https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=QcQShPpbEgc
Hello everybody. I am sitting here with Father Andrew Dhammick. Father Dhammick is an Orthodox priest. He’s also an author. He’s written a few books and he is a podcaster. He’s been doing several podcasts, but mostly recently he started an interesting podcast on the relationship between Christianity in general, Orthodoxy in particular, and Tolkien’s work in the Lord of the Rings and the Similarian and his other works. And so I thought it would be a really interesting opportunity to talk to Father Andrew just because I know a lot of you are watching me are interested in stories like mythology, like traditional stories, and a lot of you are also fans of Tolkien. So Father Andrew, maybe you could introduce yourself a little bit. Tell us about your journey. I know you are a convert to Orthodoxy as well. You know, your journey into Orthodoxy, but also to Tolkien and to these types of stories. This is Jonathan Peugeot. Welcome to the symbolic world. Well, thank you very much. Well, first thing I’ll say to introduce myself is that my last name is pronounced Damic. Damic. I will try to be careful with that. Yeah, it’s not a really common name actually. And in fact, it’s a sort of Americanization of a Lithuanian name, which is Domika, which I kind of wish sometimes that my great grandfather had just sort of left it alone. But here we are. But yeah, for me, actually, the journey into Orthodoxy and J.R. Tolkien are kind of bound up together. And the reason for that is that having read Tolkien from when I was quite young, I would say, I don’t know, maybe starting eight or nine years old, you know, that very much shaped my imagination and shaped my worldview in terms of what was not just sort of possible, but kind of what I expected from the world. I think then when I encountered the Orthodox Church in my early 20s, so I’ve been Orthodox now for about 21 years, when I encountered the Orthodox Church in my early 20s, in some sense, it was like an experience of, wait, it’s all real? Like this kind of world where the transcendent is just at the threshold of the imminent, that’s actually a thing. You know, so I was very receptive to Orthodoxy, I think, as a result of that. And not that my evangelical Protestant upbringing regarded the world as flat, but it kind of sequestered the miraculous and the supernatural into the Bible and into some time in the future, largely speaking, although it did kind of allow for the possibility of miracles within our own but it wasn’t like it was like we were walking up to the threshold every time we went to church on Sunday. That’s not what we did. Whereas as an Orthodox Christian, I would say that’s what I do, you know, that is my normal daily life. So, you know, my vocation is as a parish priest, so I’m a pastor of a church in Eastern Pennsylvania, and I’m also a husband and a father of four kids. And I’ve been podcasting with Ancient Faith Radio for about a decade now. And this new podcast that you mentioned is actually my fourth podcast. And I’ve also got a few books with Ancient Faith Publishing and some blogs, and I just sort of seem to accumulate content much as you yourself do. So that’s kind of me in a nutshell. Well, I think it’s very interesting. One of the I have noticed and I’ve noticed that, you know, with Nicholas Cotar, but also with just priests in general, when I meet Orthodox priests, they have this kind of, they do have this kind of strange token culture, especially converted priests, it seems, and a lot of Orthodox converts. And I think the way that you phrase it to say, you know, that wait a minute, you know, this is real, I can actually live in a story that has this magical quality to it. I think that you really hit the nail on the head in the sense that, you know, the liturgical life and this idea, and even the fact that priests, even their vestments, you know, when you see a priest, there’s something about it that is accepting of a grander reality of something which is more. And you know, when you read these, you read the token and you read this idea of an ancient world, which is almost also being lost, you could say, and there’s this, it kind of, it kind of peaks in, you know, all of a sudden, you get a sense that you’re connected to this ancient thing. And I think that that’s also something that is there, should be there, at least in Christianity. Once you start, when you read, you know, the early Church Fathers, for example, when I read San Gregor of Nyssa, it was as if exactly as if I was plunged into this magical world. And I thought, you know, I can live in this story. I can, you know, my life can be plunged into this story, the same story that Moses was part of, you know, and I think that that’s an amazing thing that we have access to. Yeah, and you know, I know some Orthodox converts, their sense of this can sometimes get a little misdirected towards pining for the glories of some particular past Orthodox culture or something like that. But the truth is really that this, if we should have any kind of nostalgia, it should be nostalgia for paradise, right, in which the veil between the transcendent and the immanent is basically not there, you know, the Adam and Eve walk with God in the garden, you know, and so I’ve seen that. But I think what you’re saying is true, that there’s this the sense of connecting with something ancient, something powerful, something where, you know, the divine, the mystical is just kind of on the edge of our actual experience. And I think a lot of that is based on what we expect, actually, of our story. Like, do I expect that I’m going to encounter the divine or have I just sort of accepted that that’s not a thing in my world, even if I’m a believer in it, right? I might agree that it’s there, but not really kind of be desiring it and wanting it or expecting it, certainly. And I think that’s one of the things that Orthodox Christianity, in some sense, takes as a given, actually, you know, that simply, God is there, and he actually does love us, and he’s touching us and connecting with us, and his scenes are just there kind of on the edge of our consciousness. Right? So. But I think that’s something that right now it’s such a great time to talk about this, because there’s a sense I’m seeing in even in the secular community, I’m seeing an awakening to, as science reaches its limit, you could say in terms of understanding the human person and is facing, is hitting up against the problem of consciousness and the problem of what it means for a meaning making conscious agent to be the one who is observing the world and how that interaction is extremely complicated. The possibility of speaking of what other the other only word I can use for people to understand is of speaking of these principalities of the notion that there are principalities which surround us and which are forming our world and we are we have the chance to participate in that and this kind of amazing hierarchy of saints and of angels leads up and points us to the absolute transcendence. I think that now is just such a great time to talk about that. I have seen in my dealing with kind of post-atheists, people at first when you talk about angels, they think you’re talking about, you know, I mean they think you’re just talking that they’re actually winged people that fly around in the sky to finally saying, oh okay, all right, I see what you mean and I also see what you mean when you point to the fact that even you as a person, there’s an aspect of you that you cannot fully contain within the quantitative world you could say and it’s kind of leading people to now again really looking at old stories, looking at myths and the great thing about Tolkien is he was able to create a world that was almost was so completely coherent in terms of its mythology is not at all Christian and I think that’s also important. It’s not at all Christian in its let’s say in its outer aspect. Yeah right. When you look at it, you see that the pattern that is behind it reveals something that can help you understand what it means to be a Christian in the world and I think that to me is one of the most interesting things that Tolkien can bring to us. Yeah and I mean it’s interesting if you read like if you read Tolkien’s letters for instance, he talks a lot about his intentions for his creation and well sub-creation to use the Tolkien term and you know one of the things that he says is that he says that it’s actually a Christian and Catholic work particularly but there’s a lot of people who are not Christians or maybe have no religious involvement at all who if they read that bit from his letter might think wait what? I don’t see Jesus in here anywhere. What do you mean by that? But I think part of the difficulty of course is that we often look at things on a more superficial level rather than seeing kind of the deeper substrates of what’s going on. Yeah and you know it’s almost like the I kind of see it the way that it’s almost like Tolkien’s world is an alternative Old Testament you know where there you have all these types these small types of characters that will manifest one aspect let’s say of Christ or one aspect of the fullness of the Christian revelation just like in the Old Testament all the figures kind of point to Christ but Christ is not there you know and so it’s it is like kind of this funnel that points you to the final revelation you could say which is not in the story and I think that all good stories that’s what they should do. I always kind of you know a lot of people really like C.S. Lewis. I remember reading C.S. Lewis when I was younger and liking a few of the books but not totally getting into it so much and I think part of it was because of that problem is that you know Aslan is Jesus okay I get it and so but then and then it gets weird because sometimes he does things and you’re wondering okay well if Aslan is Jesus why is he doing this and why is he acting like this it just becomes very very strange whereas in Tolkien you don’t have that problem because all the characters are kind of manifesting different aspects of reality and if you kind of bring it together then you see something behind it you know. Yeah and I mean I have loved Lewis probably just almost as long as I’ve loved Tolkien but the point that you make I think is a good one and you know I would say that Tolkien’s middle earth and well actually middle earth is just a continent in his world but his sub-creation the whole cosmos that he’s created is much more perfect and coherent than Lewis’s Narnia but if I can just give one small plug for Lewis I think you actually and this is not for Narnia I think Lewis actually achieved this the thing that Tolkien I think did best I think he achieved that Lewis achieved it in some measure with his final novel which is Till We Have Faces okay which is not you know within Narnia and it’s really a pagan story actually and I think because Lewis wasn’t trying to present Jesus in particular that it actually presents a more Christian world than Narnia does interestingly enough. I’ve not read it so maybe this is a plug for me to go into that. Yeah you should check it out I think it is actually Lewis’s best work and although not as well known by any means as anything else really that he wrote I think just about but of course we’re here to talk Tolkien though so. All right so let’s talk about Tolkien so maybe you can tell us a little bit about the premise of this new podcast I think it’s called Amun Sul I’m probably not pronouncing that right as well. You got it you got it. All right and I will put for everybody I will definitely put a link to that in the description of the video but maybe you can tell us a bit about the premise of the podcast and where you’re going because I think you’re still at the you have what two episodes maybe three now and so it’s at the beginning. Yeah the third episode is I’m not sure when this will air but the third episode is slated to air on March 25th so okay so I’ll probably put this up before. Okay great so yeah so you know we’re well underway now you know got a few under our belts and the whole point of Amun Sul is well first actually I should say that where does it now fit kind of in the the constellation of Tolkien podcasts because there are dozens of them. Right. And when I first conceiving this idea I was like man I mean how do I even get heard kind of in the midst of all of these other things you know I have my own audience I figure well these are the people that will kind of start I’ll start with you know but there’s lots of them and one thing that I did notice is that most Tolkien podcasts their deal is essentially let’s take this book or maybe the series of books and we’re going to read through it chapter by chapter and offer commentary along the way right almost all of them do that and some of them do it really well some of them not so well. Not so well obviously. Right I won’t name any names. Yeah exactly. But I’ve thought okay well I can’t do that because that then you know at least puts me doing the same thing that they’re doing and people would say well why should I just listen to yet another chapter by chapter commentary right which I mean I think it’s a cool approach but so I’m not doing that instead this is a much more topical approach and it’s based on a conversation rather than commentary although sometimes that commentary is given as conversation and what we’re doing is we’re taking themes from Tolkien’s works which include not just his epic fantasy but also even his his letters and some of his non-fantasy works we’re going to get to and looking at what he did and and asking the question that he himself suggests should be asked from his work so he talked a little bit about allegory just a couple minutes ago when we’re talking about C.S. Lewis and you know Aslan equals Jesus that kind of thing so Tolkien doesn’t like allegory and he’s very explicit about that in one of his prefaces to the Lord of the Rings but instead he favors what he calls applicability. Yeah. So if I had to pick one word for what it is we’re trying to do with the Amon Sul podcast it’s this question of applicability. Right. And as a Christian and as a specifically Orthodox Christian then that’s the kind of applicability that I want to talk about and so just to give some examples of where we’ve already gone so for instance the very first episode which I did with my friend Stephen Cristoforo we talked specifically about this question of accessing the transcendent in an immanentized experience of the world which is what most of us are having most of the time. Right. How does how do Tolkien’s works help us to navigate that and like one of the things that we talked about in the midst of that first episode was the fact that that journey is actually being taken by the hobbits in the Lord of the Rings. You know they live in this town where everything is agrarian and domesticated and pastoral and life is about creature comforts family and friends and you know all that good stuff. Right. But the idea that there’s dragons that there’s wizards that there’s anything outside of you know the four farthings of the Shire. There’s a bigger story happening here. Right. They’re just not even aware of that and when you know it might exist in kind of old tales you know and then one guy who goes off to kind of experience that comes back and everyone regards him as kind of crazy. Right. So it’s kind of Plato’s cave you know all over again and you know the hobbits leave the Shire and they’re being they’re being coached along the way by people like Aragorn and Gandalf actually how to navigate this much larger story including transcendent elements. Right. So for instance you know hobbits will just talk about anything anywhere as an example and sometimes Gandalf or Aragorn in particular would say don’t talk about that here or you know let’s wait until morning or that kind of thing suggesting that there is power in language that they’re not aware of. Right. So that was one thing that we did and then in my second big episode which is actually episode three which I did with Deacon Nicholas Kotar. Yeah we had him on our channel and he did we did a discussion with him so people will want to. Yeah yeah yeah you know we talked specifically about storytelling so some of the same stuff you talked with him about you know at much greater length and you know and what does what impact does reading stories and of storytelling have on us as as human persons and how does that connect us with prayer and how does that connect us with saints. So it is this question of applicability and I mean you might you might describe it as pastoral theology maybe but I wouldn’t I wouldn’t narrow it to just that you know but that’s kind of what we’re trying to do and you know some of the episodes are going to be more sort of higher level analyses with a lot of theology and then others are are going to be not so theologically nerdy I guess. How does theology become nerdy? How did that? But you know I mean my my deal is that I’m kind of a popularizer anyway. Yeah yeah. It’ll never get academic you know that’s kind of not what we’re doing. So yeah that’s that’s what Amensoul is about and the reason why we chose the title in particular is that Amensoul is a place in the Tolkien legendarium where it’s also called Weathertop. Amensoul is its Sindarin name which means hill of wind and it’s a place where a number of events happen in the legendarium but especially for those who are familiar with Lord of the Rings it’s where the hobbits along with Aragorn have that battle with the Nazgul and the the Witch King of Angmar stabs Frodo in in the shoulder with the Morgul blade. So it’s a really important place not just because of that event but for lots of other reasons. If you want to hear about all of that listen episode two. So I have just started plugging as I go. That’s right that’s all good. But yeah so that’s what it’s about and there’s all these questions of memory and of seeing you know from a far distance and seeing things that are not normally visible to the eye. All of these are themes that have to do with Weathertop okay all right. So I like all of that and I wanted to kind of make that a lot of the recurring motif in the podcast. I really want to get back to this idea to me the issue that you talked about that Tolkien said he doesn’t like allegory. I’ve always really felt sympathy for what he was saying and I’ve always felt like people didn’t understand what he meant and I’m not sure I totally understand what he meant but I have my own idea for the reason that I don’t like allegory which is that let’s say what I would call true symbol like fake symbolism is the kind of not fake or lower symbolism or lower imagistic speaking is the kind that we talked about where it’s like this figure represents this other figure. So you know I’m going to have I’m going to write a story and then there’ll be a veiled a figure that’s going to be a veiled illusion to Donald Trump let’s say. And so here here’s this character who represents Donald Trump and that to me is is a kind of very weak version of imagistic speaking and you could call that allegory or metaphor or something like that. And to me true symbolism is something which is structural that is there’s an underlying structure which is actually the structure of of reality. It’s like you’ve actually intuited the structure of how the world lays itself out in terms of of what a story is in terms of how we experience the world and in terms of how we we are living in the world and then you create this story that follows that pattern. And so then like you said I like the word applicability because then you can say you can kind of see through the story the pattern and then you can apply it to anything right you can apply it to any aspect of your life because it has a universal aspect to it or a universal structure you could say or something of that. I always call it like it’s actually how you experience the world it’s like some people are able to intuit it and so they they’re able to lay it out in a fictional story but it’s not it’s fictional but it’s not like you said it’s not just this character represents war this this character represents the you know Hitler in World War II or the this aspect represents a nuclear bomb or something like that like to me that is a weak a weak use of symbolism. Yeah and and I think that when when a story becomes allegorical and I think I think you’re on the right track in terms of my understanding of what Tolkien is criticizing in terms of allegory you know what happens then is your ability to process it becomes reduced because it’s only supposed to be about this one thing. Yeah and and so okay I got there I learned my lesson now what you know you know meanwhile like for instance I’ve already gotten lots of email for this podcast which has really been amazing to me and one of the emails that I got we actually featured on one of the episodes at least a portion of it there’s this man who talks about how when he was young he had a very difficult life and actually was contemplating suicide on a number of occasions and that the thing that pulled him away from that is a scene from The Two Towers where Aragorn is standing up on the battlements of Helm’s Deep you know in the face of just incredible odds I mean they’re going to be defeated as far as you know by that point in the story and and he stands there in the face of all these massive horrifying monsters and tells them to be gone you know get out because you don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring you don’t know what is going to happen in the new day and and this man told them told me in this email that that scene inspired him to to sort of face down his own demons even as a kid and and tell him to get out you know because he didn’t know what tomorrow was going to bring and you know that is one kind of applicability where you can identify yourself now he can’t look at Aragorn and say I’m like Aragorn you know because he’s just a kid right he could but he might be but but Aragorn doesn’t stand for him like right exactly you have to be really kind of you know deluded to think that but if you were told that Aragorn stands for Jesus and that’s all Aragorn kind of is is just this now I would say he is a kind of Christ figure but if that he stands he’s a stand-in for Jesus then it’s harder to kind of say well I can be like that and and you know face down the demons because you could say well he’s God so of course he can make that kind of comment you know of course he can say yeah tomorrow I’m just going to blast you you know yeah you know so I and I think that also this realm of applicability opens up all kinds of possibilities for conversation right you know it’s not this sort of contained discourse where if you say well I want to connect it like for instance when I talked with Dicke and Nicholas Cotar we talked about hagiography and and he even talked about hagiographies that were sort of invented for saints about whom there was almost no historical data yeah right well you know if it’s just allegory that’s what Lord of the Rings is and you kind of have no right to sort of import that yeah you know and and connect that but applicability absolutely you know I think that’s a really and the thing is like for example that scene that you mentioned in terms of Aragorn standing on the wall looking at the hordes there’s a there is in that scene a what I would call the structural element which is right like it’s it’s it’s the right image for that experience that this person was having in terms of being faced with you know these demons in his life and feeling overwhelmed and so and and it it’s I often because it’s so obvious for us when we see it because it’s so intuitive we see that scene and we it’s so intuitive that we can’t really explain it’s like this of course this is what it should be but you can imagine another scene for example where it’s someone sitting at a table eating a feast and then that’s a different scene like he couldn’t say to the demons be gone because he’s sitting inside the castle at a table eating food and so the the fact of standing on a wall already is something that we can analogically experience in in our life this idea of being on the limit of something we can experience in in terms of meaning not just in terms of physical reality but the analogy is actually real of being on the edge we use it that experience that expression all the time to talk about someone who is strained who is faced by all these difficulties like he’s standing on the edge and so standing on the edge and then having the courage to look straight on at these demons not hide not not just pretend they’re not there but to look at them and to say okay I’m not going to pretend but I’m going to tell you I’m going to you know I’m going to say go be gone because I trust the few like I trust I trust I mean obviously I was I trust God but I have trust that things can change I trust that that this situation is not eternal this situation is not the one that is going to going to pervade and so that that’s where you see this uh like you said this applicability coming from something which is so right intuitively you know it hits you right there in a way that is almost impossible to explain for so many people you know they have that so many people that I know had that experience for example watching Braveheart where they they even my wife she said like she said Braveheart is basically one of the reasons why she kind of came back to Christianity you know who she kind of really rededicated her her life and it never stopped since then because of that that because of an imagistic uh taking you through the story of someone who’s faced with insane opposition but won’t back down and and you know will go until the end uh it shows you that how stories and how participating in a story is really a kind of therapy you could say it’s it’s a it’s a kind of repro it can be a reprogramming of of of your life it can be a reprogramming of reality and so that’s why I tell people that the the liturgical experience or the liturgical year and the liturgical calendar is the ultimate version of that where we follow the story of christ through the year and we especially during this time now during lent and then during holy week and and at pascha it’s like we are diving into this story we’re going through where we’re lamenting with christ’s death we’re doing all that because we know that part engaging in stories and participating in them actually transforms reality transforms the world yeah yeah and and if we um try to present like for instance if i were to you know had talked to this man when he was a kid uh and said to him now look you know uh sure you’re being you’re being bullied and um you know you’re valuable you you should don’t kill yourself you know like that falls much flatter yeah than seeing this image of you know this man who’s destined to be king but maybe he’s not going to make it you know by that point of the story you kind of don’t know that that’s actually going to happen you know and and there’s something about um images there’s something about story that actually uh in a sense is much more convincing in terms of of altering the way that i function uh then you know actually reorients my desires in a way that is uh far more powerful than simply offering an argument and you know the irony of course is that um here in the early 21st century we still kind of at least tend to speak as though you know these enlightenment ideas of well if i make a rational argument then i’ll convince you and having convinced you now that will change the way that you live you know that will change your behavior that you know um and and uh the you know this is ironic because that’s not the way that human beings actually tend to function right exactly um there’s a difference between saying okay i agree with you because you’re making an argument that i that i can’t overcome and actually becoming a different person or you know you know and and uh can be even worse when you’ve received the logical argument and you know that you should change something but it’s like it’s not happening can make it worse yeah like it can lead in fact to despair instead that’s right you know like like i i mean and and you know the apostle paul wrestles with this i i know the good but i don’t do it you know and i i do the evil that i don’t want to do and you know and so that’s an indication of of an orientation of desire and uh orienting desire is a different um a different ball game really than than just um setting out arguments and convincing people and i mean you know it’s funny even just kind of in our our uh our political arena we have lots of arguments that go back and forth and yet no one seems to be convinced yeah no matter how good and how well refined you know the arguments are made um and and i i that’s that’s one of the reasons that i love tolkien’s works is that he uh um he offers an image of how to be an image of how to think how to desire how to live that is actually much more kind of immediately accessible and not um not imposing itself on the person yeah really it’s kind of an invitation yeah you know uh so like you know at the end of the hobbit where or near the end of the hobbit where thorin says to bilbo essentially you know if people were more like you you know really valuing uh you know good food and good cheer over hoarded gold then the world would be a better place right it would be a happier place and um uh that’s a much more powerful moment having lived the story up to that point then someone simply saying now look it’s not good to be greedy yeah right just sort of like moral precepts you know yeah um and there’s room for those like there’s room for those i mean we have them we also have in the bible but like you said once it enters into the the story realm and once you have examples and you have uh people that you can look up to that whether it’s in fictional stories or it’s saints that have lived that way and then you can kind of engage with those stories then the transformational um the transformational aspect is is far greater yeah i think that’s inevitable and i think and even the bible is much more narrative than it is kind of of course yeah and that’s what that’s one of the things that i always try to help because people really struggle uh modern people really struggle to understand liturgy and understand the liturgical way of seeing the world and the liturgical experience and and it’s in the liturgical year all those things it’s so hard for people to to understand why we why would waste our time you know celebrating pentacos and ascension and and uh you know why do we have these long services that kind of take you through and uh i mean it’s it’s difficult for people to fully grasp especially when they see a liturgy for the first time but once you start to to understand the the pattern within uh the the liturgy you see that it is also a it has a story form it’s taking us into the mystery and there’s different cycles where it’s like moving you closer and closer to the mystery you know uh and uh and and then closing off the doors and then bringing us in and then uniting us with the angels and so there’s this whole um really this whole uh i mean it’s almost more like a poem in that sense it’s almost more like a like a song or like a poem which is also which also has a pattern form which is kind of bringing you towards this this crescendo you could say a moment and that it’s those types of structures those types of experiences which although sometimes might not be as transformational on an immediately emotional uh experience you know that you know you don’t necessarily leave the church crying and regretting uh you know your sins all the time uh but usually that that emotional experience of like you know you’ve been convicted and you go home crying that usually lasts you know a few days and then and then it’s gone yeah whereas the the deep transformation of the pattern of your being is a it’s a it’s kind of this slow ascension uh that that we all participated and and that’s something that i’ve found is in the liturgical world like the liturgical christ Christianity is something that is is it’s difficult to get people to understand but it’s very it’s very profound transformation yeah and one of the reasons why i personally experienced Tolkien as a kind of preparation for liturgical life is because the liturgy tells stories is actually a more traditional way of telling stories than we tend to expect now and i’ll give an example of that um you know uh so one of the one of the Tolkien podcasts that i listen to they’re the part that i’m listening to right now they’re going through the Silmarillion okay so which is sort of Tolkien’s old testament kind of which i have not read by the way the Silmarillion oh oh you know but yeah oh man i look at it and i get discouraged looking at it no no my nine-year-old son is tearing through it okay so so don’t worry all right uh i know i was kind of shocked like he he was like that he he told my wife that i wasn’t reading it to my kids fast enough and so he when they were at the library together he went and looked up where they had the copies of Silmarillion and got the librarian to show him where so he could check his own copy out and not be bound to the one that’s locked in my office and so he’s just reading it himself anyway so so in this podcast you’re going through the Silmarillion and often uh one of the things that they’ll say is oh you know here’s another place where Tolkien gives a spoiler right so you know uh often in the stories it’ll tell you often in the title of the particular tale it’ll tell you the end right but like for instance you know of the fall of gondolin spoiler alert the city is destroyed you know you just look through the table of contents you kind of know what happens um and uh now you don’t get this as much in the lord of the rings there’s not as many kind of spoilers in that sense but um the the way that um that Tolkien tells stories particularly in the Silmarillion is much more helical in that there’s a sense of there’s always a kind of a looking forward that’s happening and you you know you’re and there’s almost an expectation that even the first time you’re experiencing the story is already some sense and some sense of repeat right yeah right so liturgical life is that way you know by the time my kids for instance become really cognizant of the fact that um at christmas that the that they’re this is really telling a story a specific story they will have already heard the story many many times by that you know another thing that happens and this does happen in lord of the rings is there are moments which are completely sort of unrealistic and by that i don’t just mean um something sort of miraculous happens but like for instance um after the death of Boromir okay uh at the which happens at the end of the fellowship of the ring uh and you get it i’m sorry i think that actually happens the beginning too tires you know the books and the movies are starting to sort of they meld in your mind i know and i’m i know i’m already regretting this because i’m getting email from people saying that’s not what happens in the book but anyway whichever it happens in the books it does happen that boromir dies and now this is something that doesn’t happen in movies which is that uh you got aragorn and legolas and gimli and they they put him on one of the boats uh to essentially give him a burial not at sea but in a river yeah in the water and uh you know they put the swords of his enemies the weapons of his enemies down at his feet and have his you know his his hands clasped together on his breast and uh and then they set him off and they they sing to him they sing this dirge this funeral dirge that is uh written for boromir right and it’s like wait how can that happen they’re they you know how did they compose that improvising that they’re improvising uh yeah like let’s work this out right now before we see it in the book there’s no way that within sort of the action of the book that can be and so it’s a more mythological way of telling this it’s kind of breaking its way into this more novel style of story which brings it right and and that’s so liturgical right right it’s you know for instance when um in in holy week when there’s kind of even moments of sort of reenactment uh it’s not just now let’s just tell the story and then we’ll have a kind of a commentary later commentary is happening the whole time right there’s all kinds of like let’s pause here at this and sing a whole song about it you know which kind of doesn’t make sense in terms of the sort of action movie way of telling stories yeah yeah we’re more used to now but it makes total sense in a more mythological way of telling story yeah and it’s a communal experience that’s repeated over and over and so then the the funeral dirge of boromir becomes part of the story not because that’s what happened in the moment like it couldn’t have happened right it just doesn’t humanly make any sense yeah uh you know they didn’t i i totally agree that some of my favorite moments during uh during holy week are those those moments where there’s that you know at the crucifixion of christ there’s a deep mourning uh of of christ’s death but then it’s it’s almost it’s there’s still they’re telling us well he’s gonna he’s coming back and they’re calling like we’re calling like resurrect resurrect like we’re calling to christ to resurrect and so it’s it’s it’s it is it’s a very different way of telling a story and uh and it is like this cyclical kind of we know what’s going to happen we’re still participating it uh participating in it and uh it’s transforming us but what we know the telos of this thing you know and so it’s yeah it’s a i i totally agree that’s a very it’s a very different way of telling stories and it’s something that that we you know this idea of of the shock ending or this idea like you said of the spoiler is something that ancient people didn’t care at all about because no participatory storytelling and so you just enter into the story and you kind of enact it even when they would tell the stories of uh you know that the when people would tell the stories of the iliad or the uh or they would tell poems of of uh ancient greece or whatever you know there was this this everybody knew was going to happen but it was they they still are going to hear it every year or you know several times a year they’re sure going to enter into it and know that it’s their story and that they’re they’re engaging in it yeah and and within that context then novelty which still has a place yeah becomes about delighting and about finding a new angle to to see the story you know so for instance within the church year there’s new hymns that are written right uh you know that it have to do with the exact same events that we’ve always been talking about right and and you know why is it that with you know this massive corpus of stuff that’s been published after tolkien’s death why is it that people want to read like five different versions of baron and luthien because it kind of doesn’t matter that even they’re they don’t even work with each other in time i mean they it’s still kind of one story but like for instance baron and luthien in the sumerian baron is a human he’s a man but in the the uh sort of novel version so to speak that just came out within the past couple years baron is actually an elf which radically changes the whole story of baron and luthien because kind of the whole deal or so we thought was that luthien an immortal elf joins himself to baron immortal man and so then she accepts death right well that’s not how it works out in the version you know it’s not it’s not the same story exactly and yet the fact that we kind of approach it from different angles and even some of the details don’t match up yeah um that’s okay within a mythological way of telling stories and if you think about just the four gospels yeah of course like there’s not a perfect harmonization that can happen with all of the details in the four gospels and you know what that’s okay yeah that’s okay and it wasn’t i would say it wasn’t even expected in the first century that that was the way you would tell like let’s make this into the kind of thing that is perfectly consistent you know for a court of law you know uh so so yeah yeah there’s there’s like i said i i and it’s funny because i mean i’ve been orthodox for over 20 years now but i’ve been i’ve been the whole time kind of gradually working out how it is that my experience of of tolkien’s works uh prepared me for a liturgical life and continues to deepen it right it continues to deepen it over and over and over again you know like and i’m a priest so my job is to stand at an altar and offer up a sacrifice sacrifice of bread and wine that is sort of the key core thing that i do with myself and um you know uh the idea that i would stand there on the threshold of the transcendent and make this connection uh not on behalf of people like they’re not there and i’m doing it instead of them i’m not a proxy but rather that i am at the head of them and saying now come follow me you know in in some sense um you know isn’t isn’t that kind of sacrificial action a very much a sort of a gandalf way of being you know gandalf’s job is not to solve everybody’s problems yeah you know gandalf’s job is to point them towards uh ultimately the will of of the one god you know which in tolkien’s world is called iro aluva tar yeah now although he doesn’t does that by bringing them along on the story like taking them into a story exactly and of course then there’s even within the story itself you get moments where people reflect on the fact that they’re in a story yeah i know that’s it’s not sort of the pulling back you know removal of the so-called fourth wall like a theater but there is a sense of like we’re part of a great tale uh you know uh and and uh and and that again sheds another kind of light on what it is that’s happening you know um so yeah it’s it’s i don’t know it’s endlessly delightful and i think that delight actually calls forth from us um the deepest part of who we really are you know there’s something about delight that does that all right i think that i think that you’ve you basically you’ve basically wrapped up our discussion this is a this is a great time to to to to finish it because it’s on a nice high point uh so uh father andrew i i really appreciate you coming here and and discussing this with me and i would want to call everybody to check out amon sul podcast you’ll end father andrew’s other writings and his other podcasts um for all of you that all of you that are interested in stories and are looking at christianity trying to figure out um you know you know how what it means to get into that story what it means to live inside the christian story i would say that here are some interesting hints for you to uh to discover that so so father and i hope we can do this again yes once the podcast is is going for a little while we’ll we’ll bring you back and and hear some more some more stories of how it’s it’s affecting people and and and you have to come and be a guest on it sure yeah i’m not i’m not i am not a tokeen uh expert you know all right okay so so so yeah sure send me a message and i and i will be there so everybody thanks thanks again for your attention i hope you enjoyed our conversation and uh i’ll see you soon if you enjoyed this discussion and the content we’re putting out on symbolism get involved i love to read all your comments in the comment section uh you can also share this on social media we have a facebook group where people engage in discussion as well um please subscribe if you’re not subscribed and also consider supporting us financially if you can you can go to my website www.thesymbolicworld.com slash support and there you will find a way to support me i’m also on patreon and on subscribe star if you’re interested so thanks again and see you soon