In this post, I want to make some associations with William James Tychonievich's recent post "St. George, stake for the sun, and inevitable 'miracles'. "
The story of St. George and the dragon made me think of this passage from The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien:
"But they were still living on the borders of myth - or rather this story exhibits 'myth' passing into History or the Dominion of Men; for of course the Shadow will arise again in a sense (as is clearly fortold by Gandalf), but never again (unless it be before the great end) will an evil daemon be incarnate as a physical enemy; he will direct Men and all the complications of half-evils, and defective half-goods, and the twilights of doubt as to sides, such situations as he most loves (you can see them already arising in the War of the Ring, which is by no means so clear cut an issue as some critics have averred): those will be and are our more difficult fate.
But if you imagine a people in such a mythical state, in which Evil is largely incarnate, and in which physical resistance to it is a major act of loyalty to God, I think you would have the 'good people' in just such a state: concentrated on the negative: the resistance to the false, while 'truth' remained more historical and philosophical than religious."
And this is part of the significance of the St. George story. In it, George faces evil embodied in a physical form, as a dragon. Resistance to evil is not subtle, but obvious, though it requires courage. This calls to mind the following passage from The Fellowship of the Ring:
"The Balrog reached the bridge. Gandalf stood in the middle of the span, leaning on the staff in his left hand, but in his other hand Glamdring gleamed, cold and white. His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow about it reached out like two vast wings. It raised the whip, and the thongs whined and cracked. Fire came from its nostrils. But Gandalf stood firm.
...
With a bound the Balrog leaped full upon the bridge. Its whip whirled and hissed. 'He cannot stand alone!' cried Aragorn suddenly and ran back along the bridge. 'Elendil!' he shouted. 'I am with you Gandalf!' 'Gondor!' cried Boromir and leaped after him. "
The Balrog is an uncanny monster, stronger than any human being. Gandalf had earlier said "This is a foe beyond any of you." Yet, Aragorn prepares to help Gandalf fight it. And Boromir, who although he has Numernorean ancestry is weaker than either Gandalf or Aragorn follows Aragorn's lead. This is a brave action deed from Boromir who has never heard about or thought to face such creatures.
In another letter, Tolkien also takes up the theme of choosing a side:
There are also conflicts about important things or ideas. In such cases I am more impressed by the extreme importance of being on the right side, than I am distrurbed by the revelation of the jungle of confused motives, private purposes, and individual actions (noble or base) in which the right and the wrong in actual human conflicts are commonly involved. If the conflict really is about things properly called right and wrong, or good and evil, then the rightness or goodness of one side is not proved or established by the claims of either side; it must depend on values and beliefs above and independent of the particular conflict.
Tolkien also had another interesting statment about sides in a letter to his son, Christopher:
"In real (exterior) life men are on both sides: which means a motley assortment of orcs, beasts, demons, plain naturally honest men, and angels." This sentence is interesting because Tolkien describes the wide variety of human types and goes into more detail than most usually do.
As far as the idea of inevitable miracles, that makes me think of astronomical or astrological events. So, it is appropirate that the Tintin comic refered in William James Tychonievich's post showed an eclipse. Many ancient people regarded natural phenomena as having significance that could be interpreted by human beings. Yet, often these events, especially astronomical phenomena are predictable because they follow regular patterns. So, unexpected events portended by events in space could be thought of as inevitable miracles.
One thing I thought of was the Comet ATLAS. I remember reading towards the beginning of the madness of 2020 that this comet was brightening and would draw closest to the sun on May 31, which happened to be Pentecost that year. But, instead, the comet broke into pieces. There seems to be some significance to that. Ancient people thought that comets portended disaster, so what does a comet breaking apart mean? Also, the article, describing the breakup says, "30 fragments on April 20, and 25 pieces on April 23." There's April 23 again. Furthermore, May 31 is close to May 30, which the day of Joan of Arc's death.
I don't have any conclusions, but I write this post in response to the statement in Tychoievich's post: "I'm not sure where this is all going yet, but it certainly feels as if the synchronicity fairies are introducing a new 'theme' that they intend to pursue for a while. We'll see how it plays out."
A good rule of thumb for synchro-mysticism is to make connections first and then see what happens.
Your quote from Tolkien's letters about taking the right side and the sides being defined by values above a specific conflict; make me realize how deeply indebted I am to Tolkien for this core insight. I don't recall reading that specific letter - indeed, at the time I did first read it I still had a couple of decades of atheism ahead of me.
ReplyDeleteUntil I became a Christian I could not really understand this idea of 'sides'. And indeed, even then it needed a good bit of work before I got things at all clear in terms of what the sides wanted.
But a strong clarifying factor on the eve of me choosing to make a commitment to Christianity was a moving picture I recalled from a dream - of the earth being covered by blackness - rather as if a spherical jigsaw puzzle was both being swept by a tide of blackness, a piece at a time - and there were also isolated black pieces emerging and growing from the true colours of earth.
Anyway, the clear thought emerged that there was the side of the growing blackness and there was the side of those who were against it - and I wanted to be on the opposition side.
This is a very double-negative view of Christianity (i.e. opposition to evil - which is itself opposition to Good) - and I think we need to do a better job of defining the purpose of Good - yet the matter of taking sides was indeed primary.
It is, in fact, was everybody does - but they only choose between sides that are evil (e.g. the 'sides' or 'parties' of mainstream politics).
In the past the side of good was (in any particular place) physically instantiated as one or other Christian Church. Now these institutions have joined the other side. So we must each find the side of Good for our-selves.
The black pieces now cover the globe. No part of the earth still takes the side of Good.
But the side of Good is still there, perhaps represented by needle points of light, representing individual Good-aligned persons, stippling the blackness in many places.
"yet the matter of taking sides was indeed primary."
DeleteI completely agree. As you pointed out, taking sides is just naturally how people think. And despite what the neutralists say, that isn't just a quirk of psychology, there is a deeper reason behind it.
I think in most cases, people choose to resist evil because of a love of some good that the evil is attacking or destroying. A good parallel is Bonald's recent post https://orthosphere.wordpress.com/2021/04/26/corollary-for-apologetics/ where he writes:
"When I ask myself why I am a Christian, the first thing that comes to mind (not the most logically demonstrative but the closest to my heart) is not an argument or a piece of evidence, but a sense of revulsion, revulsion at the idea that loyalty to fathers and kings is for suckers, and that reverence toward ancestors and sacred objects is for fools."
Some good connections here. One theory about the origin of dragon myths is that dragons originated as representations of comets, so the breaking up of a comet would correspond to the slaying of a dragon. Several ancient cultures also referred to a solar eclipse as a dragon eating the Sun.
ReplyDeleteGeorge ("farmer") slaying the dragon also makes me think of the Greek myth of Cadmus, who kills a dragon and then (playing the role of a farmer) sows its teeth in the earth.
I did not know that about comets being associated with dragons. So, we connect back to St. George again.
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