The Ring We All Bear
This ring has great power, but that strength comes at an incredible price. The ring is named "retribution" and it has destructive power that in the wrong hands has the capability of destroying the whole planet. But that is nothing in comparison to the deadly and corrupting spell cast over is wearer. It is true it has great power to destroy cities and overturn civilizations but the cost of its use is always too high a price to pay.
The problem is just as in the movie the ring is always calling out to you. It entices you to seek your own justice against every offense or perceived slight whether they are real or not. It teaches you to lay blame at the feet of others rather than take responsibility yourself. It teaches you that your anger is a valuable and acceptable way to get the things you want rather than through old-fashioned ideas such as hard work and sacrifice. But above all else it teaches you the hate those whom you believe are responsible for your current condition.
And this is where it's real power lies; not in the death and destruction caused at the hands of its wearers, as they pass away just as the victims do and life goes on for the ones who remain. No, this real power lies in the destruction of the wearer. Others may lose their lives but all those who slip on this ring will eventually lose their souls and then their humanity. Retribution begins as a tool that far too quickly becomes a master.
It whispers to us through movies and television shows and our universities and our culture and even the voices of our neighbors. It may seem like justice in the beginning but it always unleashes the murderous contents of our hearts. It can, under the right conditions overtake entire nations, leaving those who at other times would be peaceful and mild towards their neighbors to become violent and genocidal. It is easy to discern those who have worn it over the centuries, as they have been craven and bloodthirsty even to the innocent.
And even we, you and I, as advanced as we like to believe we are, in another time may very well have been willing to don the uniform of of a prison guard and head to work to see to the deaths of our neighbors to feed our family. As long as we are alive we will be tempted to stab at those we believe have wronged us. As long as we believe our sufferings are the faults of others we will be weakened before the spell of our ring.
Fortunately there is a way in which we could mitigate the seductive nature of the ring. The first is to understand the value of history, that it teaches us not how you were wronged but how it is that it is the imperfect nature of us all that have caused our sufferings. We are all human and we all done things to one another that have been cruel and inhumane. Knowing that this is the state of our imperfection our job then is not the count up our scars but to count up our failures. It is not through retribution but through repentance that we all become livable.
So then before us is another way that we can learn to overcome the power of our ring. We can plant a different crop for our future. The Bible spells it out for us in black-and-white; "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Here there is no conflict with the law." Everything we do can be an exercise in strengthening ourselves against the power of the ring we carry. The ring attempts to persuade us that our experiences follow a certain storyline. But this is a lie, and if we would just exercise our power to live in another story we will keep it in it's place.
That may be the most important part of our history, that as we look back and see not just suffering but the progress that has come with it down through the centuries it is possible to be persuaded that tomorrow will not be like today, and in that find the power to resist and slip the ring back into our pocket where it can do no harm. This is vital, for one day, just as at the end of the movie, we will leave this world and our ring will be tossed aside into the furnace just as it was in Lord of The Rings. And your fate will depend on your level of attachment to it, just as it did for Gollum. Should it come to overgrow your heart you will go with it.
It is been nearly a century since Adolf Hitler walked into a beer hall in Munich and began his meteoric rise to power. And yet we can see in the destructive bent of our own fellow citizens today that our own hearts are in nature no different than his. That is, unless we tend to them and grow the crops worthy of civilization in order to avoid a similar fate. We see today on the political left that this temptation to wear the ring of retribution is rising once again. But don't be fooled by the seductive whispers of ideology, or the power of seemingly righteous anger, or the catharsis you receive lashing out at your enemies.
Remember this; you are the things you practice, and should you choose to practice evil then that's what you shall be. Do not give in to the temptation to follow this dark and dreary path, because at the end of it you will become a victim too. No amount of revenge is worth your humanity. I counsel you therefore not to sell it so cheaply. Put it away before it crushes you – for surely it will.
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