Greetings Dear Reader,
The Stoorish Hobbits were river folk. They were larger than the Hobbits we know
best and had lost their original homes to the evil of Angmar the Witch King. Not long after Sauron’s first defeat and Isildur’s
death, the One Ring raised its power to lure a new possessor. The difficulty is that when one possesses the
One Ring, in reality, it possesses them.
When we see the history of the One Ring, we see an object
that leaves death, destruction, and sorrow in its wake. Smeagol is no different. This Hobbit of Stoor lived the simple life of
the river folk. The life was one of
farming, fishing, and gathering. He was
fishing with his relative, Deagol on his birthday.
Deagol was pulled into the river by a large fish and it was
he who found the ring. As the third possessor
of the One Ring, his “ownership” of it is short-lived. Smeagol, upon seeing the ring demanded it as
a birthday present. When Deagol refused Smeagol
killed him, took the ring, and made his way to the caves below the Misty
Mountains.
The ring possessed him almost immediately. It drove him mad, enhanced his murderous
nature, and extended his life for almost three hundred years. He transformed over those years to the
wretched creature, Gollum. He spent those
years slinking through the caves feasting on fish and Goblins. His conversations were with the ring which he
called “his Precious.” This is where
Gollum enters our story. He loses the
ring. When Bilbo finds the ring in the
cave, Gollum vows eternal hatred of the Hobbit forever. His Precious is replaced by an empty howling
hunger to destroy Baggins and reclaim the ring.
He possessed one of the most powerful magical artifacts in all
of Middle Earth. His love for it was
returned with only darkness, isolation, and malevolence. It is the way of loving things over
life. The thing can never
reciprocate. The possession can possess
but never love. We begin to isolate our
lives when possessions are our love.
We do the same when we try to possess people. One cannot own another human. Even if the government says it is “legal”, it
is wrong. We still try to possess, control,
and manipulate the lives of others to our will.
This is what Sauron and Isildur both envisioned. It is what many attempt in small or large
ventures. The problem is that the power
we employ to possess anything is the power that diminishes us.
The change in Smeagol was that the possession became his
everything instead of a means to other things.
When we become obsessed with possession, we harm the humans we are
required to love. We put lives after obtaining
and leave harm in our wake.
I have divested myself of most of the things that were
precious to me. In so doing there is
more freedom to love others and invest in them.
There is still in my wake the failure to love others as I should and I may
never be able to heal all of that. What
I will not do is fall prey to the temptation to hate anyone forever. I will not make seeking what I think I am
owed or what I own replace the duty to humbly love others in any way they will
accept.
Even the One Ring can be destroyed. Wanting things or hating those who deny me
what I want is like “drinking poison and waiting for the object of our hatred
to die.” I would say that even being at
odds over these things is a waste of that which is truly precious. It is a waste of time, energy, and life. I must follow the love of God and others to
let it lead me in the ways that redeem the time, give more energy, and sustain
life. When we love possessions, we may
not see the slow transition we make from Smeagol to Gollum, but it is
there. The One Ring has power but none
of it can give us those things that we truly need, Dear Reader.
Wishing you joy in the journey,
Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every
writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a
homeowner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure
store.”
(͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Every human story is part of the great story that leads
to the Father getting everything back to Good.
Contacts for Aramis
Thorn:
#aramisthorn
Bookings: aramisthorn@aramisthorn.com
Posts
And the one ring can be anything that has been placed with an improper importance. Our looks, our jobs, a car, a relationship. Anything.
ReplyDeleteAs illustrated in Neuromancer, when we set our goal to achieve something and put it on a pedestal, often times when we finally achieve that thing, we find that it was worthless all along and set our sights on a different goal, not having learned the lesson. Thank you for illustrating this valuable insight, Aramis.