Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

PaterFamilias Today

Home
Evangelical
Give the Gift of “Eucatastrophe” this Christmas!

Give the Gift of “Eucatastrophe” this Christmas!

Last updated on: November 6, 2017 at 7:26 am by C. R. Wiley

Give the Gift of “Eucatastrophe” this Christmas! 2017-11-06T07:26:32-04:00 C. R. Wiley

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Like so many other people, the works of J. R. R. Tolkien have stirred me deeply. But it wasn’t the heroism, or the cool monsters, or even the magic that produced the effect when I was a teenager back in the early 70s. It was a deeper magic.

You may recall that Tolkien’s friend C. S. Lewis wrote about deeper magic in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. When Lucy and Susan ask Aslan how he could come back from the dead he replied that there is a magic incantation that goes back to before the dawn of time. It’s the magic upon which everything else is based. And it is so deep, it can even heal the world. Now that’s some really good magic. And it is that very magic that stirred me when I read Tolkien.

I was given the gift of Tolkien in the darkest period of my life. I was practically an orphan and a ward of the state. I spent time in a foster home, and I hated the eighth grade so much that I took it twice. (That’s what playing hooky will get you.)

But it was during the bleakness that I remembered a passage that someone had read aloud to me from The Lord of the Rings. It was the scene where Merry and Pippin are peering over the edge of a deep well in darkest Moria. They wonder just how deep, so they drop a stone. And far below, when it finally strikes, it awakens something—in that case, a very bad something.

But deep calls to deep, so Psalmist says. And this memory awakened a deep longing in me to read the rest of the story. So I sought out The Hobbit, and later The Lord of the Rings, and I consumed them in great gulps. This was back when most folks hadn’t heard of Tolkien. (Although his cultus had formed, it was still relatively small and obscure.)

The deep magic I felt then I still feel today whenever Tolkien is read. Tolkien described the spell in a marvelous talk entitled, On Fairy Stories. The secret he reveals is euchatastrophe, or “…the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous turn (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale)….”

Tolkien was famously dismissive of allegory, but here he reveals that a literary euchatastrophe resembles the real one that really happened in our world. That real eucatastrophe is the Gospel. And the spell that it casts on believers begins in this world with the incarnation and ends in heaven.

I hope my own work in a small way reflects the euchatastrophe of the Gospel. I’m very pleased that the first book in The Weirdling Cycle is coming out at Christmas time. Christ entered our darkness to bring us his light. The Purloined Boy, the first book in a series of four books, begins in a very dark place. I know the place well. I lived in Superbia for years. It was in those days that a small light appeared to me. That’s when my life took a joyous turn. I hope my books will do something like that for my readers.

If you would like to preorder a copy of The Purloined Boy you can do so at Canon Press. Just follow this link. (You can even get a discount!)

Author and Speaking Appearances

Previous Post

November 2, 2017

Sloth and the Sexual Revolution

Next Post

November 16, 2017 Returning the Gift

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Advising a Daughter Aristotle Art Atheism Author and Speaking Appearances Beauty Building Working Houses C R Wiley Children Community Creativity Cultural Apologetics Fatherhood Fiction Fidelity in marriage Film Freedom Gravitas H. P. Lovecraft Happiness Household Economy Infant Baptism Inklings Interpreting the Bible Interviews Jack Donovan Liturgy Localism Man of the House Manliness Martial Virtue Medieval Cosmology Metaphysics Mortimus Clay NecronomiCon New Left New Testament Household Codes Nietzsche Nominalism/Realism Politics Poverty Preaching Productive Property Reaching men Science Self-Sufficiency Side Hustles Social Ethics Social Security Spiritual Disciplines Sublime Techno-gnosticism The Pastor's Survival Guide Theology of the Family Tradition Uncategorized Virtue Weird Fiction

Select a Month February 2019 November 2018 October 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who said, 'The Lord gives and the Lord takes away'?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Solomon Moses David Job

Books by This Author Books by PaterFamilias Today

See All Titles »

Books by C. R. Wiley

The Purloined Boy (The Weirdling Cycle #1)

C. R. Wiley

Man of the House: A Handbook for Building a Shelter That Will Last in a World That Is Falling Apart

C. R. Wiley