Bag End, Hobbiton. April 13, Shire Year, 1401. – Almost seventeen years after Bilbo’s party and (in)famous disappearance, Gandalf returns to the home of Frodo with news about the Ring in his possession. It is morning in the Shire and the two are engaged in a post-breakfast conversation. Gandalf cautions his dear friend:

A mortal, Frodo, who keeps one of the Great Rings, does not die, but he does not grow or obtain more life, he merely continues, until at last every minute is a weariness. And if he often uses the Ring to make himself invisible, he fades: he becomes in the end invisible permanently, and walks in the twilight under the eye of the dark power that rules the Rings.” – LOTR, p. 47

There are tragic and terrifying illustrations of this truth in Middle-earth. Most apparent, as you know, is Gollum; Bilbo, too, had begun to feel such effects, reflected in his comment to Gandalf: “I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.” Only slightly less obvious but much more revealing are the Ringwraiths: each having possessed one of the nine rings for mortal men, they now exist rather than live. Theirs is a shadowy continuance without hope.

So it is with any who seek to add to themselves by following their own path. They “merely continue” in an existence that is increasing devoid of satisfaction and purpose, or at least lacking any sense of being that is meaningful beyond the moment or to themselves. Such people are haunted deep within by an empty awareness of something missing, a destiny or path out of sight over the horizon or lost in a fog of furious activity and distraction.

It is the image of God in them, of course, that disturbs their soul like an empty stomach grumbling for food.

Christians are not free from following such a course for their lives. Hoping to have more and to expand ourselves, we end up with less and without a sense of self or identity at all. Seeking to possess we become possessed. Common sense tells us that more power means more freedom, but only too late do we realize that it is not common sense but nonsense that directs us.

This is not the same as “losing one’s self” for the glory of God. As we draw nearer in fellowship with God, we are filled with him more than we are emptied of ourselves. Those who seek their own glory and advancement, however, are increasingly empty and never filled.

No one, perhaps, embodies this more than the Mouth of Sauron who meets the Captains of the West at the Black Gate in Mordor. He has no name or has forgotten it; his identity is totally dependent on someone other than himself, a mere extension of his lord and master. His is not a selfless existence but a selfish one, having believed the lie that Sauron will meet his needs and satisfy his desires. But Sauron serves only himself; all his minions serve him as well.

We have a choice who it is that we will serve. Will our Lord be the Savior who alone can save and satisfy? Or will the Enemy pull our strings while we, like blind and foolish puppets, imagine ourselves to have found a better path than the one which is set before us?



Namárië.