Tea with Tolkien

Gandalf’s words to the Mouth of Sauron: “But as for your terms, we reject them utterly. Get you gone, for your embassy is over and death is near to you. We did not come here to waste words in treating with Sauron, faithless and accursed; still less with one of his slaves. Begone!”

“‘No indeed!’ she answered, and her smile faded. ‘That would indeed be a burden,’ she added in a low voice, as if to herself. ‘The trees and the grasses and all things growing or living in the land belong each to themselves.”

In pursuit of peace and an eradication of ‘wasteful friction’, Sauron was willing to enslave the peoples of Middle-earth by force or by manipulation. He did not respect anything or anyone but saw all living things as tools for his use.

When the goal of order and efficiency is pursued at the expense of human rights, true healing and peace cannot exist.

Tolkien’s heroes reminds us that all living things have their own worth and dignity.

By contrast to Sauron, Tom Bombadil was completely free of any desire to dominate. His very existence seemed to mock Sauron. When asked who Tom was, Goldberry simply responded, “He is, as you have seen him… He is the Master of wood, water, and hill.” (LOTR, Book I, ch. 7) When Frodo asked if the land belonged to Bombadil, Goldberry responded that it did not. No, she replied, all growing or living things belonged each to themselves.

Like Tom Bombadil, each of us has been entrusted with some measure of authority. How we use this authority is important; our voices are important and our actions are consequential.

“For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.” - The Return of the King

Tolkien writing of light and high beauty being “for ever beyond” the reach of the Shadow should strike fear into the heart of evil and kindle hope in anyone who strives for goodness.

Sauron feared hope, a point underscored by his fear of Aragorn whose elvish name literally meant ‘Hope’.

“‘I do not counsel you one way or the other. I am not a counsellor. You may learn something, and whether what you see be fair or evil, that may be profitable, and yet it may not. Seeing is both good and perilous. Yet I think, Frodo, that you have courage and wisdom enough for the venture, or I would not have brought you here. Do as you will!’” - The Lord of the Rings, The Mirror of Galadriel

The elven realm of Lothlórien was unknown, clouded by doubt and magic; it was, as he had long been told, a perilous realm from which Boromir believed “none have escaped unscathed.” Aragorn responded to Boromir’s fear with a gentle correction, “Say not unscathed, but if you say unchanged, then maybe you will speak the truth.” The magic of the elves was powerful, and strange, and hidden. But it was not evil. Neither is it evil to be changed, though it may be perilous.

As Galadriel presented Frodo with the choice to look into the Mirror, she told him “seeing is both good and perilous.” To look into the Mirror of Galadriel was to see things that are, things that were, or things that yet may be. The mirror simply presented information; like Galadriel, it would not tell you to go this way or that. But for Frodo and Sam, to look into the mirror was to see things more clearly. In their visions, they each understood what was at stake should they fail, and how they were connected to a history so much greater than themselves.