Deep in the Old Forest, 4 hobbits, Frodo, Sam, Mary, and
Pippen followed a path beside the river with a windle.
The afternoon sun beat down upon them, and a mysterious
drowsiness began to steal over them.
Soon all four hobbits had succumbed to the enchantment of
a massive ancient Willow tree. Mary and Pippen leaned against
its trunk while Frodo wandered toward the riverbank where the
willows roots stretched into the water.
Sam alone remained vigilant. When he returned from gathering
their ponies, he discovered Frodo partly submerged in the
water, held down by a tree root. After pulling him free, they
found to their horror that Pippen had vanished entirely
into a crack in the tree's trunk while Mary was half trapped, his
legs still visible outside. Their attempts to free their
friends proved useless. In desperation, Sam suggested
fire, and they began to build a small blaze against the tree's
trunk. The Willow trembled with rage,
and Mary screamed that he was being squeezed tighter.
Frodo, panic stricken, ran on the path crying for help.
And then, remarkably, an answer came someone singing
nonsensically, drawing closer. Suddenly a curious figure
appeared, a man in a blue coat with battered hat, yellow boots
and a long brown beard, carrying water lilies.
Help, cried Frodo and Sam, rushing toward him.
Whoa, whoa, steady there, cried the man, holding up one hand,
and they stopped short. Now, my little fellows, whereby
you are going to puff in like a bellows.
What's the matter here then? Do you know who I am?
I'm Tom Bombadil. Trouble.
Tom's in a hurry now, don't you crush by lilies.
My friends are caught in the Willow tree, cried Frodo
breathlessly. Master Mary's being squeezed in
a crack, cried Sam. What?
Shouted Tom Bombadil, leaping up in the air.
Old Man Willow. Not worse than that, eh?
That can soon be mended. I know the tune for him, Old
Grey Willow man, I'll freeze his marrow coal if he don't behave
himself. I'll sig his roots off.
I'll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away.
Old Man Willow. Setting down his lilies
carefully on the grass, he ran to the tree, began singing into
the crack, broke off a branch and struck the Willow with it.
You let them out again, old Man Willow, he said.
What were you thinking of? You should not be waking.
Eat earth, dig deep, drink water, go to sleep.
Bombadil is talking. He seized Mary's feet and pulled
him free with a crack. Pippin sprang out as if kicked.
The Willow shuddered from root to tip and fell silent.
Thank you, said the hobbits. Bombadil burst out laughing.
Well, my little fellows, said he, stooping to peer into their
faces, you shall come home with me.
The table is all laden with yellow cream, honeycomb and
white bread and butter. Goldberry is waiting time and
answer for questions. Please set a supper table.
You follow after me as quick as you are able.
With that, he picked up his lilies and danced away along the
path, beckoning the grateful Hobbits to follow.
Welcome to the Imagination Redeemed podcast where we follow
the great stories further up and further in In Pursuit of the
Life of Christ. Welcome to this special episode
of the Imagination Redeemed podcast, which is also the kick
off to our four week exploration of what the character of Tom
Bombadil can teach us about vocation, calling, and mastery.
If you'd like to participate in the reading group and you're not
with us live as we're recording this, head over to
anselmsociety.org/bombadil to sign up because only this first
conversation will be on the podcast.
Before we get started, I have to thank Anselm's publications
team, especially Caroline Williams, our associate editor
and outreach coordinator, whose hard work and creativity made
this harebrained idea possible. This is what it is like to work
with me. I read a book and I come
charging out, brandishing and saying this is awesome.
We should make people talk about it with us.
And Caroline threw herself in and made it real.
So we are joined by Pastor Chris Wiley, whose book In the House
of Tom Bombadil inspired this series.
CR Wiley, thank you for joining us.
Thanks for having me, Brian. I'm really glad to be with you.
So let's just start with the the the obvious question to me,
which is you are a pastor, writer, grandfather, you've done
so many things. What prompted you to put the
time that it took into writing this particular book?
Well, I think I just simply was puzzled and pleased with my
introduction to Bombadil, and I wanted to learn a little more
about him. I had some hunches when it came
to what Tolkien was up to with the character, and I wanted to
see if those hunches were right. And also, I have a, a background
writing on the theme of the household, and I thought Tom in
particular added a dimension to the things I had written before
that was worth exploring and could compliment some of the
other things I had done. So that also played a role.
So those things were pretty significant.
And I also think that there's some things going on,
particularly with language and even metaphysics with Tom, that
are really important for actually understanding Lord of
the Rings, generally speaking. Have you found, as you've
thought about this over the years, have you found that in
your own conversations that people that have tended to have
a lot of differing opinions as to not just why he's important,
but even weather? Oh yeah, yeah.
Well I think that there are two broad groups.
One group just is exasperated with the character and just
wishes he'd go away and had never been in put in the story
in the 1st place and they're just don't know why he's there.
And then then there's another group of people who actually
really, really like the character a lot and we'd like to
know more about him. And he's enigmatic and he's
enigmatic on purpose. Tolkien tells us he intends him
to be that way, although I think he's a more fully developed
character in Tolkien's mind. He just gives hints here and
there about what he's thinking about and what he's doing with
the character. But those are the two groups,
broadly speaking, of the first group, they're all about action
and adventure, and they see this as a kind of a detour.
Maybe the best way to justify it is Tolkien didn't know what came
next, so he decided to just waste a little time on this
particular part of the book, you know, sending the hobbits into
the forest and until he figured out what to do.
But I, I know it's never satisfied with that way of
thinking about it. Tolkey was a very fussy writer
and he was known to throw out just vast reams of material if
it didn't please him. So, and then he, he did say in
at least one letter that told that Bombadil served a purpose
and that he was in the story quite he, he deliberately put
him in for, for that purpose, to serve that purpose so that then
he doesn't explain what it is. So you don't you're, you're,
you're left guessing a bit. And I tried to, as I, as I
explored the character, I tried to honor Tolkien's desire to
keep him a little mysterious. So I didn't try to over explain
him or try to pin him down. I think that would have been
presumptuous of me for one thing, but I also didn't want to
spoil the fun because I think that there's just a lot of fun
there. But I think I do think that, you
know, they're a range of theories as to just what he is
and why he's there and and so forth.
And, and they run everywhere from being just sort of a, well,
a character that Tolkien made-up and actually is the oldest
character in the story, not just in the sense that he says he's
the oldest character Middle Earth, but he actually is the
oldest character in the story because the Adventures of Tom
Bomber, that was actually published before The Hobbit was
published. So there's that.
But then, you know, to the other extreme where he's a Lou Vitar
Incarnate, some people think that, you know, he's entered
Middle Earth, but Tolkien put that to rest as well.
He said no, he's not that. So he but then he doesn't go on
to say much more. My, my, my one of my daughter's
in law theorized that maybe he's Tolkas from the Sumarillion,
which in a in a, in a strange sort of way can kind of work.
If you're familiar with Tolkas, He's sick.
He's one of the Valar who is kind of a wrestler and is always
laughing as he's wrestling. He's and even when he's pursuing
Morgoth or Melkor, he's having a great time.
So that was my that was my daughter in I don't.
Yeah, well, I mean, if if you're if these are the kinds of
conversations you're having, you're clearly marrying off your
children very well. OK, So and, and the, the
Aluvitar theory, I mean, there's there's some good reasons that
you cover in the book as to why that's probably not it, but
there's also some solid initial thoughts as to why someone would
start barking up that tree. Can you unpack that a little
bit? Sure.
Well, there's that point. Well, the the identity of
Bombadil is something that Tom even brings up when he first
meets The Hobbit. So he says, you know who I am?
I'm Tom Bombadil. Like, you know, there you go.
And then he just keeps repeating it, you know, talking about
himself and his name and so forth.
But then when Frodo meets Goldberry and Thomas out of
earshot, he asks her directly, you know, who is this guy?
And then she responds, he is not.
Anyone who knows Genesis and I'm sorry, Exodus and the Gospel of
John would kind of get a very subtle nod to the self
revelation of Yahweh to Moses and the burning Bush.
When he asked who shall I say send me?
And he says I am. So the response is I am, I am
that I am. So you know, that would be one
reason why somebody could say, well, there you go.
There's a hint. But I think that may I, I think
that Tolkien was up to something a little different with that
episode and I'm happy to get into that.
But. But that's one reason why
someone I think plausibly could suggest this is a Lou Vitar or a
Roux, depending on what name you prefer.
OK, what are the other leading theories that you've
encountered? Well, it I think it you know, a
Valar Amaya, one of the one of the primordial kind of spirits
of that was instrumental in creation.
If you're familiar with the story recorded in the summer
early to the creation of Arda or Middle Earth.
So I I think that has a lot going for it.
But I do think we have reason to believe or reasons to believe
that he knows the song or at least is familiar with the tune
was the means by which the world was created.
So I don't know if if people in our audience are familiar with
that that creation story. But in the very opening scene of
the Sumarillian, we have the creation of the world, and in
that scene, a Louvitar, which is the one, or Aru, it's another
name. He creates what really, you
know, is the angelic host. They're the offspring of his
thought, and they sing before him.
There's this marvelous description of how these angelic
beings, the Valor, come to sing harmoniously in in concert with
one another. And they sing before Aru.
And he's pleased with that, with their singing.
And then they sing a mighty song.
And in the midst of that song, one of the valor, the mightiest
of the the valor, of course it would be him.
Melkor introduces dissonance into the into the tune.
And then that leads to cacophony and the series of of movements
in the, in the total musical unfolding of this great concert
of music. And then Aru, after they're done
singing, tells them why. He says to them, behold, this is
what you have sung. And they have they see in the
distance Arda, Middle Earth has come into being through their
song. So they they've actually told
the entire story. So it's also a providential
sequence. Everything that occurs in the
song will be, you know, sort of manifested or imaged forth in
that world. And then some of the valor enter
that world and they are the valor who are in the uttermost
West in the in the course of the story.
And I'd have to tell the whole story, I guess that to kind of
fully, you know, do justice to what's going on.
But but that's, that's the beginning.
And one of the things I, I have suspected is that the reason why
Bombadil's singing is so powerful is that he recalls the
nature of things. He, he calls back to memory what
things were meant to be and what they were made for.
So even in that little sequence that you describe the
deliverance of the hobbits from, from Old Man Willow, it's worth
noting that Bombadil tells the tree to behave like a tree
again. So the tree was behaving very
unnaturally. You know, trees weren't meant to
eat hobbits, right? So, so it's departed from its
nature and he's calling it back to its nature, you know, you
know, dig deep, drink water, you know, go, go to sleep, behave
like a tree, you know, go back to your tree Ness.
And so I, I think that's, that's an indicator that perhaps Tom
was there when the song was originally sung.
I don't know. It's, it's a, it's just a, it's
a, it's a theory that I, that I, you know, present for
consideration all. Right.
And, and yeah, for those of you who don't, aren't familiar with
the Silmarillion or maybe haven't even read the books, and
this is, this is your, your first foray to get past the, the
movies into the books. This the, the, the, my art line
of thinking kind of puts him in the same category as as Gandalf
and Zara men. And so you know, above men, but
not crazy far above men compared to some of the other options in
the Silmarillion. Right.
And the mire would have been there at the singing.
So they, they were there, you know, they're of the same nature
as the Valor, but lesser in stature, you could say.
So I, I, I don't want to spend too much time on the origins of
Middle Earth peace, but one thing that I think is, is
interesting to me is that the, the, the beginning is first of
all, love. That's with both Lewis and
Tolkien's mythology that the universe is sung into existence.
But the, the song there, the way that the, the others are called
into the song. And then dissonance, sin, if you
will, is introduced into the song.
And he's even, he's even able to make that into a meta narrative
and resolve it and how even your, even your dissonance can't
ruin my song. It's gorgeous, but it's also
very participatory. It's very right.
Yeah, it's it's they're being called into the song, whereas
Tom's singing. One of the one of the arguments
that seems to me against that is that Tom's singing is very self
expressive. It's not he's this is, this is
me. This is who I am.
I am being who I am. He's not inviting other people
to sing with them. Yeah, I think that's a
fairpoint. My my thought is with respect to
his musicality and even just kind of the lyrical quality of
his speech, even when he's not singing, there's a kind of
melodic feel to it that there's some sense in which the original
song is being somehow bodied forth by Tom, you know, maybe in
the Tom Bombadil key. But, and I think I think the
same is true for Goldberry. There's a kind of harmony that
you see in terms of the relationship, even in the
physical Dement aspects of it, the way they move and how they
respond to each other's movements and so forth.
And so I think that the, the underlying, I guess theme is
harmony and that there is a kind of mutuality and harmonic
interaction between Goldberry and Tom.
And I think that that is something you see in the very
origins of the of the, you know, of Middle Earth in, in in the
first section of summer early. We'll talk about that a lot more
as we get further into your book in a couple weeks.
But it's it's worth drawing attention to that early.
The I, I think you do such a beautiful job in the book
drawing attention to this. There's so much about modernity
that that conditions us to to view difference with suspicion
that can that hierarchy with suspicion and get get real
defensive about certain kinds of things because, oh, I, I know
where that's going and I'm not going to like it.
But Tolkien just seems Tolkien just seems fearless in
portraying this picture of yeah, this complimentary hierarchy and
difference. And these are not, these are not
Goldberry and Tom are not the same.
And they each have these beautiful, beautiful strengths
and powers. And this it's this seamless
dance among them. Like, like you said just at the
beginning. Any any speculations as to why
that was such an important thing to Tolkien to put in this sort
of this this part of the book that is kind of an aside from
the journey? Yeah, I, yeah, I, I think for
one thing, Tolkien was a remarkably well educated person
and he's able to, like Lewis, like many great thinkers and,
and writers and scholars who are acquainted with the breadth and
depth of the Western tradition, is able to do a lot of stuff
simultaneously in ways that, you know, regular people just don't,
don't, don't have, you know, an ability to appreciate.
But I think that there's so many things going on for, for
example, knowing that he was a philologist and that, you know,
even his in his own words, he started with the languages and
then wrote the story after that, which just gets everything
backwards from the perspective of a modern thinker.
But if you understand the relationship between language
and and reality with a capital R, then you know, you see that,
for example, in the opening sentences of John's Gospel, in
the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the
Word was God. There's a lot going on there
ontologically or metaphysically that I think just it goes right
past most people. But someone like Tolkien is
attuned to this stuff and is thinking and, and there are very
subtle ways that I think he's addressing modernity and its
shortcomings throughout The Lord of the Rings.
But in in this particular part of the book, I'm going to give
away my my thesis here. I think Tom and Goldberry are
the happy ending. They they personify the happy
ending. So here's a here's a typical
kind of contemporary take on on heaven.
It's going to be really dull. I mean, there were going to be,
you know, how long can you sing? You know, this, this, this idea
that, you know, that's right, this idea that, you know,
there's just nothing to do. But when when you when you take
a look at Tom, he's the oldest creature in Middle Earth and
he's perennially delighted with everything that he encounters.
He's appalled at certain points, but at at but in a way that's
not undone. You know, even when he's with
the barrel white, there's no, there's no.
Sense of anxiety or fear that he might not be able to pull off
the deliverance of the hobbits. It's just like, OK, now it's
just time to throw this Barrow white into the outer darkness.
That's right. And then then then you can just
stay here The the the trailing, you know, cry of this Barrow
white is it and then it just like a door shuts and it's gone.
So is it this this this guy Tom is incredibly powerful.
Never at a loss for what to do, but always interested in, you
know, for example, he's interested in the hobbits.
He he actually wants to commune with them.
He delivers them and then doesn't say, oh, I'm got a few
other things that I need to be doing.
I hope you make it out OK. And we actually gives him an
indication that he's been expecting them.
You know that there's like, you know, tables ready, Goldberry's
waiting. I just happened to be going down
this path at this time, knowing that you'd be caught by the
tree. He doesn't say that, but but
then he delivers them and he goes ahead of them and they
trudge along and catch up and then, you know, have this
delightful stay. But then throughout the course
of the story, he pops up at different points and and at very
interesting points. For example, at the very end
when Gandalf tells the hobbits that they've got an important
task to accomplish in Hobbiton by the, you know, getting
sorrowmen and his lackeys out of the Shire.
And they asked him, you know, aren't you going to come with
us? He says, no, I'm, I'm done, I'm
retired. And then he says, I'm going to
go and have a long talk with Bob Adel.
So it's as though he's in effect saying what I'm looking forward
to is what Bombadil's been enjoying for a long, long time.
And you know, my, my work is done.
And now it's time for rest. And I think that that's what we
see with time. We, we have a picture of kind of
the blessed state of the, of the redeemed, where you could say
the the Saints or, or just, you know, the holy ones or.
What does that picture tell us about how we get rest wrong?
Yeah, that's great. That's a great way to put it,
being Reformed. I'm a Presbyterian.
We'd like, we like to put the emphasis on stop, but you know,
stop. And then we say worship.
And then what we mean by worship is reading the Bible, singing
with people in church, those sorts of things.
But I think that there's a, a richer, fuller way of thinking
about it. One of the ways to think about
the rest of the of the Father in creation is that on the 7th day
he sits on his throne and governs the world that he is.
He's brought into being and we're told in scripture that we
will reign with him, that will judge angels, that there are
things that we'll be doing that have to do with rule and
governance. I know it's really hard for us
to imagine these things. We have a hard time agreeing on
on what to color to paint the bathroom at church, you know,
and here we're going to be given these remarkable
responsibilities. But that's what we're promised.
That's what we're told. So I'd I think that that that
dominion and rest come together in ways that I think are, I
guess I'm familiar to us, but I think we see those things.
And Tom, you know, there's that then in that conversation that
Frodo has with Goldberry, after Frodo asks, you know, you know,
what is Tom or who is Tom? And she tells him he is, She
goes on to explain that he's the master.
And Frodo's response is the response most of us would have.
And that is, do you mean this land belongs to him, this
strange, crazy place? And she's puzzled at his
response. And she says, of course not.
Her response is no, each of the things in the forest that belong
to themselves, the trees belong to themselves.
You know, everything belongs to themselves.
But Thomas the master, as if that's answers the question.
But this gets us back to that non competitive harmonic
hierarchy that, you know, you've mentioned in the opening.
And I and I do think that there's something that happened
in, you know, the 13th, 14th centuries that really messed all
that up. And we can dive do a deep dive
on that. But I do believe that Tolkien as
well as Lewis were, as, you know, as Lewis said of himself,
I'm a dinosaur. And I'm, I'm like, you know, if
you, you want to study the past this look at me and ask me some
questions. I, I, I don't think like you do.
I think very differently. And I think that Tolkien was cut
from the same cloth, and he's doing things that would make
sense to a person whose outlook has been thoroughly formed by
the Christian faith. The world that we live in is in,
just to large measure, a revolt against that, all of that.
And we can I think it's fairly common to hear people blame some
chapter or other of the progressive movement over the
last 120 years. The to blame the Reformation,
you you mentioned the 13th and 14th century.
What's going on there? What you have is a really is a
strange set of things that are going on.
What 1 is is the with the with the recovery of Aristotle in the
West, there's a a new set of questions that are being
entertained and addressed. But at the same time, as there's
been this recovery of Aristotle due to the interactions,
particularly in the Iberian Peninsula between the Moors and
Christians, there's also a response to this sort of way of
thinking that in flex is is brought into the West and is in
Christian world picked up on picked up by John Duns Scottis
and William of Occam's. So those two Franciscan fellows
have had a lot to do with the birth of the West as it's as we
think of it today. And I could go on to, you know,
basically the thinking that lies behind that.
But but I think that one of the things that comes out of that,
and it's an unintended consequence.
I don't think that either Scottish or or Arkham were
trying to do this, but you end up with a competitive way of
thinking about the relationship between God and human beings and
their freedoms. So you think about it this way,
like when we tend to think about listen, you and you brought this
up early in the in the episode where when we think about words
like hierarchy or difference, we think of reality as a kind of
pie and or pizza. And the more slices God gets,
the fewer there are for me or the more slices you get, Brian,
the fewer there are for me. There's this, this kind of
competitive relationship that we are in. 0 sum game.
Four, yes, 00 sum game. So the more free you are, the
less free I am, that kind of thing.
And what you had with the older view is a kind of layered
understanding of reality where each creature pursuing its
calling is free. And there's a, there's a
harmonious relationship between the various creatures and their
freedom actually enriches the other creatures.
So there's this, this richer understanding of the
relationship between, you know, God and man and, and men and men
and men and women and and so forth.
There's, there's not a, there's not a win lose kind of 0 sum
game that's being played. And you definitely see that with
Tom. So Tom is clearly the master.
I mean, he he goes around freeing hobbits from trees and
Barrow whites and he's clearly the most powerful creature
around. And there doesn't seem to be any
doubt that he he has the power that's not needed to to do with
what he wants to do. Nevertheless, he's not he's not
Saron or Saruman, you know, who dominate.
So I think there's a a really important distinction between
and this is another rule that I think Bombedell places.
He's a kind of a foil foil against which you can measure
and evaluate characters like Saruman or or Saran.
I hadn't thought about it from that that perspective, because
the at this point in the story, you don't know Gandalf all that
well. You know him pretty much the
same way that the hobbits know him, which is to say he's the
magic guy who does fireworks and periodically appears to save us.
And so your, your only picture of power dynamics thus far is
total strength and total weakness is the the helpless,
the relatively helpless hobbits. And then this image of this dark
threat looming in the East. And and then, yeah, we
introduced this character who, yeah, has this authority, but
it's not the same kind and it's not wielded the same way.
Yeah, and I, and I think kind of the, the really pregnant portion
of the story is when, you know, at the table, Bamba del Tom
tells Frodo to hand over the ring and Frodo does so without a
second thought or has any hesitation.
I mean, he didn't even do that with with Gandalf.
Maybe even when Gandalf said to him, you know, give me the ring
so he could throw it into the fire, there was this sense of
hesitancy that that is described in the, in the, in the
narrative. That's not the case there.
And then essentially Bombadil makes fun of the ring for the
next, you know, few paragraphs, you know, he's even making fun.
I think of Saron particularly. He puts the, the ring up to his
eye and looks through it. He's he's mocking the eye of
Saron. That's how I read it.
So he, he knows all about the ring.
He knows all about what's going on.
He makes the ring disappear, you know, he have to flicks it in
the air, remember, and it disappears.
And then he has, you know, it's just like your uncle playing
magic tricks at the table with you, you know, at, you know, at
Thanksgiving, you know, and having fun with you, having fun
with his nephews, you know, that kind of thing.
So he's he, he comes across kind of clownish in, in, in, in sort
of the, the early presentation. But by the time you're done with
and, and he's in the background, you, you get the indication then
that he could take on Saron. He's got what it would take to
do that. Why?
Do you think he is introduced in such a clownish way, given given
that fact? I mean, you get it's such a
primary colors sort of picture in a, in a story that's so full
of Gray up to this point. Yeah, it's just so primary
colors. And don't crush the water lilies
in the singing. He's he's begging you not to
take him seriously right before he bosses a Willow tree around.
Yeah, and and we're told that that Willow tree dominated the
forest in the way the Saran and Saruman dominated their domains.
But then Tom steps in and puts them in his place.
Yeah, I, I the the fact that the primary colors are present,
yellow boots, blue jacket, red cheeks, you know, that's fun.
And I think that there's AI think that actually speaks to
what you're getting at with this.
So with, you know, it's sort of the larger, I guess narrative
arc when it comes to the whole story of Middle Earth is a kind
of graying. Things are getting grayer and
grayer as time goes along. And you know, there are certain
places in Middle Earth where something of the past has been
preserved and you actually feel like you've entered into an
earlier phase of things like Loft Lorraine or Rivendell.
And what we learned by the end is that that's actually the case
because, you know, Elrod, Elrod and, and Galadriel, they both
had rings, the rings, the three of the three Elvin Lords, they
had two of them. So by the way, the third was
Gandalf. Gandalf had one.
And so you don't get that until the very end, kind of like, like
a big reveal at the end. But I, I think that the point is
that there's something about Tom that is primary, you know, that
is that sort of fundamental sort of basis for all color, you
know. Yeah, OK.
I have so many questions. You kind of think about you,
yeah. You kind of think about like,
you know, like a Wizard of Oz, you know where the, the, the,
the film starts off, You know, the, the film version starts off
in black and white and then they end up in Oz and everything's a
Technicolor. Right.
Oh, and Anita makes a good distinction.
Merriment, not clownishness. Yeah, I think that's right.
Yeah, as a side note, we'll, we'll probably send this out
over the the substance guys, but the Theopolis Institute ran a
great blog post a day or two ago on merriment.
That's absolutely beautiful. Lots of Tolkien in it.
Oh, nice. Great.
So. OK.
There's a bunch of places I could go and there's a bunch of
good questions that have come in in the last couple of minutes.
Before we drop the the merriment, couple things on
that. First, he when he sends the
hobbits off, he he teaches them a song to sing if they need to
call him again, which a shows that he kind of knows they're
going to need to, but B why? But why does he teach them to
sing as opposed to just call me, which is what they did before?
Yeah, that's a great. That's a great question.
I don't have a any real, you know, insightful thing to say
concerning that, apart from the fact that Tom likes singing and,
you know, that's his mode and he wants them to sing.
Now when they start singing, you know, in, in that tomb.
So that's what they're what they're in.
There's this sense in which they they can hear a response or it's
just Frodo, right, You know, it's right.
It's Frodo's the only one who sings, but there is a response
almost immediately. And it's as though the sound of
Bombadil travels through the through the actual ground to, to
them in that barrel. And I actually think that that
that barrel white sequence is a kind of inspired by the, the
resurrection kind of it that generally understood.
So like, you know, the, the, the, the face or the the door,
the opening to the tomb itself faces E We're told that because
as the sun is coming out, we see Tom's head pop in and the sun is
rising behind his head. So that's pretty significant.
And they're in a tomb after all, and they're as good as dead.
And then you have what you could be, you could say a kind of a
kind of a foreshadowing at the final judgement with the barrel
white being cast out and the Hobbit's being redeemed.
And then they run naked on the grass.
It's just this marvelous scene of Deliverance A.
Little while ago, Lindsay asked in the chat the the master
versus owner distinction. What do you think the his his
lack of fear has to do with that?
Do you think that's that's a key distinction between master and
owner? Yeah, we're told repeatedly that
Tom has never been caught. And you're like, what is that
supposed to mean? One of the things you could say
about temptation is that it is a trap.
It's something that is intended to catch you.
So it's you're lured into something, right?
You're a promise is made to you that's false.
And you you step into the trap and you're caught at that point.
There's something about Tom in his behavior that is masterful
in the sense that he isn't trapped, he isn't taken
advantage of by any other creature.
Now, if you think about it like that, this The Adventures of Tom
Bombadil, the poem which actually predated, as I noted
earlier, The Hobbit, it was published, I think it in one of
the papers that was published at Oxford.
Yeah, as a as a side note, sorry for those of you that haven't
read that, which is probably most of you.
Like I got that in in this book, Tales from the Perilous Realm,
which is a collection of Tolkien's shorter things.
It also includes Roverandam, Farmer Giles of Hams, Mitchell
Smith of Wutan Major leaf by a niggle, like a whole bunch of
Tolkien's just absolutely gorgeous short stories along
with this extended adventures of Tom Bombadil.
So like that's that's worth the purchase by itself for for any
one of those things in it, let alone all of them together.
But sorry, keep going. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, no, yeah.
Those are great stories. My favorite is Smith is Smith
with the major. That's that's a great.
We did an event a couple of years ago entirely built around
that story. Oh, neat.
Oh, that's great. So beautiful.
Yeah, it's it's super. But in in the the poem and the
adventures of Tom Bomber, each of the creatures in the forest,
including Goldberry, tries to trap Tom.
And there's this marvelous episode with with Goldberry
where Tom is looking into the Withy Wendell and she she's
under the water and she reaches up and grabs his beard and pulls
him in. It's a very flirtatious move.
I mean, it's, it's the sort of thing that, you know, is easy to
interpret as this gal really likes this guy and is trying to
send the message. And so she steals his hat and
she swims down under the, you know, deep into the into the,
into the water. And she's at the door of her
mother's house, you know, the the river woman.
And Tom gets his hat back in and says to her, I'm not going to
come and live with you, implying that there's some place else to
live. And at the, at the very end, he
catches her. But you get the, you get the,
the, the, the sense that she wanted to be caught.
Yes. She's sitting out on the side of
the, of the, of the, the, the river, combing her long golden
hair, essentially waiting for time to come by.
That's my read, but it's not a it's not a stretch.
It's this is very, this is a, a very fun, romantic, kind of
amusing set of encounters between the two of them.
But you could say at that point he's finally caught, but you
could also say that he caught her.
And in this, in my book, I get into some legends of some
folklore from Finland that I think I, I, I suspect actually
inspired Tolkien and, and, and the creation of the character
Goldberry. But, but he, there's the badger
that tries to catch him. Willow tries to catch him, the
Barrow White tries to catch him, Goldberry tries to catch him.
And each time they can't. And that's kind of the way the
story unfolds. And then finally he catches
Goldberry and they live happily ever after.
They get married. But I, I think that that that
idea that there's, we live in a world full of traps.
And that we and then Thomas successfully eluded the traps,
you and I, as descendants of our original parents, they were
caught. And we've all been dealing with
the with that ever since. I've often thought, you know, if
I was there that day, I would have whispered into Eve's ear.
Ask him what it's what's in it for him.
If you eat from the tree, because obviously that's what it
was all about. You know, he there was something
that the serpent was after and and he just seduced her
spiritually into to taking the fruit.
But that that's that's the sort of thing that Tom succeeds in
eluding. So there's something about that.
I think that says something about our even human beings made
the image of God our natural, our original state.
I I also think that time is a picture of what what could have
been the case. This is a counterfactual, but
could have been the case. If we hadn't fallen, we would
all be a lot more like Tom and Goldberry.
Another, another random question I had not related to that, but
will those come up a lot these kinds of stories, Tolkien uses
them in both uses Old Man Willow twice in the the original poem
and then in the Lord of the Rings itself.
Somebody in the chat pointed out that in Harry Potter and the
Chamber of Secrets, though, there's the Whomping Willow
that's also very destructive. What is it about Willows in
these these stories where they're, they're consistently
cast as the in these villain kind of roles?
I don't, I don't know. Do you have any guesses on that?
I guess maybe aesthetically there's something about him
that's a little weird. When I was in college, I played
varsity. I played soccer for my college
team, for my college, and the entire soccer field was
surrounded by Willow trees. It was the weirdest thing, you
know, just dozens of them and you would go under the trees.
I don't know, you know the term, the name weeping Willow.
You understand when you're sitting under your Willow tree,
where the term comes from, the SAP just literally drips from
those long vines down on to the ground.
And if you're under there, you get a bath, whether you're
looking for one or not, but kind of a sticky bath because it's
tree SAP. But, but maybe that's something
to do with it. I they're just an unusual tree.
They're just kind of kind of strange in in those ways.
I don't have anything more significant to offer than that.
No, I might, I might turn my wife loose on that one.
She's she's a gardener. We actually have a dappled
Willow in our front yard that she planted recently, which does
not behave the way a weeping Willow does, interestingly
enough. But there's there's always a
reason with with with that the. Symbolism of the.
Created order. There's always something when
you dig into those old fairy stories.
Well, there might be something with the name too that I just
didn't look into that that you know, Tolkien would have known
right the the words that informed the the name Willow
tree. Nicole says they grow really
quickly and steal water from all the other plants.
That's interesting. Oh, there you go.
That's an interesting. That's, I didn't know that this
is they're thieves, Yeah. He knows nature inside and out.
Yeah, yeah. And we'll get into that more as
the, the conversations go on, because Christopher did a great
job touching on all of this as he delves more into the, the,
the characters and the, well, the interplay with them in the
story. I've a couple more questions,
but it's worth mentioning as an aside that whether you live in
Colorado Springs and are locally a part of the Anselm Society or
whether this podcast is kind of your your connection with us.
We're doing a lot not just with these four weeks, but but
building on Converse topics from Bombedell over the next six
months or so. Next month, we're going to talk
more about what rest really looks like, what stillness
really looks like. What's what's the difference
between just holding still and and true rest and what does
Sabbath have to do with that? We're going to talk about the
Pride and Chronicles in that context.
We've already recorded an episode on pipe smoking with
Malcolm Gite that will. Air Oh, Malcolm Gate.
So yeah, we just, we spent an hour and a half just smoking
pipes and talking about how. How?
Habits like that training us to be still and but then as as we
turn from summer towards fall, we're going to get more into
feasting and joviality. And one of the, one of the
pinnacle points of, of that will be you guys mark this on your
calendar, September 20th weekend.
We're going to have a whole weekend of workshops and singing
and culminating in, I don't know if we're going to call it this
or not, but basically the great Middle Earth Feast.
Doing. Doing the sorts of, you know,
crazy things that weird people like us do when we get together,
singing at the top of our lungs and telling old stories and
eating really, really good food. So, so think of today as as a
kick off to an extended collective meditation on what
does it look like to really be a part of the will of God in this
this place of this posture of rest, but this leaning in
towards his will and participating in his will.
There's a lot to be done with it and it's way bigger than one
character or, or one of these little topics.
So but this this book was just such a great way to to kick off
so much of it. And it's well, it's created an
excuse for me to cause all kinds of trouble.
Let's just leave it at that for now.
Chris, one thing that that strikes me about Bombadil is,
you know, there are those passages in Scripture that are
just so weird that most people just instinctively push past
them. You know, whether it's the
whatever, whatever it is that strikes you as odd.
You know, I could be, maybe I was, I was raised Baptist and
was taught that all alcohol is a sin.
And so I missed the 70 verses that say otherwise.
Or it's the OR, or it's the, oh, that's a really, really odd
story. Why is that in the Bible?
Moving on. There's just something about the
discomfort that makes us push past it.
I've heard more than one theologian say no, no, no.
You should have the opposite instinct.
If something strikes you as that weird, that's your signal to pay
very close attention, because it probably means something very
important. Do you?
Do you see something simple?
Similar with Bombadil? He's just so weird.
You want to push past him to the next part of the story, but
there's so much going on. No, yeah, I think that that
comparison is really a good one. Sometimes people like to compare
Bombadil to Melchizedek, just this weird figure that pops up
and, and you know, the biblical narrative and then you discover
while he's really, really important, but it's just this
very brief episode. You don't know where the guy is
from or you know, you know how to interpret, you know, who and
what he's up to, who is what he's up to.
But I think that's, that's true. And I, so I, I tried to read the
Lord of the Rings with Bombadil in, in mind.
And as I did that, I, I found, as I noted earlier, these
allusions to Bombadil at, at significant points.
Let me just give you one another example.
So Frodo, when he's in Bombadil's house, he's sleeping.
He has a, has a series of dreams.
He dreams about Gandalf, of course, but he also has a dream
about a ship and being on the sea and a swift sunrise and rain
being kind of pulled back like a curtain.
And there's a land in the distance.
And then he wakes up. And then at the very end of The
Lord of the Rings, that's what we actually see happen.
And Frodo's on a ship and he's sailing into the innermost West.
And there's a reference to the dream at that very moment in the
in the story and you realize, OK, there's something about
Bommadil that connects to the end.
That was the connection that I made.
There's something about Bommadil that in some sense is a pre
sages or a dumb braids. The, the end of the, not just
the story, you know, the Lord of the Rings, but I think in a
larger sense, the story of, of, you know, the world, our world.
There's something that we are looking forward to and we've
already talked a little bit about it.
We're looking forward to rest understood in ways that maybe we
have a hard time appreciating today.
Guys, we're going to wrap up in a, a couple minutes, so if
you've got any more questions, pop them in the chat and I'll
I'll throw them in one, one good one is this one here.
How did Tom inform your views on the productive household?
Oh, that's a good one. Yeah.
I I think that the thing that I came away with when I was
thinking about Tom and the productive household cause I've
I've known for that theme and other books I've written is his
disposition to obviously that, you know, the hobbits.
He's a marvelous host. So that there's a, a strong
emphasis on hospitality just in then in that part of the story.
But I I also think that there's a lot said with regard to his
relationship with his wife as well.
There's this marvelous harmony between the two of them and then
his relationship to the larger world that surrounds the house.
So he's, he's between the forest and the tombs, which I think was
an interesting place to set up a, a house.
And in other words, you got, you got the perilous land on one
side and you've got death on the other.
And really that's a picture of the Christian household.
We're in a perilous place between, between this the, the
world that is filled with dangers and the tombs that await
us. And we're here making the best
of things, putting things in order, enjoying the good, the
good things of the, you know, the good fruits of the earth,
cultivating our gardens. Tom wasn't a hippie.
I mean, he kept a well manicured yard.
You know, there's this description that even the forest
itself seemed like it have been trimmed like a hedge.
There was a sense of it that there was this bound, this
boundary between, you know, his, his domain and the things that
were around it. And he exercised authority not
just inside, but beyond outside, as I already noted, in the
forest and also in the tombs. So I, I do think when it comes
to deductive household, that's the emphasis is so much on
productivity as it is on rest and delight.
And kind of our what might seem paradoxical situation that we
find ourselves in a little bit of heaven on earth in our
households, but it's that our households are situated in some
dangerous territory. Absolutely.
Last question about the book is, as we go into reading through
the rest of your book and discussing it together, do you
have any particular thoughts you want to leave us with?
I, I think there's mostly we're just going to follow what the
book does and what the book covers.
But I think there, there are so many takeaways about the
Christian language and there are so many takeaways about our own
understandings of how, how do we as the imago Dei pursue rightly
understood dominion, mastery, vocation.
What would your advice to us be as we tackle some of those big
scary words, some of those things we might have a lot of
preconceptions about and and and dive in?
Well, I think you've set it up really well.
I, I think that, you know, your comment earlier about passages
of scripture that, you know, unnerve us being the very things
that can enrich us most. I think that's true.
You, you know, with those words too.
I think that when we think about words like authority or
dominion, I think that because we live in a fallen world,
necessarily those things are going to be expressed in fallen
ways. And, and because that's the
case, you know, as the saying goes throughout the baby with
the bathwater and not have a sense of what was originally
intended and not have any sense of it or being know how to
identify it. I think that one of the things
that this particular character is really helpful for is helping
us to see things from a from an angle that I don't think we have
anything, you know, in our lived experience, except maybe maybe
family members we've known who if embodied these things.
You know these things well. But I think that when you see
dominion exercised in the way God intends, it's a beautiful
thing. And it's the same thing is true
with authority. When you see it done right, you
realize, wow, you know, this is great.
This is the way it should. This is the way it was intended
to be. This is the way it should be.
Yeah. And they're all sorts of people
who do don't do it well or, or twist it or distort it, distort
these things. But they started off with
something good and distorted it. That's the thing to keep in
mind. And and, you know, story like
Lord of the Rings and in particular, you know, this, the
example of this character Bombedell, gives us a way to
look at those things and maybe see some things in those scary
words or scary doctrines that maybe we've missed up to this
point. All right, a couple last
quickies from the chat. What is 1 go to book or resource
that has shaped your understanding or practice of
REST? Oh wow.
Probably Leisure, The Basis of Culture by Joseph Peeper.
Well timed, Sir. That's that is.
That is, that is. We're literally recording an
episode next week that'll air first thing in July.
It's mostly a discussion of that.
So. Oh, wow, Great.
Well, that's great. Well.
Timed We also have some desire in the chat for you to write a
sequel to The Purloined Boy anyway.
Yeah, I get that. Like every week.
I'm working on it. I'm working on it.
Is that so, you know, just just keep a few things in mind.
You know, the time that it took Tolkien to write The Lord of the
Rings? What was it, 14 years?
I've still got some time left. This is true.
All right.
First of all, thank you. Thank you again for your time
and thank you for writing the book.
Yeah, well, you're welcome. It's a pleasure to write it, and
I'm glad you folks are studying it.
Well, we're, we'll probably have a question or two at the, the
end of four weeks that are still still hanging, hanging out
there. And if if there are, I'll pass
them along. OK, great.
So everyone else, just a reminder that this is week one
of our four week exploration of not just the character Tom
Bombadil, but what his character and story can teach us about
vocation, calling and mastery. If you're not already signed up
for the reading group, head over to anselmsociety.org/bombadil to
sign up because this is the only part of it that will be on the
podcast. Imagination Redeemed Podcast is
a production of the Anselm Society.
It's easy to see this world as disenchanted and to give up hope
that there's more. But you were made to see the
world with the eyes of heaven and to live a bountiful life
that participates in the life of God.
Like in the great stories, the Anselm Society is a place where
you can come in and experience that beauty, joyful celebration,
and ancient wisdom and go out renewed, bringing that life to
your vocation, home, and church. Join us next time as we pursue a
renaissance of the Christian imagination together.