Category: The Inklings

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Invisible Guardians: Who Protected the Borders of the Shire?

Who protected the borders of the Shire? The hobbits were blissfully unaware of who they should thank for the long peace of their land. For many centuries, they lived happily in the Shire, never realizing what terrible creatures roamed just beyond their borders.

Aragorn said:

“Little do they know of our long labour for the safekeeping of their borders, and yet I grudge it not”
”

The Shire’s frontiers were carefully watched by Gandalf and by the Rangers of the North, the remnant of the DĂșnedain. They held the darkness at bay, while the hobbits remained completely oblivious to the dangers lurking beyond their green pastures.

One of the most mysterious passages in the Bible—2 Thessalonians 2:7—talks about â€œthe mystery of lawlessness that is already at work, and the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.”

Someone is holding back spiritual darkness this very minute. We don’t know who they are. They are skillful with their spiritual blade, and until they are there, chthonic monsters are kept at bay. We sip our coffee, walk in the park, enjoy the sunset, laugh with friends, watch the news, and think that the fates of the world are decided by the politicians.

They are not. The earth is preserved not by might but by salt. How much salt is needed for the earth not to spoil? Not much. A few grains. Even one blessed man may well be enough. Once, Abraham was bargaining with God about the fate of Sodom. He asked if the city would be spared for the sake of fifty righteous men. God said yes.

Abraham kept bargaining: Forty-five? Forty? Thirty? Twenty? Ten? Each time God said “yes.” Eventually, God sent his angels to rescue the last one—Lot. One grain of salt is enough to keep spiritual darkness at bay. Until that one is taken out of the way, all is well.

When chthonic monsters appear at our borders, it is a sure sign that too few Guardians remain. If the Shire is still lush and green, it must be because of Rangers still standing watch at the edges of the land. Rangers are invisible, unrecognized. When we do see them, we scarcely take notice—they look ragged, forlorn, and forgotten.

And who can tell? Maybe the good earth itself endures only because of one old man hidden away in the heart of New York, Moscow, or Beijing. Such is divine irony (from the Greek eironeía—to “feign ignorance,” or to “play the fool”). We imagine that the peace of the world is preserved in the corridors of power, yet in truth, it may be upheld in a lonely hut somewhere deep in the Siberian taiga.

Chthonic monsters are not afraid of politicians or earthly power. They fear salt and light—those who wield the razor-sharp blade of the Spirit and drive them back by their very presence. Divine irony is inscrutable: it would utterly shatter us if, even for a second, we could glimpse the ones for whose sake the sun still rises over the horizon.

The Rangers of the North walk among us unnoticed—unshaven, weary, cloaked in dust. We, the hobbits of the world, laugh at them or dismiss them, never suspecting that our own laughter still rings because someone, somewhere, wields a power beyond our comprehension.

The true balance of the cosmos is preserved not by kings, but by rejected fools who carry the divine breath in their lungs. Their songs may be too quiet for us to hear, and yet strong enough to hold back chthonic monsters until the first gleam of Dawn.

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What Does Saruman of Many Colors Mean?

What does Saruman of many colors mean? Saruman the White was white up to a point. Beyond this point, he only “seemed” white. He said to Gandalf in Orthanc,

“I am Saruman the Wise, Saruman Ring-maker, Saruman of Many Colours!’’

When Gandalf looked, he â€œsaw that his robes, which had seemed white, were not so, but were woven of all colours, and if he moved they shimmered and changed hue so that the eye was bewildered.”

The white that he once was had been broken into many colors. He was now the “rainbow Saruman.” Saruman believed in breaking things to find out what they were. He believed this would give him power. According to Gandalf, he strayed from the path of wisdom,

“And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.”

When you want to know what something “is,” you can’t break it. You must encounter it as a Whole. Being is holistic. It’s not breakable. It’s not reduceable. A thing that is cannot be less than it is. To know the White one must encounter the White, not break the White into many colors.

For Saruman, the White was only the beginning. He wanted to “use” the White for his purposes. He wasn’t interested in “knowing” the White; he was interested in “using” the White. What you want to know you can’t break. What you want to use you can’t help breaking.

‘‘White!’’ he sneered. ‘‘It serves as a beginning. White cloth may be dyed. The white page can be overwritten; and the white light can be broken.’’

Gandalf wisely retorts,

‘‘In which case it is no longer white.”

A broken white is not white. A whole white is not a thing to be used but a living reality to participate in. Participation is the highest wisdom. Gandalf knew it in his gut. He learned it from Nienna herself, the Queen of Pity when he was her pupil in times immemorial when his name was OlĂłrin. From Nienna, he learned patience and compassion.

He praised Bilbo for showing compassion to Golum — knowing that he had a part to play in the Whole, for better or worse. He trusted that the Hobbits would destroy the One Ring because he had perceived their part in the Great Music. He had learned to be patient and wait for the Whole to unfold. That’s why he became Gandalf the White — or Saruman as he should have been.

Later, Tolkien would write in his Mythopoeia,

Man, Sub-creator, the refracted light
through whom is splintered from a single White
to many hues, and endlessly combined
in living shapes that move from mind to mind.

The White can either be broken or refracted. When broken and used, it ceases to be white. When refracted to be encountered, it remains the Living White — and creates a symphony of colors. When we encounter the Living White, it passes through us and gets refracted to many hues without being diminished.

Everyone who participates in the Living White shines with refracted light. They become sub-creators, each refracting the White in his or her own way.

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Is Hermeneutics Related to Hermes? How to Reunite the Chards of Babel

Is hermeneutics related to Hermes? The word hermeneutics comes from the ancient Greek verb ጑ρΌηΜΔύΔÎčÎœ (hermēneuein) — “to interpret, explain, translate”—which is etymologically and conceptually related to Hermes. True hermeneutics comes from Hermes.

The ancients believed that the messages of the gods were too cryptic for humans to grasp without an interpreter. Hermes—Mercury in Roman lore—was seen as the god of speech. In him, the transcendent meanings were translated into human language.

Hermes was a liminal figure—someone “in-between” worlds, times, and meanings. He embodied the idea of interpretation as a journey across a threshold. To truly understand a divine message, we must be carried from one realm into another—borne on winged sandals.

Without this journey, there is no understanding. Understanding is less a matter of data analysis than a passage between worlds. We must be transported across the threshold by Hermes himself. This ancient personification of understanding was, in its way, a prefiguration of â€œThe Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

The Logos becomes a felt Presence so that we might understand God. Echoing the descent of the Logos to earth, C.S. Lewis describes the descent of Mercury in That Hideous Strength in terms that are almost Pentecostal:

“There came an instant at which both men [Ransom and Merlin] braced themselves
 All the fragments—needle‑pointed desires, brisk merriments, lynx‑eyed thoughts—went rolling to and fro like glittering drops and reunited themselves. It was well that both men had some knowledge of poetry
 For Ransom
 it was heavenly pleasure. He found himself sitting within the very heart of language, in the white‑hot furnace of essential speech
 For the lord of Meaning himself, the herald, the messenger, the slayer of Argus, was with them.” That Hideous Strength, â€œThe Descent of the Gods.”

It was the felt presence of Mercury that brought celestial clarity to Ransom and his friends. And it was his felt presence that ultimately overthrew that hideous strength whose power chiefly came from perverting essential speech. What is essential speech? It’s the “reunited” speech that slays Argus—the giant with a hundred eyes, a fitting symbol of the ever-watchful N.I.C.E.

Broken speech can only be made whole in Pentecost. The fire of Pentecost reforges language, gathering the chards scattered by the confusion of Babel. It is the felt presence of the Lord of Meaning that enables us to understand. Yet in our own day, hermeneutics has been severed from Hermes—through the assumption that meaning can exist apart from Presence.

Unless the Word is enfleshed, it remains intangible and therefore hidden. There is no hermeneutics without an encounter with Hermes. Hermeneutics is often treated as an objective method of extracting meaning from a text, as if meaning resides solely in the words. But true meaning can only be found in the felt Presence of the Word.

During Covid, most of us met online, and for a while we thought it was no different from meeting in person. Yet after a couple of years of staring at screens, we realized how much meaning we were missing. We craved flesh-and-blood people. We longed for the eyes, the touch, the embrace. But why? All the words were conveyed just fine. The words were there—Hermes was not.

Without the descent of Hermes we can’t feel the heavenly pleasure of being â€œin the very heart of Language,” which is true hermeneutics. We hear words through headphones, see faces on screens, yet our hearts yearn for more. For what? For embodied Meaning—for the “Word made flesh.” And then, at last, the Covid restrictions were lifted, and we saw real human faces again.

In that moment, many of us realized—in a flash of Platonic anamnesis—that meaning cannot be digitized. It can only be read in the living contours of a real human face. Words without a body may denote, but they do not mean.

“We should not forget that there is more to the world than what we can interpret. The materiality and immediacy of our experiences are just as important.” Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Production of Presence

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Melkor’s Lies: How to Remove the Fear of Death

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How to remove the fear of death? Speaking of the beginning of days, The Silmarillion says that IlĂșvatar gave Men “strange gifts.” First, he set eternity in their hearts so they would always desire to go beyond the visible world:

“But to the Atani I will give a new gift.’ Therefore he willed that the hearts of Men should seek beyond the world and should find no rest therein; but they should have a virtue to shape their life, amid the powers and chances of the world, beyond the Music of the Ainur, which is as fate to all things else.” The Silmarillion

Second, he gave them a gift of finiteness.

“Death is their fate, the gift of IlĂșvatar, which as Time wears even the Powers shall envy.”

But what is there to envy? Why would even the Valar envy Men? It turns out that in the beginning, Men didn’t fear death. Fear of death was instilled into their hearts by Melkor who deceived them by saying that it was Iluvatar’s punishment rather than a gift.

“But Melkor has cast his shadow upon it, and confounded it with darkness, and brought forth evil out of good, and fear out of hope.”

Melkor’s shadow had a name; its name was Ungoliant—a monstrous spider born out of his envy. She was neither an Ainur nor Maiar. Most likely, she was Melkor’s Shadow-Self, his own insatiable darkness, which he feared. It was Ungoliant who first spun a spiritual darkness called Unlight, for it was made in mockery of light.

“The Light failed; but the Darkness that followed was more than loss of light. In that hour was made a Darkness that seemed not lack but a thing with being of its own: for it was indeed made by malice out of Light.”

The darkness that existed before was not a spiritual darkness—it was merely an absence of light. That first darkness was part of a good creation. When the Elves awakened at the Bay of CuiviĂ©nen, they beheld the stars of Varda in the night sky for a long age. There was nothing scary about it. Light and darkness were but paints in the hand of Iluvatar.

Ungoliant infused the first darkness with malice, filling it with “nets of strangling doom.” She cast Melkor’s shadow on it. Darkness became a source of existential fear. Later, Melkor cast his shadow upon the gift of Iluvatar—Man’s mortality. He deceived Men into believing that death was not a gift but a doom, and they started craving immortality. Eventually, they decided to seize it by force, which led to the fall of Numenor.

Melkor impressed upon the hearts of Men that death was a punishment—a severing from Iluvatar. Distorted by Morgoth’s lies, death became a mockery of God’s gift—Men’s ability to leave the Circles of the World and be renewed. While the Elves were bound to the fate of the world, growing weary of its unending cycles, Men were granted the grace to depart and be renewed.

In the beginning, there was no more fear in dying than in falling asleep. Men knew they would get up “in the morning” refreshed. They simply let go of their consciousness and slept, until newness, freshness, rest, restoration, and hope overtook them.

Curiously, most people who have had a near-death experience report that after their return, they no longer fear death. A friend of a friend—who died of a brain tumor, saw heaven, and returned after being miraculously healed—says she doesn’t fear dying anymore. She says, there is no death. You don’t even lose consciousness.

“What struck you the most in Heaven?” asked the person who interviewed her. She answered, “That God is a Sound—an ineffable and irresistible Sound that you hear everywhere: in all things, in others, and in yourself.”

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What is True Art? Tolkien and Heidegger on Art vs. Machine

What is true art? Speaking of “The Machine” in On Fairy-Stories, Tolkien contrasts it with organic, sub-creative work of a true artist or storyteller.

By the [Machine] I intend all use of external plans or devices (apparatus) instead of development of the inherent inner powers or talents—or even the use of these talents with the corrupted motive of dominating: bulldozing the real world, or coercing other wills.

So, what is the Machine? It’s anything external I use to force my will upon the world. According to Tolkien, the Machine differs from Art (sub-creation) in that it arises from a desire to amplify self-will rather than from an attunement to the Music of IlĂșvatar.

All true Art, which is the province of the Elves, proceeds from one’s inner alignment with the Great Music. The Elves first hear the Music and then express it through their Art. Their purpose is to attune to the Thought of IlĂșvatar in all things and to pour this harmony into the world. In contrast, the purpose of the Machine-creator is to attune to self-will and devise ways to impose it upon the outer world.

Art is prayer springing from: â€œThy will be done”; the Machine is anti-prayer springing from: â€œMy will be done.” Art is internal; the Machine is external. In The Lord of the Rings, Tolkien insists that evil cannot be defeated by wielding the Power of the Ring.

You can make the Ring into an allegory of our own time, if you like: an allegory of the inevitable fate that waits for all attempts to defeat evil power by power. Letter 96 to Christopher

When we use external means to defeat external means we amplify the external means. The Machine perpetuates the Machine. Power cannot defeat power. Paradise cannot be achieved through external means. Only the renunciation of power can overcome power. Art is the ultimate renunciation of external power and amplification of the internal power—the intrinsic power of Being.

That’s why the Art of the Elves is not technology. It may look like technology—Elvish ropes, robes, fials, boats, lembas bread, blades, ploughs, bows, harps, bowls, etc.—its purpose is not domination but the manifestation of the Great Music in the world. All Art taps into spiritual power and brings it into the physical realm, which is the ultimate triumph over evil.

The “products” of Art reveal the Music. That’s why the Elvish rope burns Gollum’s neck—he can’t bear the “sound” of the Great Music. That’s why all Elvish things ward off evil, not through external force but by the light they emanate. The “power” of Sting lies not in its external properties but in how much Divine light it carries.

Elvish tools—chisels, harps, hammers, bowls—are not technology in the conventional sense of the word but an organic part of the creative process. Elvish boats are carved with Elvish knives, each infused with a prayer to Elbereth. Elvish tools are not “external means” to bend reality to the Elvish will; they are an outer expression of their inner attunement to the Higher Will. So, what is true art?

As Heidegger says in his essay The Question Concerning Technology, modern technology is not just an instrument — it’s a way of revealing (aletheia). It reveals how we view the world. It is a Gestell (enframing) — a rigid framework that configures our vision, causing us to see everything as a resource. Its purpose is to order and command nature, not to listen to its Song.

Modern technology doesn’t hear any Song, and it teaches us not to hear it either. It limits our perception of reality, reducing everything—including humans—to mere means to an end. After renouncing the nature of modern technology as a Gestell, Heidegger concludes,

Because the essence of technology is nothing technological, essential reflection upon technology and decisive confrontation with it must happen in a realm that is, on the one hand, akin to the essence of technology and, on the other, fundamentally different from it. Such a realm is art.