our lives, there is much that might cause us to despair.  America is becoming balkanized.  People believe the most bizarre conspiracy theories.  A slow-moving coup continues apace.  The days when people pulled together and sacrificed for the sake of the general welfare seem to be gone forever; individualism, at least in some quarters, has all but triumphed over communitarian love for neighbor.  Truth is both relative and disposable.  Democratic principle, the foundation on which our society has been built, however imperfectly, is under assault and crumbling.  What happens when the very foundations of a society are broken?  When everyone does what is right in their own eyes?  When truth is lost, and people are divided?  History tells the answer: evil rises and takes over.  And yes, my friends, we are witnessing evil rising to do so before our very eyes.

I suppose some at this point may be thinking, ‘Gee, Brent doesn’t sound very hopeful.  Where is his Theology of Hope?’  Please bear with me.  I confess that I am not extremely hopeful about stopping evil in its tracks at the moment.  Evil exists in our society (it always does in any society) and all signs point to its rising.  We may well be entering a period of time unlike any experienced in most of our lifetimes, a period when evil men and women take the reins of power and bring down the veil of darkness.  Just how dark things may get I cannot say.  But darkness does indeed seem to be on the horizon.  To say so is not to express the loss of hope.  Rather, it is to acknowledge current trends. It is to acknowledge the same reality that King knew, that from time to time, and for a time, evil, which always exists, gains in power.   

Hope, you see, is not the fool’s hope that denies the existence of evil, but the solid ground on which we stand even as it rises.  Hope abounds, even when evil seems to gain the upper hand.  I for one, have not lost hope in these darkening days.  For I know what King knew.  Evil exists, and evil may prosper for a time.  This is the reality of life in a fallen world.  But the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice.  It bends toward love.  And if that is true, and it is, then evil will not endure.  It may have its hour, but in the end, it will be cast down.  Love and justice will have the final say. 

Christian faith proclaims this.  It proclaims the Theology of Hope.  As a Christian, I believe in the light that shines in the darkness that shall never be overcome.  I believe in the God who raises the dead, who can turn the darkest days to the bright morning light.  I believe in the day of evil’s destruction and the restoration of all things.  I believe in the sun of righteousness that rises with healing in its wings.  And I believe that, until that day comes, while the darkness may come from time to time, the darkness will last only a night; everlasting joy will come with the morning. 

So what do we do if we live to see days when darkness falls in deepening shades? 

There is a great scene in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, in which Frodo Baggins, having found himself torn from his beloved and peaceful Shire and cast into the center of a cosmic battle between good and evil, laments that such circumstances have come during his lifetime.  ‘I wish the ring had never come to me,’ he tells Gandalf, ‘I wish none of this had ever happened.’  Gandalf’s reply is remarkable: ‘So do all who live to see such times.  But that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.’  And then he adds these encouraging words: ‘There are other forces at work in this world beside the will of evil…and that is an encouraging thought.’

Indeed it is.  This is why we can have faith that the moral arc of the universe bends toward justice and love.  Because there is One who does the bending: the God of love and justice. 

And so, when evil days come, we cling to hope.  We persevere.  We endure.  And we work.  We speak truth.  We strive for justice.  We live in such a way that the world sees an alternative to the madness taking place around us.  We show the world a different future as we serve as signposts pointing to better days.  As Gandalf suggested, we do the best with the time given to us.  And we believe that God will use that time, and our efforts, to bring about better days. 

That is what Christian faith does when darkness falls.  It holds, as King did, to the Theology of Hope. 

And waits for morning.

Under Christ’s Mercy,

Brent