Immensity

Merry looked out in wonder upon this strange country, of which he had heard many tales upon their long road. It was a skyless world, in which his eye, through dim gulfs of shadowy air, saw only ever-mounting slopes, great walls of stone behind great walls, and frowning precipices wreathed with mist. He sat for a moment half dreaming, listening to the noise of the water, the whisper of dark trees, the crack of stone, and the vast waiting silence that brooded behind all sound. He loved mountains, or he had loved the thought of them marching on the edge of stories brought from far away; but now he was borne down by the insupportable weight of Middle-earth. He longed to shut out the immensity in a quiet room by a fire.

- J.R.R. Tolkien, "The Return of the King," p. 64

This is why I will always be reading and re-reading Tolkien. I may put LOTR away for a few months or more, but when I'm ready, I will find my bookmark and read something beautiful. I must have read this paragraph 10 times before, but this time it was new and powerful. I want to go to a mountain and listen to the whisper of dark trees! I want to listen to the vast waiting silence that broods behind all sound! And especially, I want to return from the mountains to shut out the immensity in a quiet room by a fire.

Experiences of awe such as Tolkien describes can be overwhelming; one can lose oneself in the vastness. At first this feeling can be exciting: sit on a mountain, or gaze at the stars, and you become small in relation to your experience, but at the same time you become part of the immensity itself. "Formless! Boundless!" (to roughly quote the Tao Te Ching...) You lose you to become the experience. This can be thrilling, but it can also be frightening. After all, we are used to thinking of ourselves as ourselves and not the entire universe. When Middle-earth gets too huge we look for a safe place to be ourselves again.

It takes courage to lose yourself in immensity. The deep ocean, the high mountain, the crowded city center, the vast waiting silence that broods behind all sound... Most of us don't have the time (or the will) to experience vast strangeness, like Merry on an epic journey he could not anticipate, finding himself bereft of his friends. We don't often willingly put ourselves into a situation where nothing is familiar, without guarantee of security or a safe way home again. Those who do are praised as heroes. But although we may think of a hero as an Aragorn figure with a destiny for greatness, clarity of purpose, strength and kindness and a long stride, most heroes (and most of us) are more like the hobbits, who dream of eggs and bacon and a seat by the fire, and for whom Middle-earth is best experienced through stories brought from far away; but the immensity is there for us all, waiting for us to enter.