Balrog on the Bridge: Cultivating the Braveness of Gandalf

“You shall not cross!” Is there another line in literature that higher captures the advantage of braveness?

You probably know the scene. The Fellowship of the Ring has journeyed by way of the lengthy darkish of Moria, and now they’re fleeing earlier than a number of orcs — and Durin’s Bane. Gandalf sends his mates towards the exit earlier than turning to face the Balrog on the bridge. With the chilly white of Glamdring in a single hand and his employees within the different, the gray wizard faces down the foe of fireside and shadow.

“You can not cross,” he mentioned. The orcs stood nonetheless, and a useless silence fell. “I’m a servant of the Secret Hearth, wielder of the flame of Anor. You can not cross. The darkish hearth won’t avail you, flame of Udûn. Return to the Shadow! You can not cross.”

The Balrog heeds him not however steps onto the bridge. Gandalf is simply seen earlier than him, “glimmering within the gloom; he appeared small, and altogether alone: gray and bent, like a wizened tree earlier than the onset of a storm.”

A sword of flame flashes out. Glamdring rings in reply. The Balrog falls again a step.

“You can not cross!”

Once more the foe ignores the command, leaps full onto the bridge, and brandishes his whip of fireside. Gandalf raises his employees — the white gentle hovers for a second, a single star in an abyss of evening — and smites the bridge. Mild blinds. Bridge cracks. Employees shatters. And the Balrog falls.

However in his ultimate malicious act, the enemy lashes his whip across the wizard’s knees, dragging him to the sting. Gandalf meets Aragorn’s eyes — “Fly, you fools!” — sways for a second, after which disappears into the guts of the earth (The Lord of the Rings, 330–31).

Tree Earlier than the Tempest

For many people, this scene is a part of the everlasting furnishings of our creativeness. The gray wizard stands sturdy in opposition to the Balrog on the bridge and, in the long run, lays down his life for his mates. Here’s a fortitude that deserves celebration. A Christlike braveness price imitating.

With Gandalf’s defiant cry echoing in our ears, let’s delve all the way down to the roots of this braveness by asking two questions. First, what motivates such braveness? What steels him to face agency, a tree earlier than the tempest? And second, how can we domesticate that very same indomitable braveness to face down our personal Balrogs?

The Deep Roots of Braveness

To start, what’s the root of braveness? What separates Gandalf’s fierce fortitude from Smeagol’s small-souled cowardice?

In his little e-book on braveness, Joe Rigney defines the advantage as “a steady behavior of the guts that masters the passions, particularly the eagerness of concern, by way of the ability of a superior want” (Braveness, 32). There are three aspects to that definition:

1. Braveness is a behavior of coronary heart — one thing we should follow and domesticate.
2. Braveness governs our passions — it reigns over our snap reactions and instinctual responses, particularly these of concern.
3. Braveness governs by the ability of a superior want.

Discover that want is the foundation of braveness. However not simply any want — superior want, “a deeper want for a larger good” (30). Each “deeper” and “superior” indicate that our needs are ranked and ordered rightly.

“The taproot of Christian braveness is a tenacious treasuring of Christ.”

Braveness thrives inside a correct hierarchy of needs — what Augustine calls ordered loves. Fittingly, in Scripture, braveness is intently related to the guts, the house of our loves and needs (e.g., Psalm 27:14). English makes this connection much more specific, the place brave is synonymous with hearty, lionhearted, and the like. Braveness reveals that you’ve got rightly ordered needs and loves. Fortitude reveals you set first issues first.

We see this clearly within the instance of Gandalf. Ordered needs held Gandalf on the bridge. Sure, he valued his personal security. (That’s why he didn’t throw his life away preventing innumerable orcs.) However his want for the security of his mates and, extra importantly, his want for the great of all Center-earth went far deeper. His means to face down the Balrog on the bridge was the fruit of these deep roots. To borrow an outline of historical past’s best act of braveness, we would say that for the enjoyment set earlier than him Gandalf despised demise and defeated the Balrog. And that pleasure in a larger good was the supply of his braveness.

Now, these of us who’re Christian Hedonists know what our deepest roots ought to cling to. The triune God is the very best good within the hierarchy of products. He’s most stunning and fascinating. Thus, the taproot of Christian braveness is a tenacious treasuring of Christ, a treasuring that rightly orders all lesser items in relation to God, our first Good.

Too Simply Happy

Earlier than discussing the best way to domesticate these deep needs, it’s price asking what makes us cowardly. What makes us flee once we ought to battle? What makes us give up the bridge?

Properly, if ordinate loves produce braveness, the other should be true of cowardice and the other vice of rashness. Each vices, however particularly cowardice, come when the taproot — which ought to sink all the way down to the bedrock of the best good — stays shallow, simply beneath the floor. That tree might be blown over by the primary sturdy breeze. That man will flee when the Balrog steps onto the bridge. Shallow roots produce craven males.

In his sermon “The Weight of Glory,” C.S. Lewis helpfully exposes the supply of those shallow roots:

Our Lord finds our needs not too sturdy, however too weak. We’re half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and intercourse and ambition when infinite pleasure is obtainable us, like an ignorant youngster who desires to go on making mud pies in a slum as a result of he can’t think about what is supposed by the supply of a vacation on the sea. We’re far too simply happy. (The Weight of Glory, 25)

That ultimate line ought to hang-out us: we’re far too simply happy. That’s the behavior of coronary heart that breeds cowards and the foolhardy, “half-hearted creatures.” When our needs are too weak, once we are too simply happy, when our longings for lesser issues develop into disordered, we won’t stand once we ought to — and even stand when and the place we should always not. As an alternative of a tree earlier than a tempest, weak needs go away us like tumbleweeds, blown and tossed by the slightest breeze.

Gritty Habits of Coronary heart

Now we return to our second query. If ordered needs make the distinction between the advantage of braveness and the vices of cowardice and recklessness, how will we domesticate deep needs? How will we develop Gandalf-like grit?

1. Look to the best Good.

When James teaches us the best way to fight the type of disordered needs that kind the soil of cowardice and demise, what does he do? He orients our needs Godward:

All beneficiant giving and each good present is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there isn’t any variation or the slightest trace of change. (James 1:17 NET)

James attracts our consideration to the best Good and connects all different items to the Giver. He sends our roots deep. He places the Solar on the middle. That is the important thing to cultivating ordered loves and, thus, the important thing to braveness. To have “a deeper want for a larger good,” we should know and love the best Good. And all lesser items should be liked for his sake, as his fatherly presents.

Like James, Tolkien noticed gentle and hearth as highly effective pictures of God. And so, in his legendarium, the Secret Hearth is Tolkien’s title for the Holy Spirit. Thus, when Gandalf says, “I’m a servant of the Secret Hearth,” he’s, in a way, trying to the Father of lights, and that look places metal in Gandalf’s backbone.

We see an identical galvanizing of Sam’s braveness. At his lowest second, crawling throughout the plains of Mordor, desperately needing braveness, Sam sends his eyes heavenward, the place he sees a white star:

The great thing about it smote his coronary heart, as he regarded up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and chilly, the thought pierced him that in the long run the Shadow was solely a small and passing factor: there was gentle and excessive magnificence for ever past its attain. (The Lord of the Rings, 922)

Sam’s imaginative and prescient rose increased than the hazard round him. The gravity of excellent and of excessive magnificence helped him govern the eagerness of concern, and he discovered the grit to hold Frodo up Mount Doom.

Once we dare to search for on the Father of lights, the Excessive Magnificence, all his good presents will fall into their correct place. Our souls might be formed. Our needs will develop into ordered. Our roots will run to the proper depths.

2. Imitate those that refuse to be far too simply happy.

If you wish to be brave, mimic those that have stood in opposition to the Balrog on the bridge. Imitate Sam. Imitate Gandalf.

Imitate Moses — a larger wizard than Gandalf (Exodus 8:16–19). A person whose insatiable want for the best Good led him to dare horrible issues and face down mighty foes.

“By religion Moses . . . refused to be known as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, selecting reasonably to be mistreated with the folks of God than to benefit from the fleeting pleasures of sin.” He relentlessly refused to be far too simply happy as a result of “he thought-about the reproach of Christ larger wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was trying to the reward” (Hebrews 11:24–27). Moses had deep roots. He regarded towards the excessive fantastic thing about the promised Christ. And that sturdy want fortified him to face down a Pharaoh, win a wizard battle, and endure the scorn of Egypt.

“The braveness of Gandalf, Moses, and Jesus is just not made in a day or a month or a yr.”

And imitate Jesus. When supplied all of the kingdoms on earth, his needs had been too sturdy to accept a handout from Devil. When the virtues of our King got here to the testing level, he utilized his braveness to the sticking level and carried out probably the most valiant deed the world will ever know — as a result of his needs ran deeper than demise. “For the enjoyment that was set earlier than him, [he] endured the cross, despising the disgrace” (Hebrews 12:2). No dragon can stand earlier than that energy of coronary heart! Imitate him and those that do likewise.

3. Make your stand on little bridges.

The braveness of Gandalf, Moses, and Jesus is just not made in a day or a month or a yr. Braveness to face earlier than Balrogs or face down dragons or take up crosses grows slowly out of mundane, day-to-day selections to refuse to accept mud pies. Oaks of righteousness develop from numerous Hobbit-like selections — selections to not click on what you shouldn’t, selections to not take part ungodly laughter, selections to not be pressured into that third drink, selections to not say peace when there isn’t any peace, selections to not name him a her, selections to defend the downtrodden, selections to provoke conversations, and a thousand others.

By the ability of the Spirit, our Secret Hearth, the stands you tackle these little bridges will allow you to carry agency when the Balrog comes. You’ll purchase fortitude for lengthy love in a tough marriage. You’ll have the soundness to embrace the difficult blessing of kids. You’ll acquire the tenacity to place your individual sin to demise and lovingly confront the sins of others. You’ll develop the boldness to depart acquainted comforts for pricey missions — whether or not subsequent door or throughout the planet.

Over time, you’ll develop deep roots. You’ll be “like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and doesn’t concern when warmth comes, for its leaves stay inexperienced, and isn’t anxious within the yr of drought, for it doesn’t stop to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:8).