Loss, Memory and Desire

This is another great piece from Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring, a conversation between Legolas and Gimli as they are leaving Lothlorien, and through that, Galadriel (Italics are my addition for emphasis):

"Tell me, Legolas, why did I come on this Quest? Little did I know where the chief peril lay! Truly Elrond spoke, saying that we could not forsee what we might meet up on our road. Torment in the the dark was the danger that I feared, and it did not hold me back. But I would not have come, had I known the danger of light and joy. Now I have taken my worst wound in this parting, even if I were to go this night straight to the Dark Lord. Alas for Gimli son of Gloin!"

"Nay!" said Legolas. "Alas for us all! And for all that walk the world in these after-days. For such is the way of it: to find and lose, as it seems to those whose boat is on the running stream. But I count you blessed, Gimli son of Gloin: for your loss you suffer of your own free will, and you might have chosen otherwise. But you have not forsaken your companions, and the least reward that you shall have is that the memory of Lothlorien shall remain ever clear and unstained in your heart, and shall neither fade not grow stale."

"Maybe," said Gimli; "And I thank you for your words. True words doubtless; yet all such comfort is cold. Memory is not what the heart desires. That is only a mirror, be it clear as Kheled-zaram. Or so says the heart of Gimli the Dwarf. Elves may see things otherwise. Indeed I have heard that for them memory is more like to the waking world than to a dream. Not so for Dwarves."
____

I wrote a post last year that dealt, in part, with longing. As I think about things like maintaining sexual purity, or even the tension between the evil and fallen world in which we live and the renewed world that Jesus will one day bring, I still continue to think, correctly or not, of longing as something to be discarded. I think of it as a mountain to be climbed over and forgotten once you are on the plain once again. But the analogy breaks down there... it's almost more as if you had obliterated the mountain to it's roots. It was there, but now it is gone.

To be perfectly honest, for myself as a single woman, the struggle with purity is not about the act of sex, it is about loneliness and a desire for companionship. That is embodied in a person but at this point in my life, it is a faceless longing. I can't touch, see, or hear a husband who does not yet exist in my world. Just as I cannot see Jesus, even as he is physically sitting at the right hand of God. The joys of marriage and the realities of the New Heavens and the New Earth are still anticipated, they are something that cannot yet be fully comprehended. This seems to be part of the pain of those desires: they are empty and yet so heavy. Empty because there is nothing tangible to hold on to... ah, here is the joy of the words that Jesus would send us the Comforter, his own Spirit to dwell in us and with us as a promise that he would in fact come again! The longing for the eternal reign of King Jesus is not empty... nor is the promise. I'm merely saying that there are moments where it can feel that way. Those longings are heavy, too, precisely because they are awaiting fulfillment. In the absence of any physical relief, they can weigh heavily up on the soul.

But this quote opens up a new challenge for me: longing, even holy and righteous longing, isn't always for something intangible. There is something lost, something once possessed. There are many things that are lost and we long for them... and it makes me think that my concept of longing is at best incomplete. What of that innocence lost in the garden? Or of a child killed in war? Of wholeness and health, now faded in old age or illness? What of a spouse, of the intimacy and companionship found in even the worst of men or the bitterest of women? Beyond all that, think of this: it is the beauty, safety, and peace that Gimli experienced in Lothlorien, even in the very presence of the Lady Galadriel, that he is longing for as they sail away. I think that is part of the longing for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, and the restoration that he will bring: we all know, somewhere in our souls, what we have lost. We all understand that the way things are and the way things should be are separated by a great deal of suffering and sin. Paul is not incorrect when he speaks of "the present evil age".

My concept of longing is perhaps incomplete because it cannot be tossed aside, cannot be ground down, cannot be mastered by any of us in this lifetime. Those who think they have mastered their desire are usually destroyed by it (Colossians 2.20-23 deals with one approach to that "mastering"). It seems that instead the mountain should grow larger and more significant as we come to an appropriate understanding of what has been lost and what is coming in the Last Day.

I want to think more about what Gimli means when he says that the fear of torment in the dark did not keep from joining the Fellowship, but that the danger of light and joy has now grieved him more than if he were to be in the hands of his enemy. I want to think more about how we try to manage longing and the pain it causes... how we turn good longings into sinful longings... how we become ascetics or licentious in those attempts to manage. And how it seems obvious that the licentious ways are a mishandling the pain and joy that longing can reveal, but that the ascetic way can sometimes be just as guilty of drowning out the pain and joy through rules and denial.

Also, I want to think more about how one might help a friend who is dealing with longing from loss; are the words Legolas speaks to his friend helpful? Perhaps, yes... though as Gimil says, true though they be, their comfort is cold. What do we say to a woman who is longing for a lost spouse? Or a father who is mourning his lost son? What, even, do we say to a friend who has suffered the loss of an ability or opportunity? I want to think about how the Christian should appropriately deal with longing, and grief for unfulfilled longings. It seems that for the Christian the longings for what was, and what was lost, are intertwined with the longings for what will be, waiting as we are to see them fulfilled. How are we to appropriately engage?

Still, let us cry out with John: Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!