the people who walk in darkness...

A couple months ago, my friend and I put on our second annual Tolkien, Tenebrae and the Triduum retreat. This is (very roughly) the talk I gave about Eowyn and Good Friday.

I’ve always had trouble picking favorites, but there are at least two places where I can confidently claim a favorite in a category: 1. My favorite book is The Lord of the Rings and 2. My favorite Scripture passage is Isaiah 9:1-6.

Isaiah 9:1-6 is always the first reading at Midnight Mass on Christmas. It’s the one that begins: The people who walked in darkness / have seen a great light… it goes on to describe in vivid language the contrast between the suffering of the people and the beauty and triumph of the light that came to them. It climaxes in: “for a Child is born to us, a Son is given to us…” which is why it’s always used for Christmas.

I love this passage for a lot of reasons, perhaps primarily because it presents the essential Gospel message in poetry form (Isaiah has been sometimes called the fifth Evangelist). But the two things that I want to especially pay attention to in this passage are these: 1) Being honest about the nature of darkness is necessary if you want to bring real hope. 2) For most of the time that I’ve known and loved this passage, I unintentionally cut myself off from being one of those to whom it applied. To draw out why these two things are worth noticing, I want to talk about two stories: Eowyn’s and mine.

I. Eowyn

(**spoilers**)

When I was younger, I always used to pretend that I didn't identify with Eowyn because everyone identified with Eowyn - but I think, even then, I secretly loved her. Reflecting on her story for the writing of this talk proved very fruitful for my own prayer and self-knowledge. I saw in her story a cycle that is all too familiar to me: the presence of emotional wounds, leading to a desire that was twisted by the wounds, that twisted desire leading to a placing of hope in the wrong place, which inevitably will be taken away or disappoint. The loss of that hope causes enormous suffering, but is the necessary step to a greater healing and wholeness and, eventually, the happy ending.

My friend said of her that "she has separated herself from the company of the lovable" - a striking comment, not the least because he could have been speaking of me at many points in my life. But it makes sense. She lost her parents at a young age; watched helplessly as her adoptive father fell under the corrupting influence of Wormtongue and with him, the kingdom; and, as if that wasn't bad enough, was constantly dealing with the creepy romantic attention of the very source of the corruption. Now, once you have lost your sense of inherent worth, you generally start looking for a way to earn your worth (the desire to be loved doesn't go away with the belief that you are not lovable). In the decaying kingdom of Rohan, with evil growing on both sides, the battlefield is the place where people are able to actually do something, to make some stand against the darkness. That, coupled with her natural courage, makes the desire for "great deeds and renown" strong in her.

It is in this state that she meets Aragorn (falling for Aragorn is another way in which I identify with her, because, honestly, who wouldn't?). Aragorn is the consummate leader and warrior, making more progress in the saving of Theoden and Rohan in a single day than anyone has in years. And he's also amazing. She falls in love with him, but, I think, also places all of her hope of a better life in him. And so when she finds out that his heart belongs to another, that hope is taken away and she despairs. She desires nothing more than a heroic death in battle and she rides with the Rohirrim to seek it.

On the fields of Pelennor, she achieves enormous glory and, effectively, turns the tide of the battle. But the act that brought her that glory was motivated, not by her long standing desire for glory, but by her fierce love for her father (Theoden). With no hope of success or survival, she puts herself between Theoden and Witch King of Angmar - and defeats the most terrifying enemy on the battlefield. But the fulfillment of her long-standing desire does not fulfill her and she languishes on the point of death, until she is reawakened by the voice of her brother Eomer. For love of him she returns to life, but still not to hope. She is trapped in the houses of healing, waiting for tidings of the assault on Mordor and it is there that Faramir sees her as she is and loves her. When the tidings of victory come, that still does not heal her - she has separated herself from the company of the lovable and so, in some way, the victory does not apply to her. It is only when she allows herself to receive the love of Faramir that "the heart of Eowyn changed, or else, at last she understood it", the shadow departed, and she was healed.

II. Me

I've never defeated a Witch King, I've never even ridden into battle with the Rohirrim, but separating myself from the company of the lovable is something I am deeply familiar with. It's not from any trauma in my past, just from a slow and subtly growing conclusion about myself that I am unlovable.

As I look back at my life so far, I can see that so many of the hardest times hurt because they were stripping away different ways that I was separating myself from the company of the lovable - breaking down sins, lies, wounds etc. For instance, the first time I discovered the existence of this wound in me, was only at the end of a really rough week when I finally was forced to see that my insecurities were hurting people around me, not just me. That first discovery made a huge difference, but it's still an ongoing battle. I remember one time in particular in prayer, sometime last Fall, I was getting super discouraged and weighed down by the fact that I was still struggling with the same patterns of wounds and sins. I was wrestling this for a good chunk of time before it finally dawned on me: I am the one who walks in darkness. This might seem like a laughably obvious conclusion, but to a very real degree I had never associated myself as one of the people who walked in darkness from that Isaiah passage. I always had a fairly easy time seeing the truth of that passage in other people's lives: hearing about their sins, their addictions, their sufferings, I never had much trouble seeing that they were still a beloved child of God and that He wanted to heal them. But as absurd as it sounds, I held my own darkness to a different standard - often thinking of it as some impossibly massive thing that I had to conquer before I could be loved by God. But He was born in a filthy stable and He died on a Cross for me. As scared as I am of my own darkness, it is absolutely no match for the One who literally took the weight of every age and every nation's sin on His shoulders and defeated it. By separating myself from the company of those who walk in darkness, I had also separated myself from the company of those to whom the Light had come.

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Suffering is a necessary consequence of freedom. On the Cross Christ makes that very thing His instruments in Redemption. He did this once and for all, but by His act that same pattern holds true in our individual lives, so long as we unite our sufferings to His. By our suffering, wounds and lies are healed and our love is purified. "Our false self must be crucified with Him so that our true identity as His beloved can shine forth in glory" (Bob Schuchts, Be Healed).

Not only that, He is profoundly with us every step of the way. His Passion contains every imaginable type of suffering - loneliness in the Agony in the Garden, abandonment in his friends feeling His side etc.

I remember, around the same time as "I am the one who walks in darkness", praying about the three hours that Christ spent on the Cross. It struck me that those three hours were not necessary. He's God, he ordained the way that He died, and I could see the fittingness if He had decided to be crucified, raised up on the Cross and then die in that moment of total agony. Instead He stayed in that height of agony for three whole hours. It struck me that He did it to be with all those who feel trapped in their suffering, for those burdened by a Cross that just will not go away. He did it, so that when I was discouraged and bowed down by still fighting and suffering from the same old wound, I wouldn't have to suffer alone.

So don't be afraid of the suffering and darkness in your life - it is no match for Him and He is with you. So in the epic words of Theoden,

FORTH NOW AND FEAR NO DARKNESS!

#TheLordoftheRings #Stories