Fight

(In light of recent tragedy here in the US, my dear friend Brooke eloquently wrote the following passage on Facebook. She has graciously allowed me the honor of re-posting her words here. Many thanks to her, and to her inspiring presence now and in this time of sorrow and confusion. -- Natalie) 

Krishna and Arjuna Via Inanna Returns

Gandalf the Grey Via LOTR Wiki

A thousand faces. Click image to enlarge.

By Brooke B. 

Last night at midnight, literally as soon as I possibly could, I saw The Hobbit with friends. It's no exaggeration to say we were as giddy as little kids the entire time. And yet Tolkien's great genius, one that Peter Jackson ably captured in the film, is to weave story that simultaneously delights all the giddy children in the room and conveys to us, the adults, we who live ever more complex lives imbued with every possible shade of grey, something I believe children still instinctively know:

There is Bad in this world. It exists. We cannot outrun its reach or outshine its shadow. Dwarves cannot tunnel past it and Golden Eagles cannot fly over it and all the beauty of the Elves will not ease its ugliness, or the anguish that ugliness leaves behind.

So what to do? What do we do?

There was a moment in the film that reminded me so powerfully of recent discussions on the Bhagavad Gita that I caught my breath. Early in the Gita, Arjuna the Warrior, the greatest fighter of his age, lays down his arms in despair. He looks out over the fields of battle, sees all his family and his friends poised to brutalize each other senselessly, and he slumps to the floor of his chariot and cries out in anguish to Krishna that he cannot, he cannot, he cannot do this anymore.

Does anyone here not know how that feels? No. Not a one of us. Particularly not today.

Krishna's reply runs counter to every New Testament tenet to which we, as inheritors of a Judeo-Christian cultural aesthetic, have willingly or unwillingly been primed to respond. Krishna does not advocate peace. He does not tell Arjuna to keep lying there so he can bring some lions and some lambs over to lie down with him. No -- God Incarnate, the Hot of Heat and the Wet of Water and, yes, the Prince of Peace, were it to suit him, roars in absolute rage and commands Arjuna to get up already and FIGHT. It is a hard concept for many of us to wrap our heads around, this moment when the God of All Things advocates for war. Some friends and I discussed that, when we talked about that passage in the Gita -- our various indignant or angry or sad responses to this moment when the divine, the thread of beauty that binds all things, tells his greatest hero to get back up and go kill people.

And then last night, watching the Hobbit, I saw Gandalf come blasting into the Goblin Kingdom in a fury of white light and command Thorin and all his dwarves to GET UP. They have all given up, you see. They are captured, bound deep underground, twelve heroes (familiar number, yes?) far from the light and surrounded by thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of goblins, too many enemies to count and death drooling all around them. Despair is the only reasonable option. But it is the wrong one. They are warriors. They are made, bred, trained to fight. It's in their blood and bones and beards, and if they are to die, they should die with swords in their hands. In their despair they have forgotten who they are: they are warriors. Warriors of the light. So in comes Gandalf, roaring like Krishna, enraged, and he screams one word to them: "FIGHT!"

And just like any other magic spell, their despair melts away when they hear the right word. They wake up. They get up. They FIGHT.

Because The Hobbit is epic fantasy, the dwarves prevail against the goblin hordes, and live to fight another day. And because the Gita is epic religious myth, the ending is not so tidy: Arjuna dies. Everyone dies. It is, perhaps, harder to see in the story of faith than in the story of fantasy why we should fight off our despair. Why we should fight at all.

But, still, friends. Still. We don't know the end to any story, really. We can only know what we're called to do, and do that thing. In the face of overwhelming darkness, in the face of the forces against which it is only reasonable, only human, perhaps even only right, to despair -- pick up your arms. Get up. Fight. In whatever way you are called to do so, fight. I will call it fighting for the light; you may call it whatever you choose. But fight.