[Child of the 7th Age]

Lindil,

You bring up some interesting points. If I understand you correctly, one of your central questions is this: have the writings of JRRT ever helped bring healing to your heart?

Let me begin by briefly discussing one side issue you raise--the whole question of JRRT being a "doctor" and how this may relate to the theme of healing. I myself hold a doctorate in medieval history, so perhaps my views on this are a little different. I absolutely agree that Tolkien's writings do contain within them words and wisdom which can bring healing to a troubled heart. However, having known too many Ph.ds, I would say that this has little direct tie-in with his academic credentials. I've known some real stinkers who hold doctorates, figures that resemble slimy Sarumans rather than any of the "good" or "true" characters in LotR or Silm.

Even at its best, a doctorate is no more than an academic degree that tells someone you should have a certain amount of knowledge in your head. What it doesn't say is how much goodness you have in your heart. I have been privileged to know a few folk with great goodness in their hearts. Some of these people had strings of degrees, while others had none at all. It was the goodness that made them special, not the degrees.

And I would say the same is true for Tolkien. Certainly, his considerable knowledge of linguistics, literature, etc. helped him communicate his goodness to a wider audience than would be the case with another person who did not have those vast abilities. But without the core goodness that lay in Tolkien's heart, all his degrees would have been worthless!

As to the second part....whether JRRT's writings have the capability of healing folk....I would say definitely yes. Of course, I base this on my own experience, as most of us will do when responding to a question of this sort.

My own example is somewhat extreme, and I almost hesitate to use it here, because I don't want to stifle discussion. Someimes that happens when you discuss things other folk may not be comfortable with.

Let me explain. Fifteen years ago, my husband and I lost a strapping, seven month old baby to SIDS (crib or cot death). We checked on our daughter at one point in the night, and she was fine. Two hours later she had died.

A great many healing things happened that next year to pull us through the bad times. I won't go into all the family and friends who helped us so we could make it. But there were times when folk weren't there, and I was left alone at home wondering how I could get through to the next day. And at least a few of those times, I dragged out my very well worn copy of LotR and read. And on some level and in some mysterious way, I found myself responding to certain characters and themes that JRRT put forth, and the only word I can use to describe that process is "healing".

The whole idea of hope, of not despairing even when times are bad, was something that spoke directly to me. I was also determined not to become another Denethor, either literally or figuratively. This wasn't an abstract idea, but a real threat, since I'd met another woman who'd lost a baby to SIDS who ended up wrecking her life with too much alcohol and anger and bleak despair.

Finally, I've always been partial to hobbits and particularly to Frodo. Immediately after Heather's death, I could not help but identify closely with this little hobbit in terms of how he had to struggle with himself at the end of the tale. A recent essay has said that Frodo had a case of "shell shock" or post-traumatic stress syndrome. But when I looked at his character, I felt he was dealing with the process of grieving....grieving for what had been lost (the Ring), and for those things within himself that had changed so much that they would never be the same again.

Again, some folk have suggested that travelling to the West was Frodo's way of running off and not facing things in the Shire. But I didn't see it like that. In my experience, grief makes us sit still in one place and not move at all. So in my eyes, Frodo's decision to move west was born from his genuine desire to be healed, not simply a despairing escape from the Shire.

It's strange but it never bothered me that, at the end of the book, we see Frodo broken down, and aren't totally sure if he'll actually achieve healing in the West. I figured life was like that. Your only real decision is whether you chose to struggle on, since no one can predict how things will end up. If Tolkien had showed me a Frodo totally healed, I probably would have thrown down the book in disgust and said that life wasn't like that--some things hurt too much. But instead, he showed me that even a broken down, grieving hobbit could respond graciously to his friend Sam and do something to try to put the pieces back together again.

I prefer the word healer to doctor, since it seems more genuinely "Middle-earth". But I do agree that, for me, the healing nature of Tolkien's world was central.

[ January 24, 2003: Message edited by: Child of the 7th Age ]