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What Was Wrong with Lord Denethor?

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What was wrong with Lord Denethor? Denethor, the Stewart of Gondor, was sure he knew the future. He had one of those ancient seeing stones, Palantír. He looked into it regularly and was convinced that the battle against evil was lost. He saw too much to doubt it.

“Why do the fools fly? Better to die sooner than late, for die we must.”

When Gandalf told him to fight Mordor, he got enraged,

“Do you think the eyes of the White Tower are blind? I have seen more than you know.”

He thought he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what the future held. This “knowledge” drove him insane. The illusion of absolute knowledge is the best recipe for insanity. As Chesterton puts it, the mind of an insane person always “moves in a perfect but narrow circle.” The function of the Palantír was to draw the person into that narrow circle and lock him in it.

“If you or I were dealing with a mind that was growing morbid, we should be chiefly concerned not so much to give it arguments as to give it air, to convince it that there was something cleaner and cooler outside the suffocation of a single argument.” G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Denethor believed that Palantir was broadening his horizons but in reality, it was narrowing his field of vision. It showed only the things that aligned with the will of the one who ruled over the seeing stones. Slowly, Denethor’s “small circle of thought” became so small that he started suffocating in it.

Gandalf came to Gondor as a gust of fresh air and said, “Fight.” You don’t know the future beyond a shadow of a doubt. No one does.

“Despair is only for those who see the end beyond all doubt. We do not.”

Who knows what the next day will bring? You never know what forces are at work in this particular circumstance of your life. All you need to do is to recognize the necessity and take the next step.

“There are other forces at work in this world, Frodo, besides that of evil.”

What do we know about the future? Nothing. To recognize it is wisdom. This realization helped Chuck, Tom Hanks’s hero in Cast Away, to remain sane on his uninhabited island for four years. After being rescued, he told his friend what helped him to go on day after day without any hope of getting out of this prison. He said,

“I just continued living, breathing, until one day, everything changed. The tide gave me a chance… So I know what I will do now. I will continue to live because tomorrow will be a new day, and who knows what it will bring?”

Day after day, he continued living not knowing… until one day, the tide brought him a piece of plastic that he turned into a sail. Now he could get over the huge surf waves.

That’s exactly what Gandalf said to Aragorn, Gimly, and Legolas when they met him in the woods after his unexpected resurrection,

“I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.”

We never know what the tide will bring today. That’s why we continue living and breathing. It is not folly, as Denethor thought. It is wisdom. We don’t see the end. That’s why we are waiting for the turn of the tide.

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G.K. Chesterton and the Psychology Behind Fairy Tales

What is the psychology behind fairy tales? G.K. Chesterton’s ability to turn ordinary things into extraordinary things is extraordinary.

“For those who think that dandelions are only a nuisance, let us point out that they possess the pure gold of a fairy tale.” G.K. Chesterton

I watched a video once about him years ago where he was challenged to find something poetic about a mailbox. In minutes, he came up with an ode to the mailbox as one of the most magical objects in the universe.

When you stand in front of that slot holding your letter, you suddenly realize that you are entrusting your whole life to that “thing” and when you let go, there is no going back. Mailbox is the ultimate symbol of letting go and letting God.

Dandelions are a symbol too. Or rather the ultimate test of whether we can find the extraordinary in the ordinary.

“Through mere complexity of the earth, we may no longer see the dandelions; yet they have all the point of the stars, with none of their terrible distance.”

Modern life is complex; dandelions are simple. Modern life distracts us from appreciating simplicity. Dandelions test our ability to remember the stars in heaven.

In Genesis 4:17, the first thing Cain did after killing his brother Abel was build a city. Why would he even come up with such a strange idea? There were no cities before. Apparently, he instinctively sought protection from “those who might kill him.” Also, he was afraid of becoming “a fugitive and wonderer,” so he built a place that accumulates people.

Apparently, the city served two purposes — by accumulating many people in one place, you make life complicated. Complexity allows you to not notice simple things — like dandelions. Cain didn’t want to see simple things because they reminded him of the stars of heaven. You don’t see many stars in the city. You are too distracted to look up — or down.

In Russian, the word for “city” (город) is etymologically connected to the verb “to insulate oneself” (отгородиться). The city allows you to insulate yourself from everyone else even though you are literally among thousands. You have the illusion of being around people, but in reality, you are protected from them all. That’s why the cities exterminate dandelions — they are too simple and remind people of the stars.

They remind us of the pure gold of a fairy tale. Fairy tales are simple, and they rarely take place in the city (unless it’s an enchanted city). Fairy tales usually call us out of the city and lead us into forests, meadows, dales, and mountains. The function of a fairy tale is simple — return us to the original simplicity. Only original simplicity is powerful enough to re-enchant those who have been disenchanted.

What is the psychology behind fairy tales?

The doors to Narnia are many. In fact, they are everywhere. We don’t see them because our lives are too complicated. We weed the fairy tale out just like we weed out dandelions. However, the fairy tale still grows wherever it can find a patch of land. It can’t be exterminated. It is stubborn like all weeds.

Its function is simple — to re-enchant us back from the barren place of self-isolation and into the enchanted woods where everything is a door into the enchanted land. We need those “tremendous trifles” — like dandelions — to remind us that there’s nothing ordinary, and everything is, ultimately, a living symbol ushering us into an invisible Kingdom.

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How Aletheia Saves Us From the Shadows of Lethe

How does Aletheia save us from the shadows of Lethe? The mythological river Lethe in the kingdom of Hades is the river of “oblivion.” Lethe means oblivion or forgetfulness. The river flows through hell, and whatever falls into Lethe is forgotten.

Surprisingly, Lethe is related to the Greek aletheia, truth. The prefix “a” means “the opposite of” and Lethe means oblivion. Truth is something that doesn’t fall into Lethe. In Greek, aletheia is something that doesn’t fall into oblivion.

But what doesn’t fall into oblivion? Eventually, everything falls into oblivion. Everything is forgotten, except the things (and the times) we have salvaged from being consumed by the flow of chronological time.

Salvaged time is the time snatched from oblivion. It is aletheia.

“Yes, says the Spirit, they are blessed indeed, for they will rest from their hard work; for their good deeds follow them!” Rev. 14:13

Whatever we have done in chronological time to transcend chronological time remains. It follows us. It has been saved from Lethe. It is aletheia. It cannot disappear. Michelangelo said,

“The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.”

In aletheia, we turn shadows into glimpses of divine perfection. They cannot disappear. We do something “into the law in which we were made” – to use Tolkien’s vernacular. We become sub-creators.

We have glimpsed divine perfection, and we reproduce it within the confines of our shadow world. The only way to salvage the world of shadows from falling into the shadow of oblivion is to transcend the shadows.

Whether we bake bread, write articles, talk to a friend over a cup of tea, build a cathedral, or fix cars – if we glimpse and reflect the divine spark in what we do, we engage in aletheia. We transcend the shadow land.

Everything in the shadow land is a shadow until we see through it and infuse it with divine perfection. We can do it by virtue of our divine birth. We have that spark in us. We are that spark. We are but shadows transcending ourselves by pursuing aletheia every moment of the day.

How does Aletheia save us from the shadows of Lethe? When we pursue aletheia, it follows us. We rise above Lethe. We are timeless.

“Great art is an instant arrested in eternity.” James Huniker

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Why is the Frame Important According to G.K. Chesterton?

Why is the frame important? Believe it or not, the most important thing in an artwork is the frame. Without the frame, it looks incomplete and undefined. However, if you have the right frame for it, it acquires some completeness — almost by magic. The frame allows the inherent beauty of a thing to come out.

If you take a few dry leaves and put them in an appropriate frame, you will get a herbarium. The frame limits the scope of your possibilities, and yet it reveals beauty. Beauty is revealed in and through limitations. Every piece of literature that has endured through centuries frames the hero’s adventures in some limitations.

The limitations allow the beauty to shine. Les Miserables, The Lord of the Rings, The Shack, The Brothers Karamazov, the Gospels — the more limitations the hero has the more this silent question arises in our minds, “Will he go through it beautifully or not?”

We know how our own limitations make us feel. We know they present obstacles to how much we can do. We wish them away. We wish we weren’t limited — or at least, less limited. We think without limitations, we will walk through life more beautifully. We won’t. We may get through life, but it won’t be a piece of art.

For a life to be a piece of art, limitations must exist. The question is not, “What will I do to get rid of these limitations? The question is, “What will I do within these limitations to reveal beauty?” The frame gives us the impetus to transcend our limitations without getting rid of them.

Of course, we can get rid of some of our limitations (thankfully). However, there will always be some that will stay. They are the frame within which we have the opportunity to rise above the frame. The frame is here to lead us out of our limitations. A framed piece of art doesn’t look limited. It looks boundless.

G.K. Chesterton once sprained his foot and used the opportunity to write an ode to his healthy leg. He reflects on the poetic pleasures of standing on one leg and appreciates the strength and beauty of his healthy leg. He points out that the isolation of one leg, similar to a single tower or tree, allows for a deeper appreciation of life. In conclusion, he says that to truly value something, we must realize the possibility of its loss​.

“The way to love anything is to realise that it might be lost.”

And:

“An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.”

We are all artists drawing our lives within the constraints of our frame. What will I do with my limitations today? I can either bemoan them or try to rise above them. They can be either an obstacle or a beauty revealer. The question is, “Will I walk through this beautifully today?”

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How Do We Understand What a Text Means?

How do we understand what a text means? How do we know what Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis, or Tolkien meant? Is it enough to read their books? How do we elicit meaning?

Isn’t it curious that God didn’t come to humanity with a book? He came with a body. The ultimate knowledge of God is enfleshed in the Son of God. He walked among us, and we saw his glory. The Logos became flesh and dwelt among us. We have seen, touched, smelled, and heard, and tasted Meaning. It affected us bodily. We dwelt in its Presence.

Apart from the body, Meaning is impervious. It is ungraspable at the level of the mind.

As Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht says:

“What we need is a form of thinking that is based on the possibility of presence and on the possibility of presence being related to meaning.”

Is meaning related to presence? It is. And our ability to perceive meaning arises from our contact with the Form. Meaning is read off of that Form in which it is embodied.

“That which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.”

The Logos must be incarnate to be perceivable. Knowledge without a body is misleading at best. We don’t arrive at Meaning through interpretation; we arrive at meaning through coming in contact with its embodied Presence.

Interpretation is misleading without Presence. It is a form of narcissism — we tend to reduce the Meaning to the lens through which we choose to see the world. When we see, touch, and taste the Presence, we don’t need to interpret. We grasp the Whole.

Interpretation is necessary when there’s no Presence. Interpretation is the child of absence. In the absence of the body, texts require interpretation. In the presence of the body, they come alive. They walk, talk, and dwell among us.

We see the text, talk with it, laugh with it, eat with it — we have a relationship with it. Meaning is what happens to us as we engage in that relationship. We know without interpreting. If we have to interpret, we don’t know.

“By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God.”

To know God means to touch his flesh. When we touch the Body, we know, and all texts come alive. When we interpret the text without touching the Body, it is a dead letter.

The Spirit loves forms. It loves being in the body. It creates “felt presences.” Whatever we encounter in a text, whether it’s Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, or the Bible, already exists in this world as a Presence. Something that we can touch, see, and experience.

The moment we discover that Presence and engage with it, we discover that the text is not outside us to be interpreted. It is inside us to resonate with. We start looking for those resonances everywhere because we fall in love with the celestial Music they reveal.

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What is the Meaning of Aslan’s Name?

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What is the meaning of Aslan’s name in Narnia? I have always found it curious that the name of Aslan caused such different reactions in the Pevensie children. In fact, when I first read that passage, something jumped in me too:

“At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in its inside. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realize that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer.”

There was something relatable about it. Surprisingly, there was something relatable even in Edmund’s reaction to the name.

“But Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror.”

It felt like some judgment was going on. Not externally but internally. The name of Aslan was the ultimate revealer of what was in a person. It amplified the contents of your heart. If there was light in it, you could almost touch it. If there was darkness there, you couldn’t help but feel horror.

When I read John 3:19, it all came together:

“This is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the light.” 

What is the meaning of Aslan’s name in Narnia? When the light comes, it reveals what is. There’s nothing else to judge. Judgment is internal. It jumps from within us every moment we encounter the Light. We either delight in the light or hide from it. Depending on the state of my consciousness in the moment, the Light will either make me lighter or heavier.

The same curious thing happened in The Lord of the Rings when the company entered Lothlórien. The effect of entering the realm of the Lady was such that all the company felt the presence of some inexplicable magic.

For some, it was a delight. For others, torment. Tolkien seems to suggest that the whole land was Galadriel’s mirror — not just the stone mirror itself. As the fellowship walked through the enchanted wood, they saw their secret thoughts and desires revealed as if in a mirror.

Some liked it; others hated it. But they couldn’t hide from it. They stepped into a land of the Last Judgement unfolding 24/7. Galadriel wasn’t the Judge — she was the revealer of what was in each person’s heart. The Judgement was internal, not external.

For Boromir it was torment. For Aragorn, it was a delight. Boromir said,

“It is said that few come out who once go in; and of that few none have escaped unscathed.’ ‘Say not unscathed, but if you say unchanged, then maybe you will speak the truth,’ said Aragorn.”

In the final analysis, we are all judged by how we respond to our encounter with the Ultimate Beauty. For some, it is an eternal delight. For some, eternal torment. If you come with a pure heart, it is a delight. If you come with an idol, it is a curse.

The Light is always sweet for the one who allows it in. It is a horror to the one who doesn’t. The encounter with the Ultimate Beauty can be either heaven or hell — depending on what is inside one’s heart already.

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What is the Symbolism Of Pygmalion and Galatea?

What is the symbolism of Pygmalion and Galatea? As we walked around a quaint souvenir shop in Wytheville, VA, called Wilderness Road World Trading, I found myself gazing at some of the statues for minutes. Dancers looked like they had frozen into their position a moment before I glanced at them. Faces looked so real that it seemed they could raise their eyes back at you any moment. They made me think of Pygmalion and Galatea.

The story of Pygmalion is really simple but deep. According to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Pygmalion was a sculptor who fell in love with a statue he had carved. The statue was so perfect that he wanted it to come alive. He prayed to Aphrodite and asked her to make the statue come alive. Aphrodite granted his wish.

Michelangelo said,

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”

Every artist understands Pygmalion’s feelings. When you pour your soul into something you make, you want it to come alive and have a life of its own. You want it to be separate from you. You look at the work of your hands, you love it, and you want it to be free.

Love, by its nature, wants to free its object. Separation is a necessary overflow of love. Love diversifies. And yet, deep down it knows that the more separate you are from the one you love, the more you are one with the one you love. This is a chief paradox of love. You want the object of your love to be free, separate, and yet, it does not lead to division. It leads to unity.

Divisions are always the result of forced, contrived unity. The devil forces unity to divide. God diversifies to unite. The devil erases all differences and causes splits. God creates distinctions and causes unity. Pygmalion wanted Galatea to have a life of her own so he could love her. It’s the only thing love can do. Love must free its object. Hate must swallow its object — consume it into itself.

Love is by its nature trinitarian. The Three Divine Persons are totally separate from each other and yet, totally one. Every Person of the Trinity wants the Other to be as Other as possible, and yet, the more “other” they are, the more one they become. They are totally free from each other and yet, inextricably bound.

If you love something you make, you want it to exist separately from you. Pygmalion freed Galatea from the stone slab so she could love him back. True love feels the trinitarian dance between separation and unity. It is after harmony. It won’t settle for less.

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What is “Through the Looking Glass” About?

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What is “Through the Looking Glass” about? One of my favorite quotes from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland runs like this:

“Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.”

“It makes perfect sense,” I thought after reading it. Since that fateful morning when she followed the white rabbit into the hole, she wasn’t quite herself. Everything was topsy-turvy, to say the least.

That’s probably what the disciples felt around Jesus when he would say things like,

“You give them something to eat.”

They said to him, “That would take more than half a year’s wages! Are we to go and spend that much on bread and give it to them to eat?”

When you have been around Jesus for a while, you are not quite yourself anymore. He always says something that blows your mind into smithereens. How can you give something you don’t have?

Apparently, you have much more than you think you do. Apparently, you are other than what you think you are. It’s just the sort of jaw-dropping reaction that Jesus is after. He is creating a nonsensical situation that helps people make sense out of life. He turns the world upside down for us to see what it looks like.

G.K. Chesterton said: “Paradox is truth standing on her head to get attention.” We all have more than we think we do. As Eckhart Tolle said:

“Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you are withholding from the world.”

Whatever you think the world is withholding from you, you already have, but unless you allow it to flow out, you won’t even know that you have it. This reminds me of the “Looking-glass cake” that Alice was trying to cut before handing it out. It didn’t work — the pieces would join back together.

“You don’t know how to manage Looking-glass cakes,” the Unicorn remarked. “Hand it round first, and cut it afterwards.”

It sounded so nonsensical that Alice got up and obediently carried the dish around. The cake divided itself in three pieces as she did so.

We are more than we know. We have more than we think we do. The world is upside down — it must be put on its head for us to see what it really is. By going through the Looking-glass, we, like Alice, will be changing several times until we find ourselves. To make sense, everything must be other than what it seems to be.

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t.” Alice

We can only give what we don’t have. We can only have what we have given up. We can only know what we don’t. We can only win if we surrender. It is so nonsensical that we get up like Alice and obediently carry the dish around. Surprisingly, as we do so, it works!

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What is St. Francis of Assisi Best Known For?

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What is St. Francis of Assisi best known for? In Franco Zeffirelli’s Brother Sun and Sister Moon, all of Francesco’s friends believe that Francesco is out of his mind. One by one, they go to the ruins of San Damiano, where Francesco single-handedly restores an old church, to reason with him and bring him back to his senses. However, after looking into his eyes, they join him — one by one.

It’s all about someone’s eyes. Subconsciously, we always look for the eyes that radiate divine electricity. That’s why we are mesmerized by children at play. We are mesmerized by birds, fish, mountains, rivers, and clouds. They all exude the light that we are drawn to and want to participate in.

All the greatest world movements start from catching that Divine electricity in someone’s eyes. The person creates a magnetic field that draws us in. They are like a magnet that creates an electric current in all conductors. You feel it stirring in you, and you want to pass it on.

All major movements were born out of that spark. As long as this initial spark is there, the movement exists and is alive. When that spark goes, the movement dies and gets institutionalized. The institution is what remains after the electricity is gone. It is the only way to keep the form where there’s no substance.

The scene in the Pope’s palace in Brother Sun and Sister Moon is telling. Pope Innocent III played by Alec Guinness sits on his high throne encircled by cardinals. When St. Francis walks in with his disciples, they look like a bunch of bums. They are dirty and dressed in rags. But something shines in their eyes.

As St. Francis talks about his vision, the camera zooms in on Pope’s eyes. With every sentence out of St. Francis’s mouth, his eyes grow bigger and bigger. You can tell that he is drawn in. The cardinals want to drive the vagabonds out, but the Pope rises from his seat and walks down the steps. And then, the most unexpected thing happens — he kneels before St. Francis and kisses his dirty feet.

There’s silence in the hall. No one knows what’s happening. Franco Zeffirelli’s camera zooms in on Alec Guinness’s eyes. You can tell that the Pope wants to join them. You can see it in his eyes. They sparkle. The cardinals see it too. They start panicking and pull him away from St. Francis. They put the tiara back on his head so he won’t be carried away.

After a moment of “insanity,” the Pope is reminded of his duties. The sparkle goes out of his eyes. He allows the cardinals to put all his papal regalia back on him. His eyes grow dim. He is the Pope again. The moment of insanity is gone. But you can see the immense sadness behind his eyes. He succumbs to his duties of being the head of the institution while his heart wants to be moved by the Divine electricity.

St. Francis stretches his hands toward him but is pulled further back by the cardinals. The church starts singing “Gloria in Excelsis Dei.” As St. Francis and his disciples leave, he turns around and looks back twice. He is searching for the Pope’s eyes. You can tell they are kindred spirits. But the camera never shows the Pope’s eyes. He is back in his role. The role that doesn’t allow for electricity.

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The Dream of Dalai Lama About the 21st Century

I heard a dream of Dalai Lama on YouTube the other day where he said he had been dreaming that in THIS CENTURY, the world would become one big happy family.

I thought, “Oh… Sounds like wishful thinking. Based on how this century began, I really doubt that the continuation will be any different. Humanity is too sick – just like most people it consists of, including me.”

But then he added something interesting. He said we would only need one thing for it to happen – a realization of the oneness of all humanity.

I scratched my head: “He’s on to something here.”

And then he said that this one realization would be enough to uproot the very cause of all war and conflict.

I found myself thinking: “Yes, of course.”

The problem is that I don’t see myself in anything except me. Then I thought, “Hm… often, I don’t even see myself in me either.”

Then, I thought, “How interesting – when I don’t see myself in others, I don’t see myself in me. And when I see myself in others, I see myself in me.” Serendipitously, a phrase by Jesus popped up in my mind that I had read recently,

“Most certainly I tell you, because you didn’t do it to one of the least of these, you didn’t do it to me.”

When I look at the other person, what do I see? How I treat them is secondary; how I see them is primary. Do I see God in them? If so, God is in me. If not, God is not in me.

In other words, if I didn’t recognize Jesus in another person, I don’t know him, and he doesn’t know me. I miss out on Heaven, and I am in hell. Conversely, if I do recognize Jesus in the other person, I know him, and he knows me. I am in Heaven.

Recognizing God in the other is the ultimate litmus test for whether God is in me. The hell we are seeing around us is a sure sign that God is not in us. If he is not in the other one, he is not in me.

When there’s no sense of connection between me and the other person, I have lost God… and myself. But how do I recognize myself in the other? It happens when I start looking beyond appearances. If I start with an assumption that there’s more to a person than meets the eye, I will start getting glimpses of the Divine in them.

C.S. Lewis said in The Weight of Glory,

“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”

There is divinity behind every appearance. Sometimes, it is distorted, but it’s there. If I see it, I have redeemed the appearance. I have glimpsed through. I have seen the divine spark.

Meister Eckhart says there’s only one way to attain this divine soul spark in yourself and in the other:

“Therefore, I say, if a man turns away from self and from created things, then – to the extent that you do this – you will attain oneness and blessedness in your soul’s spark, which time and place never touched.”

There’s no ethics before seeing this divine spark. All ethics flow out of it – ethics spring from esthetics. The moment we let go of self and all created things, we sink into the stillness and darkness that is brighter than light.

According to Meister Eckhart, we attain the divine spark not through any effort or “addition” on our part but rather through the process of gradual subtraction.

“Everything is meant to be lost so that the soul may stand in unhampered nothingness.”

To attain true knowledge and commune with the One, we need to recover our inner silence – the language of the primordial Void in which the worlds were made. Then, in this unhampered nothingness, we will start hearing the Music of the One incarnated in the many. 

The fragmented world will disappear, and all things will become one, just as it says, “God will be all in all.”

“All that a man has here externally in multiplicity is intrinsically One. Here all blades of grass, wood, and stone, all things are One. This is the deepest depth.” Meister Eckhart

Until I let go of self, I can’t see the divine spark in the other. Holding on to self blocks my spiritual vision. But if I let it go, I exclaim like Bilbo Baggins after he had dropped the One Ring,

“I have thought of a nice ending for it [my book]: and he lived happily ever after to the end of his days.”