There was Eru, the one who in Arda is called Eluvitar, and he
made the first Ainur, the holy ones that were the offspring of
his thought, and they were with him before aught else was made.
And he spoke to them, propounding to them themes of
music, and they sang before him, and he was glad.
But for a long while they sang only, each alone or but few
together, while the rest hearkened, for each comprehended
only that part of the mind of a Louvatar from which he came.
And in the understanding of their brethren they grew, but
slowly, yet ever as they listened, they came to deeper
understanding, and increased in unison
And it came to pass that Eluvitar called together all the
Aynor, and declared to them a mighty theme, unfolding to them
things greater and more wonderful than he had yet
revealed. And the glory of its beginning
and the splendor of its end amazed the idol, so that they
bowed before Illuvitar Eluvitar said to them of the
theme that I have declared to you, I will now that ye make in
harmony together a great music. And since I have kindled you
with the Flame Imperishable, ye shall show forth your powers in
adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if
you will. But I will sit and hearken and
be glad that through you great beauty has been wakened and
song. Then the voices of the iron ore,
like unto harps and lutes and pipes and trumpets and feels and
organs of a Loubitar to a great music and a sound.
A rows of endless interchanging melodies woven and harmony that
passed beyond hearing into the depths, that into the heights
and the places of the dwelling of a Louboutar were filled to
overflowing. And the music and the echo of
the music went out into the void.
Never since have the iron ore made any music like to this
music, though it has been said that a greater still shall be
made before Illuvitar by the choirs of the Aynor and the
children of Illuvitar. After the end of days.
Then the themes of Illuvitar shall be played aright and take
being in the moment of their utterance.
For all shall then understand fully his intent in their part,
and each shall know the comprehension of each, and
Illuvitar shall give to their thoughts the secret fire being
well pleased. But now Illuvitar sat and
hearkened, and for a great while it seemed good to him, for in
the music there were no flaws. But as the theme progressed it
came into the heart of Melkor to interweave matters of his own
imagining Tamelkor among the Aynor had
been given the greatest gifts of power and knowledge, and he had
his share in all the gifts of his brethren.
He had gone often alone into the Void, The Void places seeking
the imperishable flame, for desire grew hot within him to
bring into being things of his own.
And it seemed to him that Eluvitar took no thought for the
Void, and he was impatient at its emptiness.
Yet he found not the fire, for it is with Eluvitar.
But being alone he had begun to conceive thoughts of his own
unlike those of his brethren. Some of these thoughts he now
wove into his music, and straightway discord arose about
him, and money that sang nigh him grew despondent, and their
thought was disturbed, and their music faltered.
But some began to attune their music to his rather than to the
thought which they had at first. Then the discord of Melkor
spread ever wider, and the melodies which had been heard
before foundered in a sea of turbulent sound.
But a Louboutar sat and hearkened until it seemed that
about his throne there was a raging storm as of dark waters
that made war upon one another in an endless wrath that would
not be assuaged. Then Eluvitar arose, and the I
nor perceived that he smiled, and he lifted up his left hand,
and a new theme began amid the storm, like and yet unlike to
the former theme, and it gathered power and had new
beauty. But the discord of Melkor rose
an uproar and contended with it, and again there was a war of
sound more violent than before, until many of the iron ore were
dismayed and sang no longer, and Melkor had the mastery.
and endlessly repeated, and it had little harmony, but rather a
clamorous unison, as of many trumpets spraying upon a few
notes. And it is sane to drown the
other music by the violence of its voice.
But it seemed that its most triumphant notes were taken by
the other and woven into its own solemn pattern.
In the midst of this strife were at the halls of a Louvitar
shook, and a tremor ran out into the silences yet unmoved.
And Louvitar arose a third time, and his face was terrible to
behold. Then he raised up both his
hands, and in one chord, deeper than the abyss, higher than the
firmament, piercing as the light of the eye of music ceased.
Then the Louvitar spoke, and he said, Mighty are the Aynor, and
mightiest among them is Melchor, But that he may know and all the
I nor that I am Louvitar, Those things that ye have sung, I will
show them forth, that ye may see what ye have done.
And thou, Melchor, shalt see that no theme may be played that
hath not its uttermost source in me, nor can any alter the music
in my despite. For he that attempted this shall
prove but mine instrument in the devising of things more
wonderful, which he himself hath not imagined.
Then the Inor were afraid, and they did not yet comprehend the
words that were said to them. And Melcour was filled with
shame, of which came secret anger.
But Eluvitar arose, and splendor and he went forth from the fair
regions that he had made for the Aynor, and the Aynor followed
him. But when they were common to the
void, the Loubatar said to them, Behold your music.
And he showed to them a vision, giving to them sight where
before was only hearing. And they saw a new world made
visible before them, and it was globed amid the void, and it was
sustained therein, but was not of it.
And as they looked and wondered, this world began to unfold its
history, Inor had gazed for a while and were silent, the
Livitar said again. Behold your music, this is your
minstrelsy, and each of you shall find contained herein,
amid the design that I set before you, all those things
which it may seem that he himself devised or added.
And thou, Melkor, wilt, discover all the secret thoughts of thy
mind, and wilt perceive that they are but a part of the
whole, and tributary Welcome to the Imagination
Redeemed podcast where we follow the great stories further up and
further in In Pursuit of the Life of Christ.
Hello, everyone, welcome to the Imagination Redeem Podcast.
I'm Sarah Howell. I will be your host today and
I'm here with Young One and Amy. Say hi everyone.
Hello. Hello.
Today we just got to hear one of the most beautiful performances
from our Fall Feast by Jamie and some fantastic musicians of JRR
Tolkien's Ina Lindelay. Did I say that right, Amy?
Sounds great to me. This creation story.
It's a fancy word cosmogonical story.
I've heard it could be called as well is just the perfect story
in my mind to take us out of this fall theme that we've been
talking about for the last couple of months of redeeming
the time this theme. We've gone through a lot of
things about songs, a lot of things about feasting, we've
talked about a theology of death right around Halloween or All
Saints Day. And so today we'll take a lot of
those things and see them through this beautiful story
that has so much depth. There's no way we can get to it
all. But how perfect of a story to
end on one about creation in the midst of discord and death that
we are in now, and to see how song is at the heart of life and
to think about feasting on the goods present.
So let's just get started. It's a really intense story,
young one. I think you were just explaining
to me at the beginning, before we pressed record, that you've
not read The Silmarillion. I think most of our audience
probably hasn't. I love the Silmarillion, the
where the story comes from in Tolkien's work, but I have never
read the trilogy. So I think that's you and me.
We're about 1 fan of for Jr. Tolkien.
Yeah, I think the fan badge requires a lot more.
At least a costume. You know something?
Yeah. I did not in my regular life or
for Halloween wear a costume for Tolkien.
So, but let's Orient ourselves to this story and yeah, kind of
give a little synopsis. Amy, I've, I've been told that
this is one of your favorite stories.
Can you give us the five year old version of how you would
describe what happened in the story that we just listened to
and what's it all about? Sure.
And feel free to fill in the gaps, folks.
I think we're we're looking at a creation story of the the one,
the creator of the cosmos that Middle Earth is set in, who
chooses to create the world with the participation of these
higher beings that he has made. And so the creation of the world
basically comes from a song that that each being, each of the
Valor sing according to who they are or the the Aynor sing
according to who they are. And then we see this song as
they sing together. They don't know it yet, but the
world is being made and the Livitar Eriu Livitar is sitting
down to harken on to it. And then one of them decides
that he would like to have prime place in this role of creation
and brings a a separate melody of discord into it.
And then we see that second melody being answered with a
second theme from Illuvitar, and then a louder discord coming
from Melcor, the one who would like to take over a lot of this
as his own dominion. And then a third theme arising
in which new things are introduced, a new sorrow, I
think, a new acknowledgement of the evil that has come in, but
then also a kind of song that enfolds and envelops the best
notes, it says, of the discord. And so that is how the creation
of the world comes about. How'd I do, Sarah?
That was wonderful. What a really.
Yeah, what's what strikes you guys about the story?
Why do you love it, Amy Young one?
How, how, how has it hit your ears reading it for one of the
first times? It, it does remind me obviously
of like our own biblical creation story, especially the
how the very first parts of our creation story in the Bible is a
good creation followed by followed by the fall.
And those things happen in the very first chapters of the Bible
together. And then you see almost an
immediate reaction for redemption.
And then I see that also here, obviously Tolkien was trying
from that. And so that was the first thing
that there isn't this waiting necessarily that that this God
is immediately unfolding what is broken, what is evil, but then
redeeming it or that redemption starts right away.
And then it also reminded me of the way Aslan sings his creation
into being in in Narnia. Yeah, I think I've loved it
since I first read it. Just the notion of the world
coming into being through music, I feel like that's pretty
integral to the way that the human race has looked at the
world. You know, you think of the music
of the spheres and different things that we're even still, I
think, discovering about resonance and harmony and how
things are held together. And so it really seems to make
sense. I think on this reading it
struck me how beautiful it is that Eriu Livitar has the INR
play this role. It's very much, I think, in line
with Tolkien's thoughts on sub creation and the way that the
Lord allows us to participate in creative ways in the making of
restorative things, of new things, of new worlds even.
So yeah, all of that. Yeah, and then I mean he's
speaking specifically to Melcor, this discordant figure, but at
the very end of where Jamie ended her her piece, because the
I know Linda like goes a little bit farther, but he says, you
know, all that the Inor do is but part of the whole and
tributary to his glory. And so it's it's wonderful to
see the kind of sovereignty and power of this one, the all
powerful being, as he allows for the participation and sub
creation of his his, you know, his the lower beings to like
gauge in the creation through song.
But let's dive in. So I think we'll mostly be
talking about the three themes of a Lou Vitar with obviously
how Melcor has brought in this discord.
And so we have our the original theme, Malcor's Discord, and
then a Louvitar comes in with two different themes.
I think it might behoove us to kind of jump in and query just a
little bit what the heck is going on with these two themes.
They come first. The first one comes from his
left hand and then the second one comes from his right.
I don't know if you guys have the story up in front of you,
but was there anything about these two themes in response to
Melcor's growing discordance that you guys noticed or or a
thought seemed pertinent or at least strange?
Am I? Right in thinking Illuvitar
isn't directly involved in the first theme, is it that he sets
the iron ore to singing and then Melcor comes in with his
discord? It seems, I don't know, it says.
Then a Louvitar arose, and the Ayenor perceived that he smiled,
and he gives us the. Second one, but I mean the first
time when he sets the music going, when he tells them to
sing, is he mostly listening? I believe so.
OK, so then. OK.
So then that really distinguishes the second theme
from the first, that when he opens his left hand, the new
theme that begins, he's got direct involvement in right.
Well, I think he, he doesn't sing anywhere, right.
He doesn't personally sing he right.
The way it begins is that he just thinks the the INR 2 to
exist and then they he makes them sing.
Right, right. But there seems to be more of a
direct involvement that he has in the second, something about
because it's after he lifts up his left hand that a new theme
begins amid the storm. So that sounds like he has more
of a direct intervention there maybe?
Yeah. Yeah, because I mean, then we're
we're jumping back to the first thing, which I love.
It is a very slow beginning for how the music starts.
And it does, young one, for all of those of you who who loves CS
Lewis and know the Magician's Nephew well and and that
creation story there with Aslan singing both here and in that
one, the song starts slowly and things begin to transpire
slowly. So it it says.
Oh, I'm sorry, it does say that, he begins.
He gives them the theme, right? Yeah, but it takes them a little
while to understand because they only have the part of the mind
of the Louvatar from which he the from which that iron ore
came. And so they have to understand
one another, bring one another to then really begin to
understand their part. So I mean, if you think about
this in a Symphony, it's, it's hard to know exactly when to
come in for yours part in the song if you're not listening to
everyone else, right? And so I think I really like in
the beginning how they kind of slowly begin to create the
harmony and unity together and therefore learn their parts
better. Yes.
So it I, I do think Amy, I could at least I like to ponder as
well that it seems like a Lou Vitar gives the first theme and
it's slowly being worked out and growing in harmony and unison.
Once the discord comes in, a Lou Vitar arises.
He smiles, he lifts up his left hand and this new theme begins
and it starts gathering power and new beauty and it seems
quick and it seems like he's really in young ones words like
being that forceful conductor of of pushing against the storm of
discord that's coming at at the iron ore the.
Power of beauty, which is an interesting way to describe that
power. It's not a forceful.
It's not a power of hammer. It also reminded me, and I
wonder if this was intentional from the author, the way that
Jesus arises from his boat, from his nap to calm the storm, that
he lets the storm brew. But then as he is getting up to
comment, he he doesn't need to like like he can just do it.
It is a simple thing to have and here as well, it seems that way
that for Lubitar to stand up because the INR it says that it
looks like he's smiling. You know, they perceive that he
smiled. So you would think that it
should be a frown like, oh, Melkor is throwing off.
You know, he's he's off playing his own melody and instead of
rising with anger and punishment, which seems
deserving, but then he actually arises with a power of beauty
and of a smile, which is a very interesting way to deal with
this chord. But that is, that is how he's
doing it. At least the first time.
Yeah, Yeah. Yeah, the first time.
And I mean even thinking about the the disciples in the boat,
they were dismayed. And the Aynor are also dismayed,
and they're so dismayed as things get worse and worse, even
though Eluvitar has stood up, that they sing no longer.
And that's when Melchor gets louder and louder, and that's
when the stern Eluvitar gets up and puts out his right hand as
well. This one is interesting because
it first it says, at first it's soft and sweet, a near rippling
of gentle sounds and delicate melodies, and then it says, But
it could not be quenched, and it took to itself power and
profundity. And then it goes on to say that
it was deep, wide, beautiful, but slow and blended with an
immeasurable sorrow from which its beauty chiefly came.
So in the midst of this beautiful story, these various
themes and discord, what are we talking about?
Why does this matter? Does this feel to you guys like
a beautiful story that is interesting to think about?
Or do you guys see this as practically helpful in
understanding our place in our world with our creation story?
Yes, I do see a mirroring in our creation story in a way that I'm
actually kind of grateful for because, I mean, this may be
beside the point a little bit. But as I've been reflecting on
the kind of art maybe that is needed today more than ever, I
think there is value to the art that draws us to beauty, that
points us to the beauty of God. And I think there's also a deep
need for art that can hold both beauty and brokenness at the
same time and acknowledge the brokenness.
But show that the beauty, the the power, the sovereignty of
God ultimately has the last say. So to find that in this story
feels like an affirmation of the story that we're living.
Yeah, it is an affirmation, I think.
So. I was just reading recently a
book by Peter Lighthart called Deep Comedy, and I think it
speaks to exactly what you're talking about, Amy, that you've
picked up and and found assuring and orienting from Tolkien's
Inalunda Lay. Peter Lighthart talks, though,
about how historically humans have not seen the world as
deeply comedic, deeply wonderful, that ends in
marriage, but they've seen it as deeply tragic, one that ends
inevitably in death. And I think that the reason why
I'd like to talk today about this story and where I want to
lead our conversation is to think about our romanticism of
this kind of tragic way of looking at the world, this view
that it's all going to inevitably end in death.
And I think that's really important for this fall theme as
we think about redeeming the time because of this season as
the leaves fall, decay is all around us and the light is
leaving that kind. There's there are different
kinds of antidotes to responding to this negative view of change,
wistfulness, nostalgia. I think it would be important to
kind of name the different ways that we can take this up in our
own hearts and in our own culture of seeing.
I don't know if I could use the words from the story, focusing
so much on the discord and romanticizing it and bringing in
our own kind of sorrow, but perhaps one that isn't oriented
in the right way. And so at the bottom of all this
though, it's really a question of what do we do with change?
Do we see it as deeply tragic, ultimately always tending
towards making more of a mess, making more discord, making more
towards entropy and and decay? Or is there a different way to
look at change, to look at Eluvitar's themes as deeply
beautiful, comedic, wonderful as we were even saying earlier,
Amy, involving participation as sub creators, his creation.
So obviously I'm giving away some of my thoughts on where I
think this story inevitably takes us.
But Amy, that's what you said too.
And and honestly, Tolkien does that too.
I love how Tolkien at the beginning of even, I mean, all
throughout the trilogy, which I know I haven't read all of it,
but he will, he'll often tell you what's going to happen
before it happens. So it's not about the suspense.
It's about being present with the Fellowship as they go
through it themselves too. So that's, that's a long spiel,
but I, I would love to ask you guys, especially you, Amy from,
from your beautiful book, a homeward ache.
You talked a lot about like insufficient antidotes to
describing a certain kind of longing that that has to do with
this change. Do you want to, do you want to
take us through some of the things that you've learned and,
and the alternative? Well, first of all, I I love the
notion of trying to figure out what story it is that we're in.
I'm, I'm fairly sure I've talked about this somewhere, but
there's a movie called Stranger Than Fiction in which the
protagonist figures out he's the main character in a novel and at
some point he decides to try and figure out if he's in a tragedy
or comedy. So he has this little notebook
with tragedy on one side and comedy on the other.
And as things happen to him throughout the day, he gives
little tally marks to one category or the other.
And and that is interesting that I think we have an almost innate
sense of what a tragedy is, what a comedy is, where they should
lead. And I think we would have that
even if we didn't have the literary grapes and patterns and
archetypes before us. But Frederick Beekner talks
about tragedy and comedy and telling the truth, the gospel as
tragedy, comedy and fairy tale. I think is is something like the
subtitle, but one of the things that he points out that I've
always loved about Shakespeare's, that
Shakespeare's got his corpus of tragedies and comedies.
And then towards the end of his life, these plays that don't
quite fit in either category, but that are all the richer for
including both elements of tragedy and comedy.
And so they're often called tragic comedies or romances.
Those are my favorite plays because of the the
acknowledgement of what loss and grief can bring, but also the
way that life can continue on out of the back end of tragedy,
I guess you could say, and still lead to an ending that is
beautiful, that points to hope ultimately.
So. So when I think of the homeward
ache, which is what I wrote about for this book, I usually
think of it as something that we all clue into, or many of us
clue into through instances of joy.
It's joy that surprises us. I feel like on our progress
through life and the way that we respond to it reveals an
understanding that we have like maybe of the same sort, the
understanding that we have of tragedy and comedy, but we have,
we seem to have an understanding that we are separated or
divorced from something that ought to have been.
And when we find these glimmers of joy, we're, we're finding, I
guess, small little revelations of truth of where things ought
to be, what we were created for essentially.
So when it comes to change, I think the biggest change that we
have to contend with is that though we were made for
communion with God, I'm, I'm hopping pretty quickly on to the
Christian version of this truth. But even though we were made for
full communion with God, even though we were created to live
in a world that wasn't fallen, all our lives were contending
with change. And, and very often it seems
like the kind of change that sunders us further from the
place where we want to be. The things that we get glimmers
of that were shot through by from time to time.
So, so I don't know if that's quite where you were going with
your question, but that's me trying to figure out the
relationship of the homeward ache of homeward yearning and
change and time. No, I love that.
And that's a wonderful answer, I think, this being pierced by
something beautiful and the kind of peace and joy that comes from
it. When I read that in your book,
it immediately made me think of CS Lewis's comment in his essay
Transposition that says we can only hope for what we can
desire. And so ultimately, I think
wrapped up in this conversation about change, wrapped up in this
conversation of how we view the world as a comedy or tragedy,
happy or sad in the way that, you know, death is before us.
All right? That's one thing we can all
count on. I personally am the kind of
individual who it's hard for me to see the end as happy when the
end, at least from the way that my eyes can see without faith
giving me wings to go higher, is to see death.
And So what to do with this desire, this longing for
something more? And how am I supposed to engage
that desire so that I can have hope?
It seems like it, it seems counterintuitive to me that I
would have to feel the desire in order to have the hope to have
the wings, when it seems like the desire only makes the death
seem more obvious and more hard, more more like a loss.
And so I don't know. What do you guys think about
that? Do you have that quandary as
well? This might be a sideways answer,
but sometimes I think the, the, the dread and the hopelessness
of that anticipation of, of death, decay, of evil is not so
much that you're going to die, it's that on the way to death
you're seeing other people die. That makes sense.
So and it like in this story, the when the Einar are seeing
they, they can see male core coming in and disrupting and
putting evil in or trying to at least.
And then we can see like in the season of fall, like you're not
dying, but you can see the leaves are dying.
And I think it's more that that like our, we can only take it
seemingly when we see and we don't see what's behind it.
What we can see with our simple senses, direct senses, is decay
and loss of things. You know, as we're watching our
garden. Kind of close out, but it feels
like that's right. If I didn't know what was coming
next year, if I didn't know that there were bulbs in the ground
that could and and seeds in the ground that will re flower and
the grass will grow back. It just looks like all
destruction. No more flowers for the for the
season, for the year actually. And so I think that is what kind
of erodes hope for us because that's what we because we don't
know what's behind it. We don't know what's in the
ground that's waiting to come back to life.
It it's the same thing with this.
When Malkor is singing or or putting that bad music, this
chord into the harmony. I don't know if the other I nor
can tell what's going to happen. But what they can see is chaos.
What they can hear is chaos. Actually, it's interesting.
I can't see at all. Just hearing for now, yeah.
And I think that kind of goes to like how the story fits with the
season in that sense. Like fall is an interesting
season because if you've lived through enough falls, you know
there's a spring, but it might trick you into thinking there
isn't 1. And so it's it's helpful to have
the stories of spring in fall so that you know that this isn't
like the end. Yeah, yeah.
And and maybe a little amount of faith, but that you do have a
faith in a spring for something that is not yet seen, but a a
strong conviction and and true evidence for it.
I haven't thought of it that way before.
It's it's a long wait because winter is long sometimes.
Yeah, into into death in its own in its own right.
And that our bodies are going through these patterns, right?
Like we all do kind of slow down and hibernate to A to a larger
degree. In the winter, things get slower
and we're waiting for that new life again.
Even though we might know it's coming, there is still some sort
of process we have to go through.
And I think everyone deals with that process differently.
As a melancholy person who tends towards flirting with nihilism,
as someone who loves things repetitively done, nostalgia to
me is really thick in the fall. Ellen Collies really thick in
the fall and those are definitely the tendencies that I
can lean towards just out of habit and propensity during this
time. But which?
Which is funny because it is moving towards those desires,
but I would argue not in the Super healthy way or not in a
way that considers the spring that's coming.
Yeah. How do you, Sarah, see the
intersection between this story and the fall?
I don't mean the fall, the season of fall.
Ultimately, I think I see it in the way that the iron ore stop
singing when the discord happens.
It's it's in that moment when a Lou Vitar has raised his left
hand. Things have gotten strong and
there's a whirlwind going on. And in the midst of all of that,
the iron ore who I if I'm going to relate to something in the
story, it's them. It's the sub creators, they all
the words that it uses are that they were dismayed and sang no
longer. And there's that kind of halting
and stopping and paralyzing experience that I can relate
with. And I think that's the way that
I, I'm, that's the way I've been trying to describe my
melancholic nostalgia, which stems from this kind of 19th
century romanticism of tragedy. I think that's the way that I
kind of turn towards dismay is kind of by shutting down and by
only thinking about the past as opposed to the faith and the
response that we're supposed that that happens instead that
Alouvitar shows us in the third theme.
And so ultimately, I would, I would be interested in US
looking at what it means for us to join in the song of the third
theme. Do you enjoy looking at the
leaves in the fall? Oh, I do.
And and isn't that so interesting how God has made it
so that right before all the leaves die, it bursts into
glorious color? And so, so as a as both of you,
I think are a little melancholy. How does that how does that
feel? Like you have what looks like
glorious redemption, but it's very brief and like in in some
places it's like one weekend. And so, but there is both AI
think the right interpretation is not that it's coral irony,
but that it is glorious. And it is like something to
remind you of like the beauty of spring that you won't see the
colors of the flowers, but you will see the colors of the
leaves before they're dormant for a while.
I don't know if you kind of thought of that or that that
makes sense to you. I have to think about the colors
of the leaves. I think so, I think.
Are you saying that it can be read two different ways?
Yeah. And in this story, too, you can
read that, like if you're the Inor and you don't know what
Eluvitar is about to do, even when he's doing it, you don't
really know what he's doing until later.
Yeah, and it's kind of that way, too.
Like if you've never had fall and you suddenly see burst of
color. Yeah, maybe you're thinking of
it in a different way. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think in one way you could look at the changing of
the leaves as just when they're at their, you know, upon the
cusp of glory, they're cut, their life is cut, and they all
have to fall from the trees. But that's one way to look at
it. And I think we maybe also see
that reflected in the reaction of the iron ore when Melcor
first comes in with his discord, that some of them hesitate and
they start to feel despondent. They haven't really felt
despondent before, but here they are feeling confused.
And some of them join their harmonies to his melody because
it's almost like they're trying to figure out what's the true
melody that's going on here. What is the role that I'm
supposed to be telling playing? And what is the reality that I'm
supposed to attach myself to? So then when Eluvitar comes back
in with his theme, well, that happens.
And then Melcor comes in stronger and more violent, it
says. And that's when they stop
singing. I feel like that reflects our
confusion sometimes in terms of what is the what is the true
reality that we live in? Is it the one that is only seen,
or is there a reality behind the things that are seen woven
together with it? So as an iron ore, say, if
you're paying attention to this song, this music that's going
on, you have to learn to detach yourself from the idea that
violence or volume is the indicator of reality.
And I feel it's the same way when I'm standing out in the
garden. Like, either you can look at it
as just as things are getting good, they're cut in their
prime, or if you live long enough, you know that spring
will return. And I think that maybe is
something that happens to us as children, that maybe the first
autumn is full of wonder, but then you wonder where it goes.
I think there's a little golden book about puppies where they
kind of go through that journey. I'm sorry, I don't know the
title. Or, or is it an act of grace
that just as things are about to get quiet, just as things are
about to seemingly die for an entire season, that we're almost
shown this glimmer of promise that things will not always be
this way? That there is something at work
underneath the things that we can see that transcends it, but
also imbues it so that we can look forward to a future season
with hope. Like what Young One was saying
before about death. I believe it was George
MacDonald, maybe an unspoken sermons who says if you knew
what God knows about death, you would clap your listless hands.
And death is maybe the ultimate change that we fear because it's
a change that's undesirable. It's a change that we often have
no power over, whether it's losing somebody or being lost
ourselves. But even that is is not the end
of the story and that there is a season to come.
It effectively makes death a gateway instead of a terminal
end. So that in itself points us to,
I think, away from violence, away from volume.
It directs us to look at the nature of the thing.
It is the nature of our garden. It is the nature of our world to
keep bringing those seasons back again.
Is there a nature that we can trust on the greater scheme of
creation to do something unexpected?
A nature that is maybe even now giving us clues as to what he's
like so that we can rely on that nature and not violence and
power and volume. And there's a wistfulness in the
beauty of the fall leaves because you know it won't last,
but it is beautiful. You know, you get to enjoy it.
And and yet you also have an expectation that you're going to
get more of this later. But you know, you can't hold on
to it. Actually.
I mean, everyone tries to press leaves and hold on to it, but
you can't truly hold on to it. You can't glue all thousands of
leaves back on a tree. So it's interesting because, you
know, I thought of that, Sarah, because you were talking about
wistfulness and nostalgia. It's it's like nostalgia.
You're you're building nostalgia on the spot as the leaves are
changing color. Like I wish I could have this a
little longer. It's so true.
But but I love, Amy, what you're
saying in response to that, even for what young one just said,
it's and it's not just an appreciation of beauty or
escapism into something that you know, into, into an alternative,
alternative way of things, right?
It's the joy of what is present and it's the promise of what is
to come in the spring and and to be able to hold both at the same
time at the at the last moments of fall.
The thing that I just thought of with your comment, young one,
was something to the fact the effect that the season of fall
is a time that we get to practice this again and again.
Of enjoying something for a moment and stirring up that
desire and enjoying even though it isn't full.
And in in the theological way, like consummated to the new
heavens and the new earth to be fully realized and all of its
glory. But it's still yet in its moment
is glorious. And we are in this moment and
that we need moments, this moment to next moment to the
next one. And each fall is a moment of
that we get to practice again stirring up that that desire.
Amy from from your book, you were talking about some
beautiful, beautiful examples and and people and authors in
your life and you state something like this.
You say there will these people's willingness, their
courage to be so vulnerable before the father opens a way
for us to acknowledge the absences we feel.
And to me that smacks of the vulnerability that's required of
practicing desiring something and not receiving it.
And it's fool. Apparently.
Lewis says that that's the way that we can have hope.
But help me get there. I don't how does this season?
How does seeing its glories? How does this practice producing
us hope? I'm in the middle of doing some
research for a short piece about Beekner and and one of the
things that he's talking about, I've been reflecting on the way
that he views the past. That we have to be able to sit
down and look at the past and find the meaning.
Not not to manufacture meaning out of it, but find the meaning
that's built into it because the way that he came to look at
life. Frederick Beekner was to view
life as a story and to think that it, well, a story has a
plot. And if there's a plot, then
where is mine going? But also where is the
overarching story of humanity going with the author of the
universe? And, and I feel like that's one
of the things that we often overlook, the places that we
come from, the particularities that we were made of.
Jamie Smith talks about that and how to inhabit time a lot.
And I love it because we're made of certain particularities.
Those are the particularities that we're going to bring into
the new creation. And it's when we look back and
we see grace in all the places that we may have missed it, the
presence of God where it met us and we didn't even know it.
Those are the things that are going to directly inform how we
move forward into the future. And that is hope essentially.
So I mean, if we want to take back, take it back to the I know
Lindelay, even I think one of my favorite parts of the story is
when Melkor is being his most clamorous and most insistent.
It says that he had achieved his he had managed to achieve the
unity of its own, his song. But it was loud and vain and
endlessly repeated, and it had little harmony, like many
trumpets spraying upon a few notes, and it tried to drown out
the other music, but it seemed that its most triumphant notes
were taken by the other and woven into its own solemn
pattern. And that is the kind of thing
like 01 said earlier that we see from the get go in Genesis of
God being able to take even the things that we think are the
most poisonous, the most grievous about our change and
about our condition and folding that into something that would
become even more glorious than we have the ability to imagine.
So I think that's reflected in the leaves, that we would think
that the things are just going to die and shrivel off the vine
or the branch. But at that very last moment,
we're shown realities that were present the entire time, but
that we did not notice in the spring or the summer and that
are blazing into view before our eyes.
I feel like that in itself is a visual indication of, again, the
nature of God that we're able to rely on.
And that's where our hope ought to come from and not just ought
to come from, but can come from like a deluge.
Just witnessing that kind of small, maybe seemingly
insignificant, those miracles at work in our lives.
Those are the things that inform the hope that we have as we move
forward. But I don't think that it's
something that we ought to catechize.
Is that a word? It's not a thing that we ought
to package into a neat lesson and make people do it.
I think it's the kind of thing that comes as you read the story
that you're in, like a reader coming to a story that's being a
story and not just a packaged Sunday school lesson.
As you experience the story, there's something that takes
root in you, that starts to dare to breathe and starts to dare to
hope. That's beautiful and makes
reflection seem very defiant. Yeah.
Very courageous and defiant, that's.
Very true. I don't often think of it as an
activity like that, so I like it.
And it is very because I was sitting here and when I first
asked the question, I was thinking of like a living hope,
like, how does this change what I am doing today?
How do I look at my temporary home differently?
How do I look at my husband and I?
He's in the Navy and we've moved at least every eleven months for
the last five years just with the way things have gone.
And so it the there are literally other pilgrims next to
me. I am passing them in the night
in many many ways and yet I am called to steward relationships
with my neighbor and with the person in front of me and dive
in. How do I do this in the midst of
all this change? What is a living hope and your
comments Amy make me think that and tell me if I'm wrong in in
my understanding of you. But it's it's it's more of this
counter clockwise cycle of as we spend time with the Lord,
reflecting on the grace that he has given us and asking for the
wisdom and the vision to see what he is doing and to enjoy
and see the favor that he has placed on us in the as Matthew
Clark said in one of our conversations, the delightful
breeze on your skin on a hot day as as that's the favor of the
Lord. Maybe that's him saying he's
pleased with you reflecting on all of that.
And so going back that counterclockwise to reflect
actually brings you through to the present moment to live with
living hope. But it's not something that you
conjure in that moment. It's not something like you're
saying you catechize and now that you have this tool in your
tool belt, you can kind of whip it, whip something out and and
state an aphorism or something like that.
Yeah, what does living hope mean for you as you carry it with
you, as you've had to carry it with you through so many homes,
Sarah? Yeah, that's a good question.
I would say honestly, Amy, the way that you described
reflecting on one's story and seeing God's faithfulness gives
me a sort of ability to, I wouldn't have articulated it
that way, but I think the ways in which I have been able to do
that, I'm able to see all the fruits that he's currently
giving me a little bit easier because I've practiced seeing
them in the past. And so I, I look for them where
I currently AM. But I also think that when we
think about redeeming the time, this all has to come from a
foundational conviction that I have and within the Christian
story that we we have eternity. We have forever.
And so the things that we are sowing and the ways in which we
are partaking in the Kingdom of God are not void.
I I love in the Lindelay when the iron ore.
Are singing and it says they sang into the void and it was
not void. Yes.
It sounds really it's a simple sentence, but there's this
profound weight that just drops in my soul when I hear that.
And I think that that's what it is.
There's this knowledge that every, every connection and
relationship that I build and not as a transactional I'm, I'm
building a relationship. But every time I get to bring
life into someone else's day, I can see that as just as relevant
as if it's once or if I get to walk with them for 10 years and
they're my best friend. Because in the end, we will be
walking for miles and miles and miles together into the new
heavens and the new earth. So I think having a more eternal
mindset is a way that I'm able to see that living hope and
maybe that that bridges those poles so you can go counter
clockwise back to the past to see.
But then you also can look forward to the completion of all
things and that it is not void. Yes, I love that I'm hearing in
your language some beautiful things too, like the notion of
the counterclockwise and the ticking of the clock.
It's almost like if you have a moment to reflect in the
present, like why is it that the clock should even keep ticking
for you? And it has.
And all the moments that it's brought you through gives you a
clue as to maybe how to approach the the times that are coming.
And I, I think we talked about this a little bit in the
conversation preceding this recording, but change can be an
alarming thing. It can be a disorienting thing,
but change can also be the thing that we embrace in prop in a
progress forward as in a pilgrimage.
So I hear that a lot of that in your language as you're talking
about how you've learned to love and how to live into the time
that you have, but also look forward to it into eternity.
That's one context, usually in a pilgrimage where the change
isn't so dreadable, I guess you could say, because you're
looking at milestones that you're passing, you're looking
at how much closer you're getting to the destination.
And so to reframe it that way is in essence a framework of hope.
So thank you for that. Well, you articulated things
that I didn't even know. I said that's beautiful.
It happens in the body of Christ.
You know it's. That's why I love discussion, I
mean, and the image of the Aynor singing together.
I know I mentioned that in the beginning and and their voice is
becoming stronger and their their instruments.
You know that the sound that they bring forth needs one
another just as much as they need to know the song.
The song doesn't even exist. Again, I know I keep coding
Lewis, but going to his SEM membership, there are only
colored things because of the light and you can't distinguish
on a physics level red and green unless red and green are both
present. And so to see the kind of
harmony within the way God and and in the story Aru has
created, like the fabric of creation itself is just so
exciting and beautiful. Yeah.
It's like all the colors of the the of the church.
Yeah. In terms of, you know, like a a
beautiful bride. Hooray.
Maybe fall glories. Yes.
I love that. What does Living Hope look like
for you? I think maybe I'll start with by
saying that I don't know, maybe the source of hope is very
important. I've never thought of hope as
no, that's not true. I've often when whenever I think
I am supposed to conjure up hope on my and somehow I'm making it,
it usually doesn't turn out that way.
I feel that a lot of hope is something that we sense and feel
because something is almost like throwing it at us.
Like where is it coming from? Because it's not necessarily
that you sat down and you thought about it for a while and
decided, of course, of course it's going to be better.
And that might happen. But I, I don't think that's our
source of where this comes from. I don't think it is something we
can conjure. It is certainly something we can
hold on to, but I feel like it's been thrown to us from from God.
Or grown. It's one of those things that.
Come thrown to us. Grown, grown, GROWN.
Yeah. I feel like when Scripture talks
about hope, often it's as a result of something.
So, you know, like when in Romans it says that we rejoice
in our sufferings and suffering produces endurance and endurance
character and character. Hope, like hope is the end fruit
of that. And I feel like, yeah, in in a
lot of ways, the way that Scripture refers to it is it's
something that it's not something that enters your life
like a flash bang. It's more something that is that
must be organic, I think in some ways anyway.
So I. Think, no, but I, I really
appreciate this because this helps me tie up these these two
points. I was sitting here enjoying our
conversation, but not really sure where Eluvatar's third
theme comes in where he lifts up his right hand and there's an
immeasurable sorrow, but there's beauty in that sorrow somehow.
And it's this, this is truly the strange theme because the the
second one that he kind of stands up with his left hand is,
is like very, it says it's very similar to it's not unlike the
first one. This third theme is strange.
And I'm enjoying our conversation about living hope.
But I, I'm questioning where does the immeasurable sorrow fit
in? What's the strange theme over
here? We haven't mentioned?
And Amy, I think you might have just hit on it.
We endure sufferings only in a way that can produce
perseverance into character, into hope.
If we are suffering with Christ, Christ changes what the
suffering means for the normal Christian in their life as we
experience what suffering is right, this lost, change, decay,
the not yet. And we have to hold on to this
third theme because it can't. And I think this is your point,
young one, and tell me if I'm wrong, We can't conjure up God's
third theme, you know, in in this story.
And the way in which he can weave that into the redemption
is something that is not of us. Yeah, no correction, I think.
Yeah. Yes, I think so.
I think that's why when, when the third theme, I think maybe
what you're saying if, if I put it in different words, is that
the 1st 2 themes about it's basically good and very good,
whereas the third is and also it's redeemed.
So if there's anything not good that got like our hope, like I
said earlier, is, or I think we've all really been saying
there is a redemption that makes the hope.
What hope is, it's not that it was perfect and therefore we
hope it will continue to be perfect.
That's usually not our hope at all.
Our hope is usually something went wrong and we hope it will
be better or we hope that it will be restored.
And you see that in the story here.
But what's even more interesting is that the restoration doesn't
look like a simple destruction of what's bad.
Like it's not simply destroy the evil and good prevails, which is
not wrong of a story. But in this story, the evil has
like, it's almost like the evil thinks that it is unique, that
it it can go outside the bounds and create its own reality.
But the the truth of the matter is, no, you're still confined to
the one in the story and it gets folded into a harmony.
And if we can think of that, it's a good way to think about
the, the whatever sorrow and evil we have in our lives back
to kind of like, how does this help us?
Because then we can say we don't need a total redo.
We don't need a complete destruction and a complete new
creation for for us to have hope.
We can hope that our One knows how to fold all of the bad and
create a harmony that's beautiful.
And some of that beauty will be in the sorrow.
Some of that will be in the wistfulness, in the nostalgia.
So it won't always be just :) of emojis everywhere.
It would be something else. But it the fact that it's
something else is what makes it even more beautiful in the story
when it talks about like Water and how a lot of this, the echo
of the music stays in the wall of this world, that's also very
interesting because it's talking about how like it gets pulled
forward. The music that's pulled forward
is not the perfect music of the first theme nor the second
theme. The music that is pulled
forward, that makes people feel both wistfulness and hope is the
third theme, which has the harmony of restoration built
into it. I hope that makes sense.
But that's kind of, I think where where we can see like kind
of the genius of this story. But it's a good reflection for
me of how I can think about my hope today.
The hope that I'm living today isn't like some kind of paradise
idealism where God doesn't know what evil is.
That's not the hope I'm living in right now.
The hope I'm living in, especially Christians today, is
is is a death of resurrection hope where the death was not
fake, it was a real death. I was just thinking about how in
the theme of water, like when you listen to the ocean, like
the ocean sounds, if you go to any kind of like app or
something that's supposed to give you a relaxation, it kind
of gives you this like imperfect white noise.
Because if you had perfect white noise, it should be like a
ticking clock or like a pendulum, like it should be
exact, but perfect as in like very uniform, completely
harmonious in that sense. But that's not really harmony
because there's nothing being folded in and being restored.
It is simply repeating something that is very controlled.
Whereas people like to listen to waterfalls and rivers and oceans
and even rainfall, thunderstorms.
Like all of these, like soundscape things that are found
in spas, are things that have some imperfection in it, As if
like, our bodies know that that's a good thing.
Yeah, I I think on the theme of repetition, you've got me now
thinking about. Well, in the I, I know Linda Lee
for one, when Melcor is bringing his song and it says it was
endlessly repeated, it kind of reminds me of a scene in
Paralandra where Weston is has set out.
I don't think it's Weston anymore.
I think at that point he's on Weston, but when he's trying to
torment Ransom and the thing that he just does throughout the
night, which is the pettiest thing but is the most irritating
to Ransom, is that he just sits there saying his name over and
over and over again, right? And that's fascinating to me
because then you think of the passage from Chesterton where
where he talks about God exulting in what we would call
monotonous. But he's using the example of
like, have the sunrise again, have the sunset again, behold
those glories. But even that folds in a bit of
variation, doesn't it? It's not like the same thing
over and over again done for ease or for emphasis or for to
torment somebody. It is a delight that finds
100,000 a million ways to exalt in this act, right of the rising
and setting of the sun. And and so I find that
fascinating, that repetition yeah, it can be done for
delight. It can be done for nefarious
purposes. But when it's done right, we're
invited into this thing that, like you're saying, I guess in
its, in its essence, acknowledges, acknowledges
brokenness, but then chooses to find the glory in it, in
whatever act it is. We live in a world that has like
1 of the core thermodynamic principles is entropy.
God could have, I think, made a world without one, just
enthalpy. But like the it's the entropy
that makes things interesting. And it it makes it so that it's
not like a, a boring repetition. Yeah, that it is unique, even
when it looks like it's exactly the same, but it's not exactly
the same. And you can receive that.
You can receive entropy as things falling apart, which it
very well could be, but in a different way.
It's freedom to explore the properties of something.
I feel like if you have the opportunity to give variations
on a theme, that can be a gift. Young one, before we hit record,
you made a comment about this creation story and how it felt a
little removed from our creation fall and redemption story
because this is all before we even get to the Earth Middle
Earth before we even get there. This is all happening
previously. I wonder though, with what you
guys are saying is if there's something beautiful and true
that we can see in the idol and delay in in our creation story
with the fact that like God gives us entropy and God gives
us the the dying leaves and God gives us the irregular
irregularity of the oceans and waterfalls.
And you could say he did that on purpose, or you could say in a
imaginative sense, like Eru, he wove together the imperfections
and the way the things that might have been desired, like
intended for evil. He did.
He used it for our good. And it it reminds me of
Tolkien's kind of paraphrasing and contextualizing a part of
Ephesians when Eluvitar says that for Melkor, he that
attempts at altering the music in my despite shall prove but
mine instrument in the devising of things more wonderful, which
he himself hath not imagined. I think that that is a wonderful
thing to dwell on as we move into the blanketing white
silence of winter and we wrap up this fall season.
Thank you guys. Do you have any glass closing
thoughts? This is a This is more of a
tangent than a closing thought, but I was reading an article
today about how astronomers observe this bright event,
luminous flare, this collapsing of a star into a black hole.
But it but it produced such a bright luminescence that it
would be the equivalent of our sun burning until the end, like
from beginning to end times 1000, like a single burst of
light. And the reason I bring that up
is because I thought of the story as I was reading this
article. If at the cosmic scale, somebody
decided I'm going to ruin the star and throw it in a black
hole. And a black hole is a void,
right? In the in the sense like milk or
loves the void. So he's trying to grow the void,
but even in that event you would see an blinding beauty coming
out of it. Yeah, I love that.
So this is the beginning of Tolkien's, you know, the whole
mythology. And I, I feel like it does
actually parallel quite nicely with ours because the story of
Lucifer, of Michael, of, you know, the whole heavenly battle
happening, that was before we came on the scene, right?
The elves have their own fall in, in the mythology of Tolkien,
the men have their own fall, although I don't think we're
told much about that. And then the fact that they're,
that each of these races is given their doom or their gift.
So men are given the gift of immortality and the elves are
given the gift of, I'm sorry, Men are given the gift of
mortality and elves are given the gift of immortality.
And then at the end of all things, and you see this
reprised in the trilogy, nobody really knows what happens after
time runs out. And so even beyond the end of
The Lord of the Rings, we know that some go to a peaceful rest
and and some have to wander in the woods and then take the doom
that they have chosen. But a lot of it beyond that is
mystery, and nobody really knows what Aru will do beyond the
circles of this world. But the way that it is alluded
to often in the tales is that it's not something to be dreaded
necessarily. That there is maybe a freedom
and a beauty and a glory beyond everything that we have known
that perhaps will answer to the depth of the suffering and the
pain and the grief that we've had to go through too.
So so I love that he he seems to have covered many bases.
The good professor. Thank you for that, Amy and
young One. This has been a delightful
conversation. Thank you, Professor Tolkien,
for giving us wonderful fodder to consider as we close this
fall season and move into winter.
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