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Tolkien and Transcendent Beauty - A Theologian’s Perspective · Mythmakers

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  Hello and welcome to MythMakers. MythMakers is the podcast for fantasy fans and creatives
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  and in this we look at all the subjects that are interest to people, particularly those
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  who love Tolkien. And today I'm joined by Lisa Kultras, who is the writer of a book called
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  Tolkien's Theology of Beauty, Majesty Sclender and Transcendence in Middle-earth.
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  Lisa is a Theologian and it's the first time, yes is she showing it there to us, it's the first
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  time we've had a Theologian on this podcast and so we're going to be looking at the theological ideas
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  underlying Tolkien's writing. So thank you so much Lisa for making time to come and talk to us on
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  MythMakers. So let's start. Thank you. Let's start at the beginning. We all of us come to
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  Tolkien probably way before we have our academic ideas in mind. What was your first experience
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  or exposure to Tolkien? Was it the books or did the films? Which way rounded you approach?
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  Well for me it was actually partly family and partly the films. So I knew about Tolkien because
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  my mom and my brother read it, loved it, talked about hobbits. I didn't have any understanding of what
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  they were talking about and then when the films came out of course I went and saw them and I was
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  teenager at the time, fell in love with them, saw the first film of course and then I read all three
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  of the books or the volumes I should say of the book. And that was my first exposure and I started
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  writing some fiction. I haven't really published any of it but you know that's what I fell in
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  love with literature really was was talking. I think that's so brilliant that Tolkien, like just for
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  me, that's exactly the same. My writing career was inspired by reading Tolkien and then wanting to
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  do the same thing. You don't end I haven't as a writer ended up doing the same thing but it was
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  that impetus to try and open the same doors and create these big worlds that actually started.
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  And I think lots of people, I'm sure most people listening to this have had that same impetus
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  which is you know it's just a testament to this fascination of his world and its inspiration.
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  But you then went on clearly to sort of follow an academic training in theology but in that you
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  circle back to looking at Tolkien as a theologian. So how did that come about and where does it fit
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  in your studies? Is it something you went in knowing you're going to do or did you then
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  sort of find it just bubbling up to the surface almost by accident?
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  Well it did evolve over time so I ended up studying in my undergraduate. I studied philosophy
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  and biblical studies and so and writing. So I did those three things kind of a three-pronged
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  approach and with studying philosophy fell in love with this like analytical approach to you know
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  meta-narrative you know these larger concepts and so on and then when I went and did my master of
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  theology my approach was narrative theology. Well how does narrative speak to these you know Christian
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  ideas or these Christian philosophies because when I would re-Christian fiction I didn't like it.
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  I thought it was lame and I know there's good fiction out there I just you know I felt like it
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  was very shallow or trite or they would be trying so hard to tell an idea rather than just telling
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  a an excellent narrative and so my thought was well how can narrative best communicate these
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  theological ideas in a way that isn't pushy or obnoxious or just preaching to the choir
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  and then when I went into my doctoral studies I wanted to study specific authors who had
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  done this well how did they portray their Christian philosophy in a way that was not obnoxious
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  or pushy or obvious and I had a couple people in mind but it was actually I believe was
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  Michael Ward with the CS Lewis author he he was my inspiration in many ways he
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  instructed me to just do Tolkien you know there's enough there and there's actually
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  you know not a lot of theological writing about him so focus on him he's brilliant he's the
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  best one you should go do him and obviously he you know he was doing CS Lewis and so he's like go do
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  Tolkien and and so I had this you know inspired by an article by Stephen Lawhead who talked about
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  you know the good the true and the beautiful and how this was portrayed in Tolkien and how he
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  wanted to portray that in his novels I was just captured by this idea of the good the true and
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  the beautiful because I had never actually encountered that because you know I wasn't Catholic
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  you know it came from a very you know Protestant Christian background and we hadn't really
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  talked about the good the true and the beautiful as a concept so I was just in love with this idea
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  and so Michael Ward said well go to Balthazar go read him he's going to talk about this and so that's
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  how I brought in the Theologian Balthazar or Vaughn Balthazar and used him as a parallel to Tolkien
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  to interpret him and it just developed from there and then Alex Demograph he was a Theologian
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  as CS Lewis scholar took me under his wing as his advisor for the thesis and so it just developed
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  from there and became what it is as the book so so a lot of people listening to this were not
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  have thought about Tolkien as a sort of theological or a religious writer at all so perhaps it might
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  be worth having a little basic chat about how Tolkien sat in this way his background faith background
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  and how he saw Lord of the Rings for example Tolkien was a Catholic wasn't he yeah very devout
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  Roman Catholic loved his faith he loved though you know liturgy in the Eucharist and that was the
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  center of his life and when he wrote Lord of the Rings he did not have it in mind at all when he
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  was writing it but then when he went went through and revised it he saw it everywhere as just
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  permeating everything that he had written in middle earth and and when he saw it he did everything
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  he could to remove any reference to it because he felt like if it's done right it should be absorbed
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  into the narrative and that it should be captured in the stories that are told and the symbolism
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  that is there and he had no problem with symbolism but he did not want it to be an allegory of life
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  you know it was not an allegory of the war it was not allegory of that bomb it was just a beautiful
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  story that he wrote to the best of his ability that would absorb his ideas and his beliefs about
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  the world and then portray them through narrative and event and character I think that's a really
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  important point to make because there's a fear that if if I think for many people who are reading
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  this without a Christian faith or having their own faith background or no faith background they
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  wouldn't want to see him hived off as a Christian author and I don't think talking would either would
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  he because as you were saying he he disliked he said he disliked allegory but he liked applicability
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  so you can apply what you see in his works to your understanding of faith or life or beauty or
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  these things but he says the power of that is in the reader's hands whereas in allegory the power
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  of the allegory is in the writer's hands and it sort of takes you down one channel so that
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  it's kind of everybody is welcome in the world of middle earth but he does want there to be that
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  sense of his fundamental values which is well he's writing from okay so let's go more to your work
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  now um you have a particular view or a particular interest in this idea of transcendental beauty
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  would you like to unpack that in sort of more simple terms as to well we probably all understand
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  what beauty is but what about this transcend transcendental part of it what are you getting out there?
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  um yeah the for talking you know all of creation I mean this of course comes from you know the
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  ancient theological philosophy of you know Catholic theologians that all of all of creation
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  is made up of the good the true and the beautiful that is you know ontologically part of everything
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  it is the the essence of all and anything that is evil or deficient is just something that has
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  kind of chipped away at that and and detracted from it um and we all have this idea of you know
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  what goodness is you know in a religious context you know goodness is you know morality and uh
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  and you know truth is you know doctrine but this idea of the beautiful is so often neglected because
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  it is it is so much more it's the imagination it is glory it is grace it is something that is so
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  much more permeates everything um but the good and the true are really not fully themselves without
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  something that is beautiful without having this property of beauty so you can be as moral and
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  have all this moralism that you want but it it falls flat on its face if if it isn't beautiful
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  if it doesn't enrapture your heart in enrapture your spirit in your imagination and so in this uh
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  in this christian worldview where god is the creator of all it all comes from him um his character
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  and his essence is uh reflected in all that he has made and so if god himself is beauty um you know
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  not in the sense of uh you know he's a thing but more that beauty itself is what it is because of
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  god and and you know he is the ultimate beauty and the ultimate glory so glory is the the radiance
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  something that is greater than what we understand of as beauty in this world and so um you know
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  glory would be god's beauty or it would be his beauty reflected in creation so you're looking out
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  at this beautiful mountain range and you're just your breath is taken away and you're you're just
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  infractured by it well what Tolkien's theology would say is that is a reflection of the glory of
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  god because he's the creator who made it and so anything that is beautiful about it is it comes
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  from his being it comes from who he is and so in Tolkien's narrative and you know anything
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  that is transcendent or enrapturing of the imagination or moving that would be derived from
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  something more than than just the material he would say there is a spiritual world and in this
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  spiritual world um you know it the spiritual world is part of the physical world like they are
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  together they have to be integrated and so anything that is um glorious about the material world is
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  deriving it from the spiritual world and then you know it goes from there um you know this is creation
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  but god is the creator and it derives from him so it's a very long roundabout explanation
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  now but he he does he sets it up in the Silmarillion doesn't he with the song at the beginning of
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  well the creation song which is in a way a summary of everything that's going to happen
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  with the darker themes woven in by Melkor the sort of the satanic power within it but it's all held in
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  that the entirety of the symphony that Louvert are or the the god is creating so you get a sort of
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  taste of that that's the that's the music playing underneath middle earth and you need all the contrast
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  to produce the beauty it's not just playing one note right so we actually really interesting to
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  look at examples of in the text you know examples of beauty because where is in the Silmarillion you've
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  got the gods um the sort of demi the the step down from eluvert are the sort of pantheon gods
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  who are very much present in the first stage and and referred to and in the second age by the
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  third age which is the time in which Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit is set there is hardly any
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  mention of the gods is there they they are completely pushed back out of out of sight
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  what do you think and there is no sign of anybody worshipping in any sense in in middle earth at
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  that stage what do you think is Tolkien's place within the world the more familiar to most read as
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  world what's the place for god and those concepts in Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit well I think
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  what he would say is you know the Silmarillion is elf centered you know is from the perspective of
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  the elves and then Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit or Hobbit centered and so while they encounter
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  you know elves and humans they very much see it from their own perspective of as hobbits that
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  they you know there's no special revelation as Tolkien would say there's no you know that there's
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  no understanding yet of of of a god of a coming savior like all of that is is on the peripheral
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  and so in this world of natural theology as he puts it where you get a sense of truth through
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  creation that would be the world of of Lord of the Rings but then you see you know Galadriel
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  making reference to Elbureth and you see in Elbureth of course is sorry to be what's her name
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  you know it's it's the the female god of of the of Valinor and and yet what Tolkien would say is
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  well they're not gods that's just what humans see them as because they see this power this great
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  power and humans are prone to worship them that is what he that what he would say and that's probably
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  what he did say I think in his letters is that when humans encountered these they no doubt thought
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  they were gods and worship them the elves saw them as these angelic guardians yeah who they had a
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  relationship with and who I mean they could even intermarry with and so these were greater powers
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  who were essentially spirit who could take on physical form whereas the elves were essentially
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  physical form who of course had the integration of spirit so I think in Middle Earth the reason you
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  don't see a lot of that stuff and you probably took it out if there was any of it in there to start with
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  it's because it's you know elf or sorry it's Hobbit centered it's human centered and of course
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  there's like a knowledge of the one that the noble men have so like Eric Warren would have
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  knowledge of the one and Faramir would have knowledge of the one and of course there's that moment
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  where Faramir and all his men have that moment of silence and look toward the west so there's
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  thought of like is this a moment of prayer but they are the noble men who are
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  educated in that sense so they have knowledge of it from the elves um ultimately historically
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  so that that's what I would say and of course there's that that moment where Frodo um he calls out
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  to Elbereth uh what he's in Sheila's layer so there is there are these like small moments where
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  Tolkien weaves it in there very subtly where it's not obvious that he is in a sense praying to
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  Elbereth in the sense that you know Catholics would pray to the saints for help and they would say
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  you know please pray for me please help me please go to God and and and request his assistance
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  and so that I think is more the perspective of like what the elves would do or like this incantation
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  that um that Frodo you know Frodo has this moment of uh of calling out so it's it's much more subtle
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  and I think that's very much on purpose and I think there's also a sense that Gandalf says there's a
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  and the Ladriel too there a sense of providence working in the activities um so there's that
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  message that you know Bilbo was meant to find the ring and you were meant to be the ones take it
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  you know it's the idea that there is some sort of plan that means that they the right people in the
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  right place um which sort of has this sense of behind the scenes there is some greater good
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  that that is working for the Hobbits for their success yeah also perhaps we could also unpack
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  a little the idea of beauty itself because yes and there is a lot of discussion about how beautiful
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  Galadriel is and how beautiful are in is in terms of classic feminine beauty though in a sort of
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  extreme form because they're these lovely elves but I think it's not just that is it because there's
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  another bit where um they refer they refer to Frodo after his uh when he's in the houses of healing
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  in Elrons in Elrons uh sick bay he seems to spend a lot of time unfortunately in the equivalent
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  hospital um but he's sort of gone partly there's a sense of light coming from it inside him
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  uh and I think and Sam also looks at him later on says that he's sort of beautiful you
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  the sense of a beautiful soul and we we do know that Frodo isn't classically beautiful he's a
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  50-year-old sometimes slightly overweight Hobbit nobody says gosh he's a real stunner
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  yeah but something else that's being referred to here which is beauty that is I think picking up your
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  phrase um the radiance of God's glory the sense and I'm sure that I mean there must be other
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  characters what other characters do you see that are beautiful in in that way yeah I mean the
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  the beauty of the soul is certainly um the driving force of physical beauty in Tolkien's world
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  um I believe it was I want to say Glorfindel was the one that in the movies it's Arwen who comes in
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  rescue you know rescue Frodo from the dark drivers but in the books I believe it was Glorfindel
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  and Frodo sees him as he himself is passing into the spirit realm because he you know he's been
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  stabbed by the the uh was it the morgue blade and and so he is passing into the spirit world as a
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  race and and as he's passing into the spirit world he sees the spiritual version of Glorfindel
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  he sees him as he truly is he's shining um you know with light and what Gandalf says I think it's
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  Gandalf says later is that um what what Frodo sees is that these high elves from the west live at once
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  in both worlds that in this they live in the spiritual world they can see spiritual beings but they
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  also live in the physical world as a physical being and so they are um in a sense infused with
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  this transcendental light from the you know the the trees of Valinor back in the day before they
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  were destroyed and uh and that light permeates their spirits and they are the most beautiful of all
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  the elves and the most high nogal of all the elves um in Frodo's case as he is um in a sense being
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  wasted away by the ring the the beauty of his soul is starting to shine through because he is
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  sacrificing himself he is showing mercy to golem he is showing these virtues that are in a sense
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  uh eating away at him because you know in a Christian world view you you are dying to yourself you
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  are dying to these um uh you know passions or these desires that you know work against your soul
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  or you know your selfishness um and in denying himself of these things and showing mercy and
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  giving up his life it is um you know he is dying to himself but his spirit is coming alive
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  and it is shining through his physical form even as he's wasting away toward the spirit world
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  and and then someone like R. when someone like a ladreal it is their spirit that brings true beauty
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  because beauty by itself in a material sense is and can be very deceptive so we see that when
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  the ladreal is tempted by the ring she is terrible and worshipful and you're beautiful beyond
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  compare but that beauty is accepted beauty because it is not good
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  and and yet when she passes the test you know she is you know that just a simple maiden who is
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  you know still beautiful um and i i think is the true beauty as they are you know dying to themselves
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  and they're giving of the giving up of themselves for the good of middle earth for the good of
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  their companions yeah so that links to the sort of evil beauty which which um it's very prevalent
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  in the hobbit because the lure of gold the lure of gems the lure of the arcan stone
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  and of course the lure of the ring itself which goes over into the of the rings this is all
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  of deeply bitter fruit everyone is dissent mad or it's their undoing as a person if they succumb
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  to this desire for something beautiful which is not at heart good and of course connects back to
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  um sour on when he was pretending to be um the friend in numino and he was a beautiful
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  he's outwardly beautiful at that stage when he's in in bodily form but he's you know rotten inside
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  yeah and that's and that that sinks the whole island so it's pretty bad news um so i think
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  there's a very interesting place on what is because if you think a number of beautiful artifacts
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  they all are pretty disastrous aren't they in in Tolkien's world yeah yeah for sure
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  but not not so places because i've we so we've talked about human beauty and the beauty of artifacts but
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  i think of something as a reader that you come away from in Lord of the Rings in particular is
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  really overpowering sense of the beauty of place and how does this fit in with the sense of
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  the transcendent beauty i'm thinking i hear obviously of riven del and lorian in particular
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  yeah and then what also comes to my mind is uh you know in the somarillion all the things that are
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  described there and it makes your heart ache a little bit because you want it to be real
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  you're like why isn't this world real and you feel the same way about middle earth that there's
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  all these beautiful things that um are so like certain places in our world and yet are more
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  and uh and i believe it's peter creeped that says it's not that his world is like ours is that our
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  world is like his that he is tapping into some sort of platonic ideal that is um so much more than
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  what we encounter here um that he is trying to reflect something that is higher and greater um and
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  it makes your heart ache because you want it to be real so um yeah and i think you know all of
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  for talking all of creation is connected and all of creation is infused with the glory of the creator
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  and yet it keeps you know falling just a little bit over time you know as it wastes away and even
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  even at the beginning it wasn't what it could be because it kept getting poisoned by melcore
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  and and so on it keeps going from there um yeah and uh and just the different kinds of
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  of beauty that you see you know in fangirl and forest uh it's a different kind of beauty than
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  than the shire and even lorian is a different kind of beauty than riven del and uh and even even
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  even when the elves leave lorian just fades away and passes away it says and so um yeah it just
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  leaves your heart aching a little bit i think yeah i it was interesting thinking of
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  following this thought of the transcendent beauty and thinking about what the other
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  inklings do with the same idea of course they're all sharing ideas and it brought to mind two things one
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  is um the last battle for seas Lewis with the idea that you go through the stable door to a sort of
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  even more real world and Tolkien has a um i think it might be on fairy stories where he talks about
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  myth makers make green really green and you know tree really really triish and it's the intensity
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  of the language that you're looking for in when you start doing it as a myth and that's what
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  seas Lewis attempts to do in that um it's a bit of a problematic book isn't it but it's
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  fascinating idea of sort of going further back into a more of a to a paradise that's sort of
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  even more narnia than the narnia you read about in the earlier books uh and the the other writer
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  in the inkling circle who played with these ideas um and first i think his Charles Williams in his
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  novel um a place of the lion which is a extraordinary fantasy work in cover because that date is
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  about 1936 it's quite early on um but in that the problem is that the platonic ideals are breaking
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  in to ordinary life it's like there's a rift very doctor who wishes a rift in time with all these
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  platonic ideals are leaking through so you get a lion coming into the world which sucks in all
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  those things of lionish qualities and then butterflies all the butterflies are being sucked in like
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  hoovered up that's probably downplaying his very powerful writing there but it's sort of threatening
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  the lesser copies um and the you so the the job of the heroes in that is to close the gaps close the
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  rifts so it's interesting they're all searching all these writers are searching for that
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  the the the ungraspable the even more beautiful which our imagination can reach for but we can't
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  actually find right so we're all a bit homeless aren't we yeah that's why we all go back to read the
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  book again that's right that's right and i think what we're talking in Lewis would say is um you know
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  the there's a sense of wonder and desire that is stirred in us that we don't know where
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  where it came from or where what it's pointing to and uh you know like Lewis would say it's a memory
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  of a memory that when you're enraptured by this great beauty or this great moment it makes your
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  heart hurt because you remember something but you can't quite remember what you're remembering
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  and and and looking and Tolkien does that a lot in middle earth where it's so beautiful so moving
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  that it makes your heart ache because you want it to be real and it and he would probably say
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  well it's reminding you of something more you know the world that once was or will yet be
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  yeah so it's not just nostalgia is it so so one reading of Tolkien is that places like the shyer
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  are longing for a world he saw being dug up for the motorways and the factories which i think
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  is partly it's there too as well but there is a sense of it's never existed either um the idyllic
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  landscape this perfect world of the shyer um i live near villages that are pretty like that um but
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  i'm sure they never had a moment in time where they were always in that sort of bucolic dream you
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  only have to read tomatardi to see how hard it could be out in the countryside yeah um so it is
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  uh i that's a different sort of beauty it's a community centered smaller deliberately smaller
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  beauty and the same goes for the heroic values of arrogant so you've got ideals of kingship or
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  through stories like Arthurian legends and but you can't locate those in any particular king or
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  time in history it's yeah you're never actually able to find them though you see
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  reflections of them in some codes of behavior or the occasional hero it's like it's extracted
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  and distilled from different characters we've seen in history or in different people we've seen
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  in history different legends we've heard and it's like it's all being all the good things are being
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  extracted and then distilled into a fictional character and yeah that's interesting so Lisa i mean
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  one of the reasons i really wanted to talk to you is that i think that this sense of beauty
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  is absolutely key to the success of Lord of the Rings and the reason why it really gets
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  its hooks into our souls as people is because it is offering this ideal of a place that we can feel is
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  we all just want mixing mixing my metaphors now but we always we all want to walk through the
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  wardrobe just to be there and that's why we go back to read it again but when i look at
• 30:20
  other sort of more recent fantasy series i don't see people writing with the same sense of that
• 30:28
  there is this that these ideals are aggraspable or in in in their work so i i was wondering if
• 30:36
  that's because we're all too cynical now and we go for more of a Game of Thrones flood bath
• 30:42
  approach or i know Star Wars has a sense of purity in in the the force of course
• 30:49
  but it's always sort of tippling over to the dark side which i suppose you get that in talking too
• 30:53
  it's just really interesting to know whether whether anyone else can do this can anybody else capture
• 30:59
  this real sense of the transcendental beauty you were saying to me before we started talking that
• 31:06
  you're not so well versed in contemporary fantasy but has anything caught your eye any
• 31:12
  any attempts in this direction well what what comes to mind is well i kind of gave up on
• 31:19
  modern fiction because i would like i would go to the bestseller rack and i'd pick up a book and
• 31:25
  you know read it and just be like why is this a bestseller this is written terribly and and i just
• 31:30
  started going back to the classics because it seemed like the classics you know count of Monte Cristo
• 31:35
  you've got Jane Austen you have you know just those sorts of classics that they're just
• 31:42
  written to really encapsulate human life in in one small aspect of time and they the ones that
• 31:51
  are successful are successful because they were excellence and they were true to reality
• 31:56
  and i think what a lot of what's missing in in you know the current days is yes there's a cynicism
• 32:03
  and yes there's a loss of beauty in everyday life that you know we're all very focused on
• 32:09
  technology and our technical toys and that's you know something talking said one of the letters
• 32:14
  that you know we're so focused on on all of that that we have forgotten about you know beauty
• 32:20
  and the the true things about human life and i think the successful authors are the ones that
• 32:24
  really try to capture you know the the reality of human life but also try to nourish the imagination
• 32:32
  with certain goodnesses that are in life and it doesn't even have to be you know for my respect it
• 32:39
  doesn't even have to be Christian you know it can be something that encapsulates the truth you know
• 32:42
  encapsulates the truths of human life in a way that encourages the spirit and lifts the spirit
• 32:48
  and i think what we lose is this desire for excellence and i think with the ability to you know
• 32:56
  publish online so easily on blogs and you know it is harder to publish in an actual publisher like
• 33:02
  you have to have an agent nowadays but it's so much easier to get your stuff out there that i
• 33:07
  think the market is so flooded in one sense that you can't actually find the ones that are truly
• 33:13
  excellent if they're out there but there's just so much out there that's in the way or things that
• 33:18
  are so well done in a let's say a game of thrones way where it's it's very well written it's very
• 33:25
  well shot it's very well acted but it's it's so carnal you know there's there's such a like a
• 33:34
  lust for blood there's such a you know a relational lust you know it's all very carnal in that human
• 33:41
  sense even though it's crafted beautifully so we need to somehow make a beautiful craft with the
• 33:49
  beauties of human experience and that the contrast i mean there there's always going to be darkness
• 33:55
  there's always going to be evil but what about the goodness and the beauty and Tolkien's approach
• 34:04
  of beauty is he's able to extract the goodness and the truth from creation and human experience
• 34:11
  and communicate it but he communicates it through beauty the beauty of a face the beauty of
• 34:16
  story the beauty of a relationship the beauty of an event and we you know we see at the end of
• 34:21
  Frodo's story he's broken you know he he loses everything basically um he's he calls him a
• 34:28
  drug addict at the end because he's so addicted to the ring that he could never give it up if he
• 34:33
  wanted to and he has a very real sense of PTSD from this whole experience but because of his mercy
• 34:40
  the world is saved but he himself is sacrificed and Tolkien draws that out in a way that is moving
• 34:48
  and he still offers hope and consolation because he felt like there was hope and consolation to be found
• 34:54
  and so he doesn't give him quite the the perfect ending one would see in a Disney movie perhaps
• 35:01
  but he gives him the realistic hope that is offered i believe to human beings and says you know there is
• 35:09
  consolation even for this great wound that might not be healed and i think that that's how he brings
• 35:15
  excellence and so modern writers can capture that but it has to be an excellence of craft combined
• 35:22
  with seeing the world clearly in a way that nourishes the imagination i think that's how it can be done
• 35:28
  and probably is done i just haven't read those books yet well as as a writer um i've not ever achieved
• 35:37
  you know it's what i would aspire to achieve but i'm still learning i'm still trying to work out
• 35:44
  how to do that in a way that doesn't come across as either pastiche or cheesy or un-earned and i think
• 35:51
  the thing in Lord of the Rings is that the beauty is earned it's very dark and the darkness is very
• 35:57
  very dark and obviously Tolkien's own experience of the wars were very very dark which makes the
• 36:04
  beauty shine out all the more strongly um and so that's that's something to aspire to
• 36:12
  so that's that's that's the that's the that's the mission that's the challenge
• 36:16
  so at the end of our podcast uh Lisa we always have a little section where we decide where is
• 36:22
  the best in whatever fantasy well we want to choose to go for something so in the past we've done
• 36:27
  things like where's the best um tavern to go to or the best um where to go into space we did recently
• 36:36
  so in honor of your theme i'd like to ask you where you think is the best place to go to see an
• 36:44
  experienced transcendent transcendent beauty where would you pick if you were walking through
• 36:50
  into a book world where do you want to end up wow honestly in the books that i've had a lot of
• 36:58
  westerns when i was a kid and and i have to say i was so enraptured by you know places like
• 37:06
  you know the the mountains and you know the grand canyon you know places that are just so wilderness
• 37:12
  oriented that there's such a raw beauty in in that kind of world and it makes you long for it even
• 37:19
  if you haven't been married yourself and i i have not read enough fantasy i've only read a handful
• 37:26
  of fantasy books and i i did not find that transcendental beauty in those books um but i think for
• 37:34
  those that have really tapped into that beauty you can find it you know whether it's in these you
• 37:39
  know classic books you know even in Jane Austen you see this very you know country life that
• 37:45
  you know it feels very quintessential it's something like you know from beauty in the beast where
• 37:49
  you just want to go out into this you know this almost as wilderness or this countryside and just
• 37:56
  get that that raw natural beauty but then there's also things like you doctor who where you've got
• 38:03
  you know was it stingrays like flying through the air and it just there's something beautiful about
• 38:08
  other worlds those alien worlds that are really captured you know through CGI and uh and of course
• 38:15
  avatar um that was all about the beauty of that world that was under threat um and you know really
• 38:21
  they used the three the three g the three d sorry the three d it's a great effect there didn't they
• 38:28
  right about it i'm about i'm going to allow you talking though so in talking to world which which
• 38:33
  of his very beautiful places would you pick to go and be a tourist i think riven del i just have
• 38:39
  such a love for the mountains and in the way that all these structures are built into the natural world
• 38:47
  you know you imagine riven del as you know just this beautiful craftsmanship just in harmony with
• 38:53
  nature and then these you know cascading mountains i would just love to live there that is probably
• 38:59
  the place i want to live and then of course there's valinar where it just feels so mysterious
• 39:04
  because it's it's somewhere you could never go and somewhere a human can never set foot
• 39:09
  i would just love to see the you know those streets were gems just cast all over you know that the
• 39:14
  shore and i don't know i just it's just mind bogglingly beautiful in my mind so i think i've always
• 39:23
  wanted to go to lorian or not lorian because that's the place that captured me as a child i mean
• 39:33
  i did i think riven del too but i felt that particularly the fellowship with the ring builds to
• 39:41
  lorian really it comes at such a moment of reprieve after so much darkness that it felt
• 39:47
  um i mean i'm also i love trees so i think that's part of it too.
• 39:52
  lorian was very moving and so yeah i can i could certainly agree with that that there was some a
• 39:58
  a sense of you know it was moving it was awe inspiring and then it also gave a sense of rest
• 40:05
  which is so often neglected i think and you know it whether it's in you know conversation or
• 40:10
  theology or whatever you know it novels just this idea of rest talking always puts a space of
• 40:18
  rest in order to prepare for the next part of the journey i think that is so important to the
• 40:24
  nourishment of the soul and i just it also just came to me that the other place um that i've always
• 40:31
  associated with this is the the sea at the end of the dawn treader work with the sea turned
• 40:37
  sweet and um Lucy's looking over the side of the ship and she sees the mergill below and the
• 40:45
  whole sort of parallel universe of the the mer people having their own worlds that they don't
• 40:50
  they just sail over they never encounter but he's got a sense of more and i remember going to
• 40:58
  zanzibar in i don't know if you've ever been to zanzibar it's uh on the west coast of
• 41:04
  no east coast of africa um and the seas there are turquoise and i thought my goodness
• 41:10
  this is exactly like uh except then so it's not sweet don't try drinking it so sometimes you get
• 41:18
  there's little glimpses of like a coral reef off zanzibar and you think yes this is i remember
• 41:24
  reading as a child that book and they open that door into your transcendent beauty and
• 41:30
  um that sense of awe about the amazing creation that we have been entrusted and not doing a very good
• 41:37
  job of looking after um yeah it's a stewardship of of beauty and and then even imagination like we've
• 41:47
  as a culture we've let our imagination run i think okay well let's try and turn it around
• 41:55
  so anyone listening to this let's let's let's all of us try and turn it around let's be
• 41:58
  better stewards of creation and also better writers when it comes to this aspect thank you so much
• 42:05
  Lisa um for spending time with us it's been a real joy to meet you and thank you for also exploring
• 42:11
  this idea in your work it's um great to see that element which i think we all sense but it's really
• 42:17
  good that someone actually just pushes it forward and says look this is how it works this is the the
• 42:22
  the power behind something we're also affected by so thank you so much yes thank you so much for
• 42:28
  having me this is wonderful thanks for listening to myth makers podcast brought to you by the
• 42:38
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• 42:45
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