"Easy it is now to guess how quickly the roving eye of Saruman was trapped and held; and how ever since he has been persuaded from afar, and daunted when persuasion would not serve. ... How long, I wonder, has he been constrained to come often to his glass for inspection and instruction, and the Orthanc-stone so bent towards Barad-dûr that, if any save a will of adamant now looks into it, it will bear his mind and sight swiftly thither? And how it draws one to itself! Have I not felt it? Even now my heart desires to test my will upon it, to see if I could not wrench it from him and turn it where I would ..."Gandalf is referring here to the palantiri, seeing-stones, though insight into Middle Earth isn't necessary to understand the image Tokien is painting.
In the Judeo-Christian understanding of the universe, all of Creation - sun, moon, earth, stars, land, waters, vegetation, animals, humanity - is good, worthy of celebration and enjoyment. This is also the case with things humanity creates: we are capable of doing incredible good through our creativity. With all the emphasis on sin and corruption, we can easily forget that fundamental truth and jump straight to our need for redemption, but we always need to remember our original goodness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All that being said, we do also live in a fallen world. As good as creation is, all created things can be misused, distorted, and corrupted - this is an observable fact, setting aside the doctrinal assertions. Politics, sports, art, cuisine, religious institutions, schools, and families: even in just the past generation, we've seen ways that each of these can be twisted into something tragic and harmful.
But setting aside the wider societal questions ... what about in my own life? Do I really feel like I'm in control of my own actions? Or do I have my own moments where I gaze into the palantir - "constrained to come often to [the] glass for inspection and instruction".
We find ourselves almost serving created things - reflexively picking up our phones. Netflix. Sweets. Sports. News. Music. Alcohol. Pornography. The list is different for everyone, but we all know our list.
Most of these things aren't even inherently evil, and yet we can still end up addicted - making them the centers of our lives - and we might not even realize it has happened. On the other hand, we may notice it creeping in but feel powerless to fight against it.
To err is human, we say - because we accept that we aren't perfect. But I think part of it is that we know exactly what Paul is talking about when he says I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want (Rom 7:19). Setting aside the moral weight of the words good and evil, but we can still relate to the overall message - we push the snooze button for the third time; we watch that fourth episode on Netflix; we find ourselves consuming something, anything, to fill a void - a hunger that seems to be impossible to fill, and we end up feeling more empty than we started.
Eventually, we don't even find pleasure in these things - instead, we find that in a sense we have become trapped, unable to choose to choose what I really want, stuck in yet another rut, caught in chains we can't free ourselves from.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I guess for today, I don't even want to present the hope for redemption (hint: it's Jesus), or Christian apologetics for why we have these insatiable desires (hint: we have been made to hunger for God) - I just wanted to lay out the problem.
Saruman was ensnared the moment he turned his whole attention to the palantir. The same is the case for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment