Loyalty

Don’t leave me here all alone! It’s your Sam calling. Don’t go where I can’t follow! Wake up, Mr Frodo!

The future of the human family rides on… a promise spoken and not forgotten. A man named Abraham strode off into an unpredictable future because he gambled on the loyalty of a Promise uttered by a Presence he had scarcely begun to feel. And so a new possibility for history began. Moses tried to get a better fix on the identity of this Presence: "…what is your name?" he dared to ask. And the answer came: "…I am he who will be there with you" (Exod. 3:14). …Then a man from Galilee talked to his friends about sealing this ancient promise in his blood; and a day later he spilled it… on a mound they call Golgotha. "I am he who will be there with you" was there with us — dying, then rising, and then being with us until the end of the world. …Human destiny rests on a promise freely given and reliably remembered. Whenever you and I make and keep a promise, we are as close to being like God as we can ever be. When you say to anyone that you will be there with them, you are only a millimeter beneath the angels.

Through the high jungle tree tops, the news quickly spread: He talks to a dust speck! He's out of his head! Just look at him walk with that speck on that flower! And Horton walked, worrying, almost an hour. 'Should I put this speck down?' Horton thought with alarm. 'If I do, these small persons might come to great harm. I can't put it down. And I won't! After all, a person's a person. No matter how small.'

Standing there, watching them, it occurred to me that when Hitler watched Joe and the boys fight their way back from the rear of the field to sweep ahead of Italy and Germany seventy-five years ago, he saw, but did not recognize, heralds of his doom. He could not have known that one day hundreds of thousands of boys just like them, boys who shared their essential natures—decent and unassuming, not privileged or favored by anything in particular, just loyal, committed, and perseverant—would return to Germany dressed in olive drab, hunting him down.

They were now representatives of something much larger than themselves - a way of life, a shared set of values. Liberty was perhaps the most fundamental of those values. But the things that held them together - trust in each other, mutual respsect, humility, fair play, watching out for one another - those were also part of what America meant to all of them.

‘And now,’ said the wizard, turning back to Frodo, ‘the decision lies with you. But I will always help you.’ He laid his hand on Frodo’s shoulder. ‘I will help you bear this burden, as long as it is yours to bear. But we must do something, soon. The Enemy is moving.’

Frodo. ‘Yes,’ he said with a smile. ‘I ask leave once again to be your companion, Frodo.’

It is true that if these hobbits understood the danger, they would not dare to go. But they would still wish to go, or wish that they dared, and be shamed and unhappy.

‘Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens,’ said Gimli. ‘Maybe,’ said Elrond, ‘but let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall.’

‘I owe much to Éomer,’ said Théoden. ‘Faithful heart may have froward tongue.’ ‘Say also,’ said Gandalf, ‘that to crooked eyes truth may wear a wry face.’

‘Unlooked-for?’ said Gandalf. ‘I said that I would return and meet you here.’

It had always been a notion of his that the kindness of dear Mr. Frodo was of such a high degree that it must imply a fair measure of blindness.

My lord does not issue any command to you, he begs you only to remember old friendship and oaths long spoken, and for your own good to do all that you may.

Yet to no heart in all the host came any fear that the Wild Men were unfaithful, strange and unlovely though they might appear.

‘Work of the Enemy!’ said Gandalf. ‘Such deeds he loves: friend at war with friend; loyalty divided in confusion of hearts.’

Discontent, ingratitude, perversity, stubbornness —these attitudes and dispositions pollute filial loyalty to Israel’s Creator, Deliverer, and Keeper. Ungrateful and refractory people at once foul their own character and their relation to God. They are like a child —willful, resistant, and adroit in self-defense by appeal to various legalisms —to whom an exasperated parent finally says, “Don’t be that way!”

Scriptural writers fear “double-mindedness” not merely because it shows disloyalty and ingratitude but also because its perpetrator becomes its victim. Divided worship destroys worshipers. Divided love destroys lovers.

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, the Gunpowder Treason and Plot. I know of no reason why the Gunpowder Treason should ever be forgot… But what of the man? I know his name was Guy Fawkes and I know, in 1605, he attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament. But who was he really? What was he like? We are told to remember the idea, not the man, because a man can fail. He can be caught, he can be killed and forgotten, but 400 years later, an idea can still change the world. I’ve witnessed first hand the power of ideas, I’ve seen people kill in the name of them, and die defending them… but you cannot kiss an idea, cannot touch it, or hold it… ideas do not bleed, they do not feel pain, they do not love… And it is not an idea that I miss, it is a man… A man that made me remember the Fifth of November. A man that I will never forget.