Mount Doom: Responding to Despair with Truth (a Psalm 42:5 Moment)

On this Good Friday, with the chapter “Mount Doom” on the Lenten reading schedule for the Lord of the Rings, we see so many things that show Frodo as a type of Christ, bearing his cross and the cares of all of Middle Earth (the ring), complete with Sam in the role of Simon of Cyrene, carrying Frodo to the end, with the burden itself not falling on Sam.

One other intriguing thing from this chapter, though, particularly speaks to me in the reading this year: the conversation that Sam has with himself, his final answer to despair.  For here we see Sam actually talking to and responding to the despair in his heart, responding with firm answers grounded in truth – a vivid example of the truth behind Psalm 42:5, “Why, my soul, are you downcast?  Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise Him, my Savior and my God.”

I first learned this precept several years ago, while dealing with depression, and reading Martyn Lloyd Jones’ work “Spiritual Depression,” which points out a valuable tool for good mental health:

Martin Lloyd Jones:  Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself?  Take those thoughts that come to you the moment you wake up in the morning.  You have not originated them, but they start talking to you, they bring back the problems of yesterday, etc.  Somebody is talking.  Who is talking to you?  Your self is talking to you.  Now this man’s treatment was this; instead of allowing this self to talk to him, he starts talking to himself, ‘Why art thou cast down, O my soul?’ he asks.  His soul had been depressing him, crushing him.  So he stands up and says, “Self, listen for a  moment.  I will speak to you.’

Sam Gamgee, the real hero of Lord of the Rings, shows here an application of this, how to combat the despair when events have finally, almost, reached the conclusion of the quest.  They have almost come to the fires of Mount Doom, to cast the cursed ring into the fires.

He could not sleep and he held a debate with himself. ‘Well, come now, we’ve done better than you hoped,’ he said sturdily. ‘Began well anyway. I reckon we crossed half the distance before we stopped. One more day will do it.’ And then he paused.

‘Don’t be a fool, Sam Gamgee,’ came an answer in his own voice. ‘He won’t go another day like that, if he moves at all. And you can’t go on much longer giving him all the water and most of the food.’

‘I can go on a good way though, and I will.’

‘Where to?’

‘To the Mountain, of course.’

‘But what then, Sam Gamgee, what then? When you get there, what are you going to do? He won’t be able to do anything for himself.’

To his dismay Sam realized that he had not got an answer to this. He had no clear idea at all. Frodo had not spoken much to him of his errand, and Sam only knew vaguely that the Ring had somehow to be put into the fire. ‘The Cracks of Doom,’ he muttered, the old name rising to his mind. ‘Well, if Master knows how to find them, I don’t.’

‘There you are!’ came the answer. ‘It’s all quite useless. He said so himself. You are the fool, going on hoping and toiling. You could have lain down and gone to sleep together days ago, if you hadn’t been so dogged. But you’ll die just the same, or worse. You might just as well lie down now and give it up. You’ll never get to the top anyway.’

‘I’ll get there, if I leave everything but my bones behind,’ said Sam. ‘And I’ll carry Mr. Frodo up myself, if it breaks my back and heart. So stop arguing!’

Sam keeps responding, trying to answer the voice of doom within himself, even when he doesn’t have the answer, or only has a partial answer.  When the next question comes, he then responds to it.  Finally he puts down the despair:  even to leaving “everything “but my bones behind,” and even to carrying Frodo up himself, though “it breaks my back and heart.  So stop arguing!”

It indeed is rather like the sayings of modern psychological advice, such as “just say no” campaign or “stop it!” (thinking of the comedic scene from Bob Newhart) — developed to the full.  Responding is not the easy thing to do, it is far easier to just listen to oneself.  Sam at this point is starved and thirsty, in a desert land without these basic physical comforts, in full ascetic mode that most of us will never experience, the dire physical conditions perhaps experienced by desert monks.  And yet the task must be done, the quest must be achieved.  It takes many replies from Sam, to many despairing thoughts, to finally conquer.  Yet  by doing this, by active effort and choice, Sam does overcome.  A few paragraphs later we read of Sam:

To his surprise he felt tired but lighter, and his head seemed clear again. No more debates disturbed his mind. He knew all the arguments of despair and would not listen to them. His will was set, and only death would break it. He felt no longer either desire or need of sleep, but rather of watchfulness.

Through Sam’s active choices, his determined will, he was given grace and his mind was set at ease.  We cannot continue solely on our own power.  The Psalmist’s answer to the “why so downcast” is to put your hope in God.  But we are not to be passive, merely listening to the voice of despair; responding to it with the truth must be done.  Sam has attained to the exhortation of 1 Peter 5:8: – “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour — and of James 4:7 “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

Here in Sam’s experience is an example, an illustration, for us all, and reminder to continue in the fight as soldiers in the cause of Christ, the very real spiritual warfare.  “For we are not ignorant of his (the enemy’s) devices.” (2 Cor. 2:11)

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Iluvatar’s Presence, and Signs and Visions (Lord of the Rings)

In Return of the King, chapter “The Land of Shadow,” Sam and Frodo are creeping slowly through Mordor, and everything around is gloom and dark, in every literal way imaginable, in a landscape comparable only to the horrors of war (with reference indeed to Tolkien’s experience of World War I). Suddenly Sam has a moment of experiencing the transcendent, a look beyond what is “under the sun.”

Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. 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. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him.

At a similar dark hour, when Sauron’s forces are coming against Minas Tirith, Pippin experiences that moment of hope and joy, in the face of Gandalf:

Pippin glanced in some wonder at the face now close beside his own, for the sound of that laugh had been gay and merry. Yet in the wizard’s face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.

These scenes and many others reflect our moments of joy and hope (in the midst of trials), those experiences of God’s presence here in our fallen world: the beauty of a star, or the experience of a nice sunny day and recalling that feeling of a vacation trip and being at ease and at peace with God.  Just as in our world, throughout Lord of the Rings Iluvatar reveals Himself to the characters in various ways, such as in moments of beauty and calm, as well as in providential signs, or dreams and visions of future scenes.

Looking for a Sign

In another situation, Aragorn the new king of Gondor looks for a sign, and is dismayed because the expected answer still has not come. Iluvatar’s purpose unfolds in an unexpected way.  In our world too, we sometimes look for a particular sign, an indication of God’s direction and will for our lives – and the answer to the prayer, the request, does come, though often not as we expect.  From book six of Return of the King:

[Aragorn] ‘The Tree in the Court of the Fountain is still withered and barren. When shall I see a sign that it will ever be otherwise?’

‘Turn your face from the green world, and look where all seems barren and cold!’ said Gandalf.

Immediately, when Aragorn looked in that direction, there was the sign: the sapling tree.

as he looked he was aware that alone there in the waste a growing thing stood. …

I have found it!  Lo, here is a scion of the Eldest of Trees!  But how comes it here?

Dreams and Visions

Then there is Frodo’s dream of the green country, at the house of Tom Bombadil — and its fulfillment in the Grey Havens:

Either in his dreams or out of them, he could not tell which, Frodo heard a sweet singing running in his mind; a song that seemed to come like a pale light behind a grey rain-curtain, and growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver, until at last it was rolled back, and a far green country opened before him under a swift sunrise.  The vision melted into waking.

Like the apostle Paul, who could not tell if he was in or out of the body when he had a great vision (2 Corinthians 12:2-3), so Frodo knew what he saw, but could not tell if it occurred in dreams or “out of them.”  And Frodo similarly received many sufferings, as did the apostle Paul — as part of the package deal, for those who receive visions must also be kept humble.

Nothing more is said about this vision, until the very end.  But there at the end, Frodo finally arrives in the place of rest (heaven), the destination of those on the ship in The Grey Havens:

And the ship went out into the High Sea and passed on into the West, until at last on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water.  And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a far green country under a swift sunrise.

In Lord of the Rings – and also in the rest of Tolkien’s legendarium – we have such abundance of literary material, and the many story incidents that we can relate to, noting the parallels to our world and life experience.  These events are just a sampling, of the seemingly endless supply for our analysis and enjoyment.

Readers, please share, some other examples of these types of things — Iluvatar’s presence, in special scenes, and signs and visions.

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