Nebulous "It" and Absolutes

[symestreem]

davem, that's pretty profound. Wow.

It all comes down to suffering & its effects. Do we grow through suffering - & even if we do, is that enough to absolve the Creator, or fate. If the suffering is so extreme it breaks us (even if we're re-made into something higher, more spiritually aware) would that be enough to make it ok to have broken us.

Turn the question around. If we have the opportunity to have the opportunity to grow, and we are not given it to save us some anguish, is that fair?

Frodo may have become more Elvish - but he's a Hobbit, not an Elf. He's lost himself - & in the end I suppose that's the 'It' we're talking about - everything that made him who he was, which became bound up with & symbolised by the Ring.

What makes Frodo a Hobbit? A pair of pointy ears and furry feet? What you look like is a chance result of the genetic lottery. It's what you are that counts, and Frodo is different from the others that look like him. He's more 'elvish' (I hesitate to use this term, since it is not accurate- maybe saying he is 'higher' is better) to begin with. I don't know if we can really resolve this, because it comes down to who he is. Who is anyone? What makes a person them? Who am I, really?

[Imladris]

The thing with Frodo is that he grew intellectually and spiritually. The Hobbits were a fairly simple folk, with simple traditions, with simple thinking. They cared more for the homey pleasantries of life and, on the whole, were optimistic.

The elves, on the other hand, were intelligent and had a more realistic view on life. They realized that things came to an end, even good things. That's what Frodo came to realize as well.

Frodo is not a broken person. When I read LotR for the first time, that is not what instantly popped into my head. He had suffered much and grown much. He's like a tree that grows stronger through the storms. If you keep it sheltered, it won't grow as strong. During the storms it may loose a limb or two, but it's heart -- it's root-- remains the same. And in time those limbs will grow back stronger and different thatn before.

You can either view growing through anguish or not growing at all a lesser of two evils but in my mind, it is not so. Wouldn't you rather grow and discover the truth of the world, than not grow at all and live in a delusionary reality?

[davem]

Of course Frodo grew, but into what, & was it what he wanted to grow into? Why should he have had to grow in a way he had no say in?

In other words, growth through suffering is all very nice sounding, but in reality the process isoften just horrible & cruel, & not spiritual at all - even if we can call the result 'spiritual'. But we could also ask what makes Frodo 'spiritual' in the same way as we can ask 'What makes Frodo a Hobbit'?.

Is he a more 'spiritual' being at the end because he's lost everything he had & resigned himself to his fate - I'm not sure this constitutes 'spirituality'. But if not, what does?

He 'grows, beyond what he was, becomes too large for the little world of the Shire - but Bilbo says he loved the woods, fields & little rivers - did someone/something just decide to take them away, or did he give them up in full knowledge, or just lose them along the way - or cast them away like the Orc gear in Mordor. Had he come to a point where he thought of what he had been, a Hobbit wandering the Shire & drinking in the local pub as being somehow 'uncouth', simplistic - in a sense 'Orcish', so that he was throwing away his own past & hobbit nature along with the Orc mail & sword, & deliberately deciding to become an 'Elf'?

Yet, he's not, & can never be, an Elf, so what has he become?

[Imladris]

I don't quite understand what you mean when you ask, "What did Frodo grow into?" He didn't grow into anything at all. When you grow like Frodo did, you gain understanding of the world and how it operates. You don't grow into a different, super spiritual person.

Yes, Frodo did give it up. I believe that this has been said before, but Frodo made a conscious descision to continue his quest. Thus, he willingly gave up everything he lost (his innocense, etc). But you're forgetting that he gained so much more than he lost. He gained the joy of seeing the hobbits in peace, of seeing Middle-earth saved. He gained understanding of pity and mercy.

I do not believe that Frodo cast the Shire away like orc gear, that he viewed the hobbit ways as uncouth. That is against his very nature, and the ending would have been infused with hate, which it wasn't.

Frodo suffered much, gained much, saved much. As a reward, he went to Valinor. That's all what happened. It was the only place he could go that would ease his suffering. Isn't that worth the pain, living your life out with Bilbo and the elves? Of course, it doesn't say that his troubles were relieved, but I believe that is heavily understated.

[Dininziliel]

Davem, I will offer again part of the quote posted earlier from Letter #181:

. . . still there are abnormal situations in which one may be placed. ‘Sacrificial’ situations, I should call them: sc. Positions in which the ‘good’ of the world depends on the behaviour of an individual in circumstances which demand of him suffering and endurance far beyond the normal . . . he is in a sense doomed to failure, doomed to fall to temptation or be broken by pressure against his ‘will’: that is against any choice he could make or would make unfettered, not under the duress.

Clearly, Tolkien is saying that there are circumstances which take us beyond our breaking point and do so against our will. So, yes--the tides of life can break us. Is this fair? Is this right? I think the answer depends on whether one believes she or he created her- or himself or that we are children of Eru/God. Here again we have the notion of personal self vs. self as part of a universal whole. What I wish for most in my life is to be able to hold to my faith that I am a child of Eru/God, a part of the universal whole while in the midst of St. John's Dark Night, Buchenwald, or any other thing in this world that those filled with self-will can pervert and impose--to hold onto the knowledge that there is much more beyond this life that cannot be seen. I know it can be done for there were some who emerged from such horrors into the light, assuredly not unscarred & as before, but scarred & transformed. This gives me certain knowledge that there is hope--a peace that passes understanding.

There is a difference between happiness & joy; innocence & wisdom; passion & compassion. I would rather have the latters than the formers--although the journey between those dichotomies is not one I eagerly embark upon.

Frodo could not be healed in ME, and he could be no more certain about what would happen in Valinor than he was about Mt. Doom. Yet he willingly went on both journeys.

Tolkien says that healing occurs in Valinor, ergo Frodo is healed after sailing into the uttermost West. He was a Ringbearer; we are all Ringbearers & therefore are all eligible to be healed. Frodo was willing to surrender self again to unknown & unknowable circumstances. He was not attached to self unto death of self, but was willing to surrender to his creator's will. Only a few were granted the trip to Valinor in a white ship to heal before departing their bodies. When faced with void & brokenness, where do we get to go? What do we get to do to heal? Are we not called to surrender self to our creator in order to be transformed and to experience joy again? (And no true joy is absent of sorrow.) Perhaps this post-broken surrender of self actually is, after all, our white ship into the uttermost West.

This, I think, is the harder journey of the two--many willingly attempt the journey to Mr. Doom with their Ring; almost none choose the white ship after failing the impossible task.

[davem]

Yet, Frodo doesn't seem to be made any happier by this process of spiritual growth he goes through. Tolkien says he considers himself to be a 'broken failure' at the end. He does sacrifice everything for others, but it doesn't really seem to bring him any sense of even 'spiritual' achievement.

I am reminded of a couple of lines from The Sea Bell, one where he arrives at Faery, & proclaims 'Here I stand, King of this land!', & then the last line, 'For still they speak not, men that I meet'. Frodo goes from being the most imporatnt person in the world, he is the central concern of the 'great', the fate of the world lies in his hand (literally). He is, in his own estimation, & whether he likes it, 'King of this Land'. Then he comes back home, a 'broken failure' & is ignored by the very people he sacrificed everything to save, but rather than blame them, he blames himself.

So, spiritual growth doesn't include, can actually preclude, happiness (of the worldly kind, at least). Then what? We should do it anyway - make the sacrifice? But Frodo's sacrifice is not made to achieve 'spiritual growth' - in fact, if that was his motivation, he would probably have run away to live on a mountain top, or at least in Rivendell with Bilbo, long before.

I'd say that 'spiritual growth' was never in Frodo's mind, & happened as a by-product, something that he had never desired. Of course, he wanted to be rid of the Ring - firstly for himself, them for the Shire, then for the world, but he didn't want to become a psuedo Elf & go live in the West, & my own feeling is that he went into the West principally because he could no longer stay in the World. He was excluded by his own final state from remaining in the Shire. He gave up most of what he loved & had the rest taken from him.

I don't think, looked at from this point of view, that 'spiritual growth' has a lot to advocate it to the layman!

But, we come back to 'trust'/estel. Faith that there is some purpose to our existence, that Spiritual growth, even if forced on us, is for something, & will be worth having. Or even if not, that the bigger picture is more important than our individual selves - our story is simply part of a greater story. As Charles Williams said (seeing us as 'strands' in a great 'Web') The strand exists for the Web, not the web for the strand'.

So, someone has to give up the things they love & care about - they have to 'grow spiritually' whether they want to or not.

[Lyta_Underhill]

Is it possible to have the opposite outcome where "all is light and full of joy"?

For fleeting moments, sure. I am reminded of the beauty of the passage from "The Field of Cormallen," in which the story is told of "Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom," where Frodo's story is, for a brief, heady time, made legend, where all suffering becomes meaningful and everything has a sparkle of divine light that makes it all clear and worthwhile, and would, I think, qualify as the moment where "all is light and full of joy." But, as C.S. Lewis has observed elsewhere, joy is fleeting and full-realized only when unlooked-for, experienced in the moment.

And all the host laughed and wept, and in the midst of their merriment and tears the clear voice of the minstrel rose like silver and gold, and all men were hushed. And he sang to them, now in the Elven-tongue, now in the speech of the West, until their hearts, wounded with sweet words, overflowed, and their joy was like swords, and they passed in thought out to regions where pain and delight flow together and tears are the very wine of blessedness.

Joy, by its very nature, is a transient state, and cannot be prolonged into happiness. I think it has a different flavor altogether. Thus, on the opposite end, Frodo's episodes of darkness and despair do not last forever, but, while they do last, their effects are "like swords" that wound and devastate, rather than flow with sweetness, like the minstrel's song at Cormallen.

One of the things that strikes me is how generally moral the Hobbits are, a morality based on instinct rather than formal belief.

A good point, Child. The force that put Frodo on his path to Mount Doom seems inevitable, a logical outcome of this instinctive moral sense. Frodo knows he must take this path, because it is the right one, the one that can save his beloved Shire and the things and people he loves. One need not ascribe such a sense to a personified higher power for it to be a valid driving force in one's actions and thoughts. Frodo takes the path he does for others, for those who will never know the depth of his sacrifice and for those few who know and accompany him along his dark path.

It all comes down to suffering & its effects. Do we grow through suffering - & even if we do, is that enough to absolve the Creator, or fate. If the suffering is so extreme it breaks us (even if we're re-made into something higher, more spiritually aware) would that be enough to make it ok to have broken us.

davem, I think that it would be somehow limiting to ascribe suffering to the realm of "being wronged" in an absolute sense, because, in the end, it does open one's eyes, and often allows one to see into other realms, much like the Elves, I suppose. Again, I return to a quote from Child's insightful posts above:

Because the world has been marred, it will be different in its final outcome. But it will be no less beautiful or full of meaning. This seems to go along with that famous quote in the Silm where even Morgoth's evil acts will be used by Eru to fashion wonders that Morgoth can not even imagine.

I cannot say I have grief-counselling experience, but I do have experience from the other end, having been a sufferer of things I wouldn't wish on anyone. Yet, I cannot say that these evils have made everything empty; rather, they opened my eyes and allowed me to see aspects of the world (and even into the spirit-realm if you'd like to call it that) that I could never have known without them. So, is it better to remain asleep, blind in happiness or ignorance in the protected Shire, or to experience the depth of "reality" in all its wonder and, yes, horror. I think it is easy to look into a situation that is marred by great horror and see only the horror. But there are slow awakenings, lights that come on, that cause one to look beyond the horror; in many ways, they make the horror bearable. But the fact of the horror never goes away, and the "way things are in the world" can, at times, wound beyond imagining. Certainly, in Frodo's case, the cure and redress of suffering is appropriate. The small "lights" that have grown within him, his "clear light" can become primary in the West, so that this aspect can overshadow the horror that would always live too close if he had remained in Middle Earth.

Cheers,
Lyta