Relevancy22: Contemporary Process Christianity: Post-Evangelic Topics and Theology: INDEX

MIDDLE-EARTH INDEX

~ this page contains spoilers across all ages of Middle-Earth.

Do not read from this point onwards ~

~ Further below will be found complete histories

of Tolkien's Lores and Legendariums after my

observations of Tolkien's processual writing ~

In Tolkien's lore and legendarium one finds all the stories, films, and experiences of the world bound into one. All the lies, all the divisions, all the hatred, the evil for ruin and destruction. Whatever had been planned for peace and beauty and song dissolve into chaos once touched by love turned inward, then outward in bitter distaste, lust, envy, disunity.

Whatever healing is started begins the same in doom and jealousy. The music of the world continually is overcome even as it strives to overcome the darkness of intent and evil. Into this struggle the ages of the world lengthen, groan, give up; strive again, confront, and are found in constant trial and intrigue for the hearts and souls of the earth.

Here then lies the all too familiar worlds of Tolkien. Worlds we cannot escape but can no less endure either. It requires commitment of will; discernment of mind; steadiness of heart; courage of soul; and a deep wisdom gained from the ages of agony and joy.

Each inhabitant, not only of Middle-earth, but across the seas and upon the lands surrounding Middle-earth, must teach and educate, warn and prepare, learn and secure the things which make life precious to the living and dead.

For without commitment to love, to solidarity with one another, to pursuing the welfare of one another, all fellowships can be too easily disbanded and ill-reformed in grievance and trial to the further agony of the present world and all ages beyond.

We stand together because we cannot stand apart. And when standing apart we will surely fall together.

- re slater

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click to enlarge

The Process History of JRR Tolkien

In JRR Tolkien one might find a processual history of Middle-Earth where the many ages of the past morph and tumble from event to event leading up to the popular LOTR's celebratory end where The Fellowship of the Ring had succeeded in its mission at the end of the Third Age of Middle-Earth that it might breathe again the free airs of life and living. This, in contrast to the end of Middle-Earth's Second Age (Prime Video's "The Rings of Power") which carried with it no such happy endings. Lands which were once enjoyed and beheld in their vibrancy of local color and culture had fallen, becoming inflicted with fell darkness, peril, and danger.

Years earlier, a British Mathematician and Philosopher, Alfred North Whitehead, had envisioned a reality which tumbled about itself in its many permutations as witnessed in JRR Tolkien's vast lands that time forgot. A history which never stilled, ever adapting and continually interacting with past conditions to present histories (the prehension of past by the present) to its many future, evolving consequences (*processual concresence). A future then, filled with never-ending possibilities for good and evil.

This kind of "quantum entanglement" of the processual cosmic organism with itself necessarily includes all ages past to all ages future. Importantly, Whitehead always sought to emphasize the presentness of the present where neither past nor future could evolve unless first preceded, and then enfolded, throughout its complex into a presentness of "cosmo-ecological" relationships.

*Used here, cosmo-ecological living is meant to cover all cosmic and earthly relationships from the atomic quark to the fellowship of the tree and water with the hill and lifeform. Though one may wish to mythologize these relationships - which is a kind of poetry to the world at large even as the ancients did in their time (sic, Hebrew Myths do not lessen the presentness of God; they simply spoke to people as they presently understood and believed) - it is better to stay within the realms of contemporary science coupled with Whitehead's processual worlds so real-world solutions might evolve in their present struggle when seeking to resolve more peaceful realms of ecological/societal living between nature and mankind working together in healthier forms of relational symbiosis of give and take. - re slater

Unlike the Platonic Age, and later, the Enlightenment's, pre-scientific Age beheld in a mechanistic cosmos (the universe et al) running like a well-oiled clock, a processual evolutionary ecology runs via ceaseless, restless, processes unfolding and enfolding cosmic history releasing its flow of energy and events through processual relational *concrescence apprehending the past to affect/effect the presence of the present.

Importantly, this processual cosmic organism of Whitehead's might be further described as a cosmo-ecological organism both locally, globally and, by extension, including the entirety of the universe. We might understand it then as an evolving universal cosmic "ecology" with its many subtending derivations in suns, and planets, seas and oceans (whether of salty brine or methane seas), cosmic atmospheres of any composition, molten or rocky geological formations, and thereby perhaps resulting in cosmic biological life forms such as evidence here on planet Earth. We, in our present day (non-ecological) societies are beginning to realize seeing ourselves in terms of a greater ecological presence which is both local and universal.

And in an industrial age where today's non-fictional worlds of humanity continues its struggle of societal identity tumbling out from its past regional, geographic, and temporal histories, we might learn to lean into the elvish worlds of living in balance and symmetry with the evolving ages of the Earth. Sometimes grown too cold, or too hot, or too overrun with our careless anthropocene ages of misuse, pollution, war, and devastation.

Whitehead envisaged cosmo-ecological civilizations which could heal the many careworn lives fraught within history's many ecological and societal epochs; which could give birth to the many possible worlds of redeeming archetype; which would strive to emulate love in its highest forms of social justice generating healthy socio-politico-economic relationships between ecological communities of fellowships which could adjust, or adapt, their eco-societies to the many futures of a processually evolving universe.

And to the many futures humanity might envisage itself in, one of our most pressing enterprises must be to think in terms of the quantum sciences of evolution, biology, physics, and science in general such as technology, neurology, psychology, and sociology, as all being a part of Whitehead's larger, more integral equation of an expanding ethno-religious and relational complex of organism leaning into organic vitues of generative living.

To think of the universe as we do the Earth. That the universe's cosmos is an extension of Earth's ecology even as the Earth is a consequence and extension of the cosmos' ecology. In this case, we are expanding our idea of the world to include all possible worlds of all possible dimensions of all possible possibilities. Thus and thus, Whiteheadian Process Thought can be described as a cosmo-centric ecological realm rather than only a cosmos-centric universe. A universe which lives and breathes through its many relational parts of hope and blessing.

As participants in an ever evolving cosmoecological fellowship between humanity and the world and universe we must concede that we live in continually responding and evolving cosmic/ecological societies beheld in constituent processual relationships. Humanity might think upon its many past historical ages as being enfolded around both the Earth and the Universe's Ages/Cycles of birth, life, and death.

Process Thought agrees with this assessment of reality and states that it may positively or negatively affect the CosmoEcological Ages to come for good or for ill. JRR Tolkien spoke to this in his fictional worlds of good and evil, of fellowship and fear, leaving with his readers a healthy understanding of how our actions require wisdom, love, and kinship of spirit. To Whitehead, this is the process of being becoming even as the God of the bible once state, "I AM Who I AM," (Ex 3.14) referring even to God's own Self moving with creation itself as a timeless, eternal Being evolving not in character but in relationality with an evolving ecological cosmos.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

September 4, 2022

~ this page contains spoilers across all ages of Middle-Earth.

Do not read from this point onwards ~

~ Also, further below will be found complete histories

of Tolkien's Lores and Legendariums ~

* * * * * * *