The Ring of Fire
INTO THE UNKNOWN…..
I had these thoughts to participate in the LENT season in such a different way, like I’m sure so many of us have. Instead, some days I forget Easter is coming. I have forgotten so much of what I was doing before the quarantine and how I functioned daily. Now, I am listening to The NOTORIOUS B.I.G. and #juicy, homeschool-pretending, writing fiction, and watching instagram live.
I’m the type of person that craves human connection.
What will I use to attempt to replace connection?
There’s an insatiable appetite for food, more than we need.
For supplies, more than are necessary. For connection, outside of a screen or in my home. The life of multi-dimensional relationships feels suspended, without end. Now, I am a figure on a screen, a personality on social media, less dimensional, less real. This is unknown territory for me. A time when I do not offer myself anything other than what I know in this moment.
In the “Return of the King,” Frodo and Sam lie on rocks, surrounded by fire, and an erupting volcano. The task set before them still needs to be finished: they must destroy the ONE ring. I felt like the hope of that destruction should help them complete the task, joy would come knowing they were almost there, and I would see Frodo and Sam happy, relieved. It just doesn’t work that way.
This morning, Pastor - Doctor - Leader, Eliza Cortez Bast, and I spoke about the need to allow the manna to be enough for today.
I ask myself, “Do I have enough food?” Or, “Do I have housing?” Or, “Do I have someone to reach out to today?” Because, I believe and agree and affirm her thoughts on manna for today.
There is much suffering in the past, and that past is close enough for me to smell, taste, touch, see, and hear. The present carries its burdens. And, those burdens dull my immediate senses, overloading me, you - us with recollections of another time we don’t know that will return. Maybe we don’t want that time to return. No matter, the memories have become so precious, and also so distant when I cannot bear the goodness they represent.
In Frodo’s desperation, while he struggled before completing his task, he says to his friend-companion-loyal, Sam, “I can't recall the taste of food, nor the sound of water, nor the touch of grass. I'm naked in the dark. There's nothing--no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I can see him with my waking eyes.”
The future is unknown, uncertain - these are unprecedented times.
I cannot carry everyone’s burdens, or even have the strength to carry all of the burdens of those close to me.
So, I take the manna for today, whatever’s offered today. I ask God to fill the well, and I share with those close to me.
Sam knew he couldn’t complete the task entrusted to Frodo. He couldn’t carry the ring of power for his friend.
He did what he could that moment.
Sam’s reply to Frodo’s desperation, “Then let us be rid of it, once and for all. I can't carry the ring for you, but I can carry you! Come on!”
Maybe the problem isn’t just the virus, or the quarantine, its the sense that we were already isolated in our daily lives, dying from lack of connection, expressions of love and attachment. Now, we remember we needed those connections - loves - attachments.
We needed those feelings, and so we are left in a no-man’s-land, a desert of uncertainty.