This is a post I wrote back in March or April, and never got around to posting. Some of the circumstances it references (mostly obliquely) have changed somewhat since the writing. In the main, however, the concerns and struggles are the same (including the work situation), and the ideas I am working through in this essay (if I may so boldly style it) I am working through still.
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DISCOURAGEMENT |
I recently watched this video on the concept of hope on Tolkien's writing. I not only found the idea of those two different types of hope intriguing, but it provided me for words (albeit, invented words) for the way I have been facing the world these last months. Amdir, as it is described in the video, and defined here, seems to me to be a sort of worldly hope: something that might reasonably be expected if certain other things work out. The definition of Estel, however, seems much more akin to the Theological virtue of Hope. And, indeed, if one reads the explanation in The Tolkien Gateway, it appears to be exactly that in Arda and Middle Earth. It makes that concept of hope in the stories all that more profound, and the words of Aragorn's mother, "I have given Hope to men, I have kept none for myself" even more poignant.
The last year has been singular and difficult, in ways that none of us could have foreseen in those early days of March, when our ostensibly normal world began to show just how mad it was. For me, there has been an added difficulty: I am quite claustrophobic, and by nature, prone to anxiety. Previously, neither of these things had had a particularly noticeable impact on my daily life. One simply avoids things that trigger the first, and becomes adept at working through the second. However, the mask mandates have changed that. Avoidance and work-arounds are no longer really possible. Basic errands have been a struggle for me, and the effect on my job (where the accommodations made for me leave much to be desired), profoundly demoralising. This, combined with what seems to me to be an unnecessary amount of other life challenges, has left me feeling particularly bleak about the future. Yet, though I do indeed feel that bleakness to the fullest, I have at the same time, the unshakeable conviction that God still has me in His hands, and that He will bring great good of this. To use Tolkien's words, I am without amdir, but hold on to estel.
There is something profound in this distinction, beyond the linguistic efficiency the words provide. Amdir is useful for making decisions in the here and now. It can provide motivation and determination in difficulties. It can, in theory, be a tool for the virtues both of Prudence, and of Courage. And yet, it is ultimately mutable and unreliable. The world is changeable, however much times of peace and apparently stability might cause us to think otherwise. We can have a reasonable expectation for the future, but we cannot make that future a pure end of itself. If our hope is merely amdir, then we stand in very real peril of being broken by Life. Estel, on the other hand, being of God, transcends the here and now, and looks to the Real beyond what we can perceive with our human senses. It is not optimism. Optimism is more the province of amdir than estel. Nor is it a sort of delusional wishful thinking that comes from a refusal to accept the reality of a situation. As Our Lady askes the defeated Alfred in The Battle of the White Horse, "Do you have joy without a cause/Yea, faith without a hope?" Estel knows that "even the very wise cannot see all ends", that we all have our own part to play in the Great Story that began in Genesis. God makes nothing that is not needful, and therefore, however obscure the purpose He has given to our lives might be to us whilst we are living them, there is indeed a purpose. It is what gives Joy, when there seems to be no cause for it, Faith, though the lower hope of amdir says there is no point.
Further, estel creates a difficult paradox: that which is best for us as creatures who are Soul as well as Body, may not be what is best for us from a purely bodily perspective. For we are not bound to this World. We abide in the beauty of it for a given space, and when our allotted time is spent, we are taken out of it again. And the World, coming from the Hands of God, is a very beautiful place. And we, poor homesick creatures, make ourselves very much at home in the pleasure He saw fit to supply it with-- to the point that any loss of those pleasures seems to us to be the most terrible thing that can befall us. But we are not meant for it forever. All of the desires of our hearts cannot be fulfilled here. This is merely a materiel place, however shot-through with God's glory it is. The two-foldedness of our nature means that the Soul is always crying out for what the material can never supply. Death is not an ultimate evil, to be avoided at all cost. It is a price we pay to have those desires fulfilled at last. Estel, in short, looks to the Good-- if that can be found in some measure here, so much the happier, but even if we find ourselves in darkness, Estel allows us to keep on walking through that darkness to "whatever end" God intends for us.
And it is here that the supernatural nature of estel is revealed: those who hold fast to estel do not necessarily expect to enjoy temporal victories. We are small creatures, and the bodily part of our natures so clamourous and demanding, that we do not readily apprehend the great spiritual world that we inhabit by right of being made after the Image and Likeness of God. We know that all things work together for the Good, but are so blinded by the needs of our own weak selves, that we do not readily internalise what that means. We cannot see how all the small, hidden sufferings and crosses, known only God and ourselves, can have merit beyond the atonement of sins and our own purification. And yet, God places a disproportionate value on those clumsy, fumblingly heroic little efforts-- and because of that great value, in His ineffable wisdom, He sometimes allows us the astonishing privilege of sharing the Chalice of His Own Passion. How many cloistered monks and nuns, how many hidden martyrs have shared in the Cup, draining it to the lees? We do not know the names of those great souls, and yet, much that is green and good in the world continues to be, because of a heroism that makes no sense from a worldly perspective. Estel gives us the ability to look unflinchingly into the cold, hard reality of suffering and defeat, and to still chose to go on, like Theodan in The Return of the King, who admitted that the Rohirrim could not defeat the enemy, but averred that "we will meet them in battle nonetheless". Our sufferings may seem like pointless, hidden things. We are not often allowed to see the great good that comes out of our imperfect offerings of self to God. But, in a way, that is the point of Estel. Christ's words in the Gospel concerning the lilies of the field, and the sparrows, whose fall He marks, mean simply what they say: we are always in His care, no matter what. He did not say that He would spare us the fall. His promise is almost too magnificent for our small minds to comprehend. He is not promising us a happy life (though, because He is the softest of all hearts, He often grants that in very full measure). He is promising us Ultimate Happiness; the happiness of Heaven, which contains all that makes this World so terribly sweet to us, but brought to fullness and perfection. He is promising not just the experience of all good things, but intimate communion with the ultimate Good. In the wake of that promise, our own full measure of sorrow here-- meted out as befits our strength-- really matters very little. It takes the Theological virtue of Faith to believe that, and it takes Estel to live our lives around that truth. To quote again from The Ballad of the White Horse, we "harden our hearts with hope".
Which brings us back to the Current State of Things. The clear-eyed realist in me (tyrant that it is) takes a good, hard look around, and sees very little reason to believe things will improve any time soon. I do not know how long the rampant madness we see around us will endure. I have no idea what will happen with my job, nor where I shall be in life several months hence. I expect a return of better days, but also expect that there will be worse before there is better. I feel the burden of these worries to the fullest. Yet, though my heart is making a storm of distress in itself, I find that my soul is not greatly disturbed. Things are as God intends, and no matter what happens, He marks me with attention, and though He may try me to my utmost, He will never go further than that. The rest does not matter. This, I believe, is Estel: a pure gift of God, of which I am slightly afraid. But I trust that He sees the effort I am making to walk in that Hope; to be like Sam in Cirith Ungol, refusing to be defeated by darkness... and that is enough.
