'The Choices of Master Samwise'

When I visited Middle Earth last night, Tolkien showed masterfully that even a simple (but not stupid) Hobbit like Samwise Gamgee instinctively innerstands Sovereignty.

Not only that, but he continues to defend it even if the darkest depths of Mordor when despair has all but taken him. So many trade their principles for scraps of fleeting (and corrupting) power when fear overwhelms, but not our Sam, Chiefest of Gardeners.

'Hope' by aaloei

The quote below had me smiling to myself in bed at Tolkien's genius, showing us how THE Choice really isn't that complicated, though it can be tricksome in a fear-based realm like The Land of Shadow.

"Sam... felt himself enlarged, as if he were robed in a he distorted shadow of himself... He felt that he had from now on only two choices: to forbear the Ring [of Power], though it would torment him; or to claim it, and challenge the Power that sat in its dark hold beyond the valley of shadows... Wild fantasies arose in his mind; and he saw Samwise the Strong, Hero of the Age, striding with a flaming sword [which is what the Lord of The Nazgul wielded - one who did succumb to the lure or Power] across the darkened land, and armies flocking to his call as he marched to the overthrow of Barad-dûr. And then all the clouds rolled away, and became a garden of flowers and trees and brought forth fruit. He had only to put on the Ring and claim it for his own, and all this could be.

In that hour of trial it was the love of his master [I would say Tolkien is alluding to God/ Christ/ Life*] that helped most to hold him firm; but also deep down in him lived still unconquered his plain hobbit-sense: he knew in the core of his heart that he was not large enough to bear such a burden [i.e. claiming the Ring as his own and following a will to power path], even if such visions were not a mere cheat to betray him. The one small garden of a free gardener was all his need and due, not a garden swollen to a realm; his own hands to use, not the hands of others to command." J.R.R. Tolkien

And with those thoughts, despite being utterly horror-struck by the Black Land of Mordor ahead of him, Samwise found the courage to deny that Will to Power and instead choose the difficult, but uncorrupted way of the Will to Meaning. He walked into Mordor for love and in that choice earned his passage to 'The Undying Lands', for Sam too was a Ring-bearer though only for a short while.

In forgoing Power's lure (fear-based) and instead embracing love, you save the Master (raise the Christos). That is when one realeyeses their divine and eternal ("undying") nature and the Barad-dur within falls. As Tolkien shows us, this is the only way to defeat the Saurons without.

~ Aarongorn

__________________

* Frodo (as well as many others in Tolkien's works is another Christ/ Redeemer figure