We just happened to find The Lord of the Rings DVDs at a Dollar Store on our way to go camping. We knew rain was predicted and we wanted to have something uplifting and familiar to snuggle down with at night.

I don’t enjoy endless war scenes and I’m not a believer in the inevitability of an epic battle between Light and Darkness. What I love about this tale is that the hero, Frodo, is an ordinary person– well, actually a Hobbit!– who is called to make an impossible journey to save Middle Earth from the forces of Darkness. He doesn’t know why he was given the Ring Of Power that had corrupted so many, or why he has the momentous task of destroying it, and he is sorely tempted himself to keep it– the lure of unlimited power so consuming and so blinding. But through the sheer force of will and with massive help along the way, Frodo prevails.

Just the kind of ending we hope for in the movies: we know it will be good. We wouldn’t bother watching if we knew Frodo dies in the fires of Mordor, if he doesn’t make it home to his beloved Shire, and if the Ring of Power ends up in the wrong hands.

In real life today, all eyes are on the epic battle for power and control being waged in America and around the globe. And while it matters to us who “wins,” the real story may be the ones you and I are living off camera– what we are called to and how that call may be disrupting our lives. Leaving the safety of the Shire was not at all what Frodo thought his life would be, and there were many times he wished his calling could be taken from him and he could just go home.

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It was just yesterday that I flashed on the annual picnic my father’s company had every summer, where you could help yourself to all the hot dogs, rootbeer and ice cream you wanted. I remembered standing in a line for a pony ride, just a little girl excited for her turn.

Why did I suddenly think of that? Because without knowing it, I wanted one taste of a time of innocence, a time when I had no knowledge of the world I would inherit, and certainly no inkling that one day, over 6 decades later, I would feel called to write America in Therapy and address, in my way, the Ring of Power we are contending with right now. Writing this book has been, for me, like Frodo leaving the Shire. There is no returning to the relative safety of my private therapy office, much less the innocence of childhood.

But we have all left the safety of the Shire (if we ever truly had it to begin with…), and there is no going back.

So where are we headed? What calls to us?

Frodo, you probably know, did not answer his calling alone. He had legions of support, like his faithful friend Sam who was as frightened and as courageous as he was, and they were no more and no less heroes than you or I.

Because they are what it means to be fully human in the face of overwhelming odds.

The Lord of the Rings is one of the best-selling books ever written. Tolkien wrote it between 1937 and 1949. He witnessed the World Wars and masterfully wove his heart into this captivating fantasy of a young Hobbit tasked with saving the world.

His messages are as relevant today as they were then… except for one thing. We cannot wage a war on Darkness with weapons and hope to achieve anything more than what we already have– which is endless war. I believe we are learning, however painstakingly, to stand up to Darkness– to hatred, greed, and oppression– with a new kind of Light Saber, one that exposes Darkness without hating it, reveals our most uncomfortable truths with fierce honesty but also with love, wisdom, acceptance, and unrelenting dedication to the survival and thrival of all humanity.

This Light Saber wields Power Without Force, a totally new concept for most human beings.

I’m still learning to embody this new concept myself, and I share what I know in America in Therapy. And I am blessed to have many friends like Sam urging me on when I lose heart.

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“On the path to peace, we will close the gap between Love and Politics”

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