Ride Out And Meet Them

These last few months have been horrible and filled with violence around the world. From police shootings to police being shot… from multiple airport attacks… the Orlando shootings… the truck plowing through people in Nice… even the uncertainty of the military coup in Turkey…. And these are only of the ones we know of; many similar attacks go unreported in mainstream media. Either way, violent massacres are becoming the norm. There is general confusion and horror. Although as Catholics we know that God is in control, we may feel completely helpless in the increasingly violent world around us.

I have been feeling this myself… but as a Lord of the Rings fan one phrase has been replaying in my mind.

“Ride out and meet them.”

The author of Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien, was both a war veteran and a devout Catholic. As a war veteran, he knew chaos and violence. As a strong Catholic, many Christian themes are prominent in his work. While this particular scene is found in the Peter Jackson movies, I think it depicts an encounter the Oxford professor would approve of.

Now in this particular scene, the heroes are surrounded in a fortress called Helm’s Deep. They have fought all night against creatures that have been created specifically to destroy the human race, and they are tired. They are downtrodden. They feel overwhelmed by the evil and many have watched those they care about die in horrible ways. As the man in charge, King Théoden vocalizes this sentiment. He cries out, “What can one do against such hate?”

Aragorn, one of the central heroes, gives the reply: “Ride with me. Ride out and meet them.”

They have been on the defense long enough. Aragorn realizes that there will be no victory if they continue to sit back and take the hits. Even though everything already seems lost, they must go out and fight.

The scene continues. King Théoden brightens up and says “For death and glory….”

Yet even this is off course. Glory is selfish and death is the very destruction these creatures are trying to make. While I do not wish to expand on these at this time, selfishness and destruction are both linked to pride and are roots of these problems today.

Aragorn sees this and redirects: “For Rohan. For your people.”

We do not respond out of anger or pride. In order to do any good, we must respond out of love. One of the deepest roots of all of this violence I believe is that we have forgotten how to love each other unconditionally. In today’s society, each relationship has a price. We were never meant to live like that. We were meant to love the same way as God, who created us out of nothing specifically so we could know Him. Loving people who are responsible for these horrible things is hard, but what is harder than loving someone who would literally rather go to Hell than love you back? This is the example Jesus set on the cross, and we each must try to live by it.

If we cannot love, we will never be able to “ride out and meet” this evil. It will continue until the world becomes a twisted thing none of us recognizes.