There’s a lot of fear in the world right now. I see it, especially, all over my social media feed. As caustic political rhetoric in America morphs into senseless acts of violence and murder, anxiety about the state of the world is endemic. Catastrophism is rampant. I’ve encountered people both online and IRL (in real life) who proclaim quite confidently that societal collapse is imminent; civil war in America is inevitable. The West is doomed, they say. A new dark age of totalitarianism or anarchy is our only certain future.
Certainly, fear is a natural impulse in these tumultuous times. But we should not allow understandable distress to metastasize into unreasonable despair. Hopelessness paralyzes the mind and will: preventing us from living our lives, blinding us to the small miracles that happen every day, and robbing the world of the good work we could contribute.
As someone with an artistic bent, a writer, and a lifelong storyteller, I take solace in the experiences of my greatest literary hero, JRR Tolkien. Much of The Lord of the Rings was written during the dark night of World War II, when the forces of evil were literally on the march. The Axis alliance of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan sought nothing less than a diabolical new world order and was willing to exterminate entire nations and people—whether by poison gas, mass starvation, or wholesale slaughter—to secure the triumph of the so-called master races.
Over the course of this apocalyptic global war, it is estimated that sixty million people perished.
Yet even the Western democracies, surely justified in their fight against fascist aggression, compromised their vaunted ideals of liberty and justice for the sake of military convenience. Britain and the United States made common cause with the brutal Soviet tyrant Joseph Stalin and resorted to the unconscionable strategy of terror bombing, in which Allied air forces reduced entire enemy cities to ruin and ash, burning the civilian populations to death in deliberately manufactured firestorms. Over the course of this apocalyptic global war, it is estimated that sixty million people perished.
But as the world around him descended into an inferno of death and darkness, Tolkien continued writing the heroic quest of Frodo the hobbit to Mount Doom. He even began mailing drafts of his latest chapters as a serial to his son Christopher, who was serving with a squadron of the Royal Air Force in South Africa.
Lessons for our fearful times abound in the pages of The Lord of the Rings. Shall we succumb to self-destructive despair like Denethor? After looking into the magic Palantir (an unintentionally prescient image of the smartphone) and beholding the seemingly limitless might and power of Sauron, the hysterical steward of Gondor declares: “The West has failed. It shall all go up in a great fire and all shall be ended. Ash! Ash and smoke blown away on the wind! . . . The West has failed. It is time for all to depart who would not be slaves.”
Or shall we endure in hope like the faithful hobbit Samwise Gamgee? Even in the heart of Mordor—the hideous domain of Sauron and a veritable hell on earth—the fitful light of a lonely star pierces the veil of darkness and renews Sam’s belief in the ultimate triumph of good over evil. For, in that moment, Sam realizes the profound truth that “in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach.”
Denethor put his trust in armies and institutions and his courage crumbled along with them. Sam put his trust in a spiritual power outside himself, giving him the unlooked-for strength to remain with Frodo to the end, as he carried the accursed Ring to the very edge of the Cracks of Doom.
The tide of evil flows when good people despair. For my part, I refuse to believe that the triumph of darkness is inevitable. It pains me to see so much casual fatalism in online spaces these days, even from professed Christians. It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. A cliché? Sure, but it’s such a powerful cliché because it’s true. So, I will continue to light little candles. And how will I do that? By telling stories.
And so, I urge you to not give into fatalism or despair. Now is not the time to retreat into the prisons of anxiety and melancholy.
I’m a writer. And though I recognize I’ll never equal the genius of Tolkien, I want to craft new worlds and tell new tales because it is what I am called to do. Some might disparage this as “escapism.” My only response is that of the Professor himself. In his remarkable essay “On Fairy-Stories,” Tolkien declares: “Why should a man be scorned, if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls?”
And so, I urge you to not give into fatalism or despair. Now is not the time to retreat into the prisons of anxiety and melancholy. Bring something new into the world—create something! Write a story, poem, or essay. Send a letter. (Yes, a handwritten letter.) Draw or paint a picture. Take photos and make a collage. Sculpt with clay, carve with wood. Sing, dance. The only limit is your imagination.
Tolkien correctly insisted that “fantasy remains a human right: we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker.” When we use our God-given creative gifts to bring forth new art into the world, we act as a kind of mirror, casting a dim reflection of the “light and high beauty” that existed before the stars were kindled.
Our broken, frightened, and angry world needs our art, and it needs our stories—perhaps now more than ever.