Ukraine, The Lord of the Rings, and the Good Worth Fighting For
Greetings from sabbatical!
I wrote this earlier in the summer for EerdWord, the blog of my publisher for Hope: A User’s Manual:
Like many people, I’ve been following the news of the war in Ukraine with alternating feelings of despair and fear, but also awe at the resilience and resolve of the Ukrainian people and President Zelensky. There are many voices out there to help us understand the shifting landscape from a geopolitical or military perspective, and those are really important. But as a spiritual leader and an author of a book on hope, I’m also interested in the narrative dimension of the crisis. What meaning are we making as we watch this extraordinary act of resistance? What connections can we make to the values that undergird our lives and give them purpose?
The world has been stirred and inspired by stories of ordinary Ukrainians standing up and standing firm against a foreign invader. When the crisis first began to unfold, I saw images of students, software engineers and mothers taking up arms to defend their homeland. I must admit, my mind went to a strange place: to the second Lord of the Rings movie, to the Siege of Helm’s Deep, when ordinary men and boys of Rohan were enlisted to fight against the Uruk-hai in a battle where they were badly outnumbered. They weren’t trained as soldiers… and yet love of homeland compelled them to fight. And when Europe and the U.S. and other countries united to provide aid to Ukraine, I remembered the rousing scene in the Return of the King, when great beacons of fire were lit across miles and mountains, as the kingdom of Gondor called for help.
Of course, what’s happening in Ukraine is not a novel or movie. The war is real, and the human toll has been devastating.
But to see connections between life and art doesn’t cheapen the former, it deepens both.