The Ring of Power & The Corruption of the "Flesh"
For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
“Aragorn,” the Ring of power calls out to the ranger who would become King.
“Aragorn,” the hypnotic voice is eerie yes, but also soothing, enticing, comforting. Cleverly, we don’t see the images, the thoughts, the visions the Ring is showing Aragorn. But something is alluring to him.
“Aragorn,” it pleads one last time before Aragorn kneels to Frodo’s outstretched and open hand. Placing his own hand close to the young, frightened, teary hobbit, Aragorn closes Frodo’s hand tightly, blocking the voice of the enemy.
“I would have gone with you to the end. Into the very fires of Mordor.”
“I know.”
These are the words that break the fellowship, ensure Aragorn’s true royalty and character, reveal that even though Frodo does believe in Aragorn, trusts the man with his life, Frodo knows he would later at some undetermined time become helpless to the all-consuming corruption of the one Ring to rule them all. Aragorn knows it too, which is why he too is quick to leave Frodo and leave any chance of his becoming corrupted.
Inevitably, over time, the ring corrupts. It is its main purpose after all. The one ring to rule them all eventually rules over any of its bearers.
Even Frodo himself.
Tolkien famously disliked allegory. Funny because one of his closest friends, C.S. Lewis, wrote an entire series of fantasy stories as an allegory for Christ’s death, resurrection, and the last day.
I agree with Tolkien though. Even though the Chronicles of Narnia are better than they have any right to be, allegory as a narrative style invariably reduces nuance. This isn’t to say something loosely allegorical can’t be compelling, but a simple substitution, ie the White Witch for Satan or Aslan for Jesus, diminishes much of the complexity of a narrative.
For a few decades now ever since the Lord of the Rings films dropped, I have imbued what I thought at the time the Ring meant. The first and easy connection to make is its’ symbolizing power. After all, it is quite literally called the Ring of power.
Many characters relish at the capacity it might give them. A relishing that we as the viewer and reader immediately distinguish as moral weakness. Whether it be Boromir, Faramir, Denethor, Gandalf, Galadriel, Isildur, etc., something about the whispers and promises it tells allure even the wisest and upright of characters. While I do believe the corrupting influence of the Ring is in part due to its promise of power, I think this is only one piece of a larger puzzle.
During later years of my life, in particular, when I was struggling the most with sin because of shame (or shame because of sin), I believed the ring symbolized sin. We can see how it leads many characters to perform immoral actions when they are normally moral; Bilbo lunges at Frodo in lustful anger when denied the Ring, Boromir threatens and nearly kills Frodo for possession of it. And, of course, Smeagol himself kills his own cousin in cold blood for possession of his precious. Sin as a motivation has some merit in the story, but I believe I placed my own perceived value onto the Ring because of what I believed in my early 20s about sin itself. Motivated by approval and lust, I saw myself doing and believing things I wouldn’t have thought I would in my late teens in part due to a carnal desire within me that burgeoned and grew upon leaving my parents house. Yet even still, this interpretation betrays motivations. Betrays the full story. Betrays how many characters say, with full honesty, that IF they could, they would use the ring for good.
So if the Ring symbolizes power but not completely, symbolizes sin but not completely, what can it mean? What concept can fully encapsulate why the Ring so entices every bearer or potential bearer? While we all deal with power, and we all deal with sin, what is underneath even those two things?
The False Self. The ego. The flesh inside of us, motivated by sin, by power, by the way we conceive of ourselves and how we wish the world viewed us or we wish the world was.
The Ring promises yet never delivers on what only God can; full and satisfying contentment.
The Ring of Power, for me in my life, has been sweeping and all-consuming romance. Nicholas Sparks himself can’t dare come close to the fantasy and desire I have for “the one.”
With visions of that life, or, more often than not, nightmares of that life never happening, the Ring has tempted me to wear it over and over through lust and substances but more accurately through inaction, through complacency, through despair.
The Ring as a mcguffin is such a riveting idea because, for some reason, everyone who reads the novels or watches the movies, understands the power and influence and corruption of the Ring instinctively. We’ve all had a Ring in our lives, and quite frankly, will always have a Ring to bear even to the grave.
Yet I’ve always felt a Western understanding of the Ring, of sin, of the ego, somehow lacked. If anything, it seems we embrace the Ring. Less so the Ring as sin but wholeheartedly the Ring as ego.
We need only examine our current president, our present social media feeds, our obsession with the American dream to see how it is reinforced constantly. In our hunger for fame, notoriety, attention, and influence. In our thirst for recognition, approval, acceptance, and status. In the pursuit of happiness, we betray contentment. Something, somehow, pollutes even our regular rhythms and habits to make it so challenging to ever hear from God let alone each other. And all of these strivings for the Ring of ego tend to secretly bolster our Ring of sin.
Furthermore, the Ring of ego is isolating. The False Self works hard to promote an image and works even harder to defend it, no matter what. Boromir himself reveals this well. When he first encounters Frodo in the hills of Amon Hen, he appeals to Frodo’s struggle bearing the ring and his withdrawing from others because of it. Empathizing further, he tells him there are other things Frodo can do with the ring other than to bear it himself in agony. But Frodo wisely responds, clearly aware some malice is driving a man who days earlier was physically carrying him out of the Mines of Moria to safety.
In subtle ways we all do the same with one another. On our journeys to put to death the ego and the works of the flesh, we either look to others for validation of our ego or to gain a measure of sympathy or understanding of our plight without also the encouragement to continue the fight. Something inside of all of us is at work to quell any interior work. When we work on sin reduction, our ego tends to boom, patting us on the back for self-mastery. When we let go of what our ego holds onto, we let sin come in through the back door, overly focused on feeling good inside which sin always grants if for only a moment.
This is why Paul says it is by grace that we have been saved. The Ring of ego or the Ring of sin is always calling to us, always tempting us, always promising what it can never, ever deliver.
The Ring is almost all-consuming in its corruptive power. Yet for Frodo, the only way he was able to make it far as he did without succumbing to its influence (save for the end) was through the character, the mettle, and the steadfastness of his most loyal companion.
Samwise Gamgee.
There’s only one character who handed over the ring to someone else. Only one character who didn’t leave it, or forget it, or lose it, or run away wisely for fear of the lust for it consuming them and who, because of an absolute lack of ego or vice, gave it up to someone else.
Samwise Gamgee is a singular character, and this is his depth. So adamant on ensuring his friend, his master, his companion accomplishes what he set out to do, he forfeits his own will, his own desires, his own life, to see him through to that goal.
I’ve written before about how I want to be a Samwise. How I want to be a loyal and trustworthy companion to my friends, brothers, sisters, students and any who might cross my path. How he is such a compelling character because his love and devotion is so pure, so loving, so passionate.
I no longer desire this. Not quite anyway. If anything, I believe I am a Frodo, and my calling is to help those caught being a “Gollum” or Frodos becoming “Gollum.” So consumed and trapped by the ring of ego, of sin, of power, of darkness, they no longer know who they were before being Gollum.
But the only way I can be Frodo, bearing my own ring and bringing it to Mordor and casting it into the fire daily, is if I trust in and rely on and place all of my chips on the Samwise with me.
Jesus is Samwise. Both in prayer on my knees but also in the arms of my brother. In deep morning contemplation but also in the warm and consoling comfort of my sister. In the written word of the Bible but also in the spoken word of my spiritual teachers.
It’s as if we become, temporarily, Samwise only through accident. By grace we are loving, and not of ourselves or our egos. In fact, we are only truly loving when we completely ignore our ego. But this is no small task. We all have our ring of “ego” to bear, rings that tell stories of loss and lament, triumph and overcoming. Rings that, one way or another, define who we are and who aren’t. Yet we can’t, as Sam says so powerfully in the final film, carry these rings for each other. But we can carry each other.
The metaphor fails at some point. We don’t, after all, literally carry evil rings thousands of miles on foot under threat of death by orcs every step of the way. We do, however, all carry something which pushes us away from others. Causes us to fall more often than rise. Entices us to live out of a false place rather than a true place.
We simply can’t overcome this desire on our own. If I have learned anything about God, about life, about what really matters most, it’s that relationships are the cornerstone of life. The best way to gauge the health of anyone is to measure the strength of their friendships and connections to others.
Contentment is connection. Joy isn’t increased by yourself. Even in solitude, true, remote, totally off the grid solitude, we learn that we are never really alone. And so resisting this ring which brings dissatisfaction, lust, corruption, pain is only viable through reliance on others.
That’s why it isn’t Frodo alone who overcomes the ring and casts it into the fire. It is the fellowship who, though being separated by war, by chaos, by fear of corruption and failure, come together at the end to defeat Sauron.
This is why we bear each other’s burdens. This is why living the good life is about living a life that isn’t about me but about us.