by Rolf Witzsche ~
Tolkien wrote a script for the future and the future obeyed! Such a thing can be said about J.R.R. Tolkien's mythical tale, The Lord of the Rings. Much of what he presented in metaphor has already come to pass. Tolkien did explore history and was a part of it. He served in World War I, lived through World War II, and experienced the beginning of the Cold War with its universal terror. From this background he was able to put into his tales, wrapped in metaphor, a number of critical choices of the kind on which the survival of civilization depends. - The Lord of the Rings sage was created over a long period of time in the shadow of the great historic tragedies of the 20th Century, which have not really ended. Like Sauron, the forces behind the tragedies still overshadow the world. He tells us about them in metaphor, and like other pioneers, he appears to have searched for the universal principles that can enable us to get out of this mess. One can certainly find a great many of these universal principles illustrated in metaphor, threaded through his epic saga at numerous levels. He poses a challenge with them for society to see beyond the metaphors and discover in them the real world and its real story that is still unfolding. Through the mirror of the metaphor we find ourselves deeply engaged in his tale, which is still unfolding in the real world. But will our future match his ending? That part of his story remains still as precarious and uncertain as it unfolded in the saga till its final victory. Let's hope that the ending of his story is obeyed by the future as well.