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J.R.R. Tolkien’s mystic west was inspired by the legendary voyage of St. Brendan, who sailed on a quest for a Paradise in the midst and mists of the ocean.
Which way is heaven? For those of us who are keen to get there, this is an important question; indeed a crucial one. Do we look up at the twinkling stars, wondering what they are in childlike contemplation? Is this assent to the innocence of wonder the ascent to heaven, or the necessary prerequisite for such an ascent? Plato would say so, and so would Thomas Aquinas.
Or should we look to the east, orienting ourselves towards the rising sun and reminding ourselves that orient means east because it originally meant to rise (oriri)? If the sun rises in the east, might we rise in the east also? Is the mystic east not merely where the sun rises but where the Son rises also? The Church would seem to suggest that this is so. Churches were always built with the altar in the east so that the priest at the altar could always face ad orientem, towards the east, orienting himself and his fellow worshippers towards the Rising Son. This is the orientation celebrated by the poet Roy Campbell in his sonnet “To the Sun”:
But what of the mystic west? What of that west into which Frodo and the Elves sail from the Grey Havens at the end of The Lord of the Rings:
Continued below.
www.ncregister.com
Which way is heaven? For those of us who are keen to get there, this is an important question; indeed a crucial one. Do we look up at the twinkling stars, wondering what they are in childlike contemplation? Is this assent to the innocence of wonder the ascent to heaven, or the necessary prerequisite for such an ascent? Plato would say so, and so would Thomas Aquinas.
Or should we look to the east, orienting ourselves towards the rising sun and reminding ourselves that orient means east because it originally meant to rise (oriri)? If the sun rises in the east, might we rise in the east also? Is the mystic east not merely where the sun rises but where the Son rises also? The Church would seem to suggest that this is so. Churches were always built with the altar in the east so that the priest at the altar could always face ad orientem, towards the east, orienting himself and his fellow worshippers towards the Rising Son. This is the orientation celebrated by the poet Roy Campbell in his sonnet “To the Sun”:
It was also the orientation celebrated by C. S. Lewis in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader in which the intrepid voyagers sail east until they get to the end of the world and can tread the dawn in Aslan’s Country.
But what of the mystic west? What of that west into which Frodo and the Elves sail from the Grey Havens at the end of The Lord of the Rings:
Continued below.
Which Way Is Heaven?
J.R.R. Tolkien’s mystic west was inspired by the legendary voyage of St. Brendan, who sailed on a quest for a Paradise in the midst and mists of the ocean.
