“Authority had taken up this plan and enlarged it at the moment of its failure. ‘Naked I was sent back . . . until my task is done,’ said Gandalf.”
–Letter 156 of J.R.R. Tolkien about the death of Gandalf the Grey and his return as Gandalf the White
I won’t compare the events of last Saturday afternoon in rural Pennsylvania to the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. I have a weakness for melodrama, but that’s a bridge too far even for me.
But the renewing effect of a near-death experience is old and powerful in literature and life – perhaps especially when the near-death is out of the blue. There’s no anticipation, no nervousness, no preparation.
The entire reaction occurs after the event is already over. Then, safe and sound, the person whose corporeal self was nearly extinguished is completely and intensely alive. The only evidence that he nearly departed is his shaking head and trembling hands.
OK, maybe his ear is bleeding, too, just to remind him how very, very close to his cranium was the Grim Reaper’s scythe.
Since he never saw it coming, he knows that he escaped not by strength, not by work, not by cunning. He escaped by luck.
Some call it Providence.
Gandalf the Grey (spoiler alert!) dies a horrible death in the course of Tolkien’s tale. The Ring-Bearer and his crew are thusly dealt a severe blow in their quest to save Middle Earth. Without a wizard on the team, they’re a rag-tag band of kids, an elf, a dwarf and a mere man.
But – Holy Smokes! – in the nick of time Gandalf reappears to help save the day and Middle Earth. In his reappearance, he is no longer Grey, but White.
Tolkien explains in the books and his letters (this explanation didn’t make it into the movies – they were quite long enough without it) that Gandalf did indeed “die” in the manner that wizards die, but an authority renewed him – stronger and wiser.
It happens.
Donald Trump will give a speech tonight accepting a nomination to save today’s approximation of Middle Earth from goblins, orks, pedophiles, fallen wizards, ballot harvesters, identity politicians, dragons, idiots, malevolence, vagrants, Antifa, dementia, wokesters, BLM, and sundry other Democrats.
On the first three days of the Convention, Trump seemed different. He seemed more calm, more at peace. Fire no longer spews from his mouth. Rather, a radiance shines from his eyes.
He’s becoming a leader. Not the “FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT!” type, although those were his words as his fists pounded the air when he rose from the stage floor last Saturday afternoon.
That was then, when he’d been cowardly ambushed by another messed-up product of our messed-up culture. Trump’s defiance and fight were the natural and right reaction.
But bravado now is unnecessary and unhelpful. Now, he knows he’s been tasked with something big, and so do the people. Now, he and they know that he’s fully capable of performing this task. Now, he and they know his orange head has a purpose more noble than being exploded by a bullet, and more graceful than spouting inflammatory rhetoric.
His old opponents in the Republican Party have gathered round him. He has the endorsement of virtually all of them and many who are new to the Party – from Silicon Valley moguls, to one of the world’s richest men, to each of his vanquished rivals, to an ever-increasing share of Black America, to most Hispanic Americans.
What they see is what I see: A quiet confidence, an unexpected patience, a deep resolve to complete – or at least resume – a task much bigger than he.
The running mate Trump has chosen grew up as a self-described hillbilly in Appalachia, to become a Marine, an Editor of the Yale Law Review, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and a young Senator. This guy is accustomed to being the smartest person in the room, the hardest working, and the one who has come the farthest.
Trump sees him not as a threat, but an asset. A person to whom he might someday pass the torch.
Trump is no longer a man, you see, but a movement. A mission. We’re witnessing something historic.
the Aspen beat 