I’m going to be teaching live on Zoom for 5 nights in October and November 2022 reading Tolkien’s works and making use of both Biblical and mythological material — the very worlds in which Tolkien himself was steeped.
Reading Tolkien as well as mythology and folklore can help us to re-enchant the world and thus engage more fully with the unseen world as it truly is.
How does the study of myth and legend contribute to mankind at a time like this? Are there are not starving people to feed, injustices to be set right, and cults of evil to be put down?
I hope that I will become a better Christian, better husband, better father, better priest, better communicator, better story-teller and better writer. Because in the end, everything is one. And de-fragmenting ourselves in Christ is one way of seeing what this life is about.
The encounter with a dragon is a signal to man that he is not in control of his world. The dragon is never a pet. But the dragon is also a signal to man that the world he thinks is the world is not actually the world, that there is something Else that intrudes upon it and with which he must reckon.