Where I teach vocations are not mere jobs, they are higher callings. Catholic seminarians--my students--are at Conception Seminary College because they sense a call from God to something--they're just trying to figure out, with God's help, whether it is to the Catholic priesthood or not. It takes time, patience, listening, lots of reflection, and lots of prayer. There are no burning bushes, no booming voices, no writing on walls to point the way forward.
In Tolkien, the way forward--the call to vocation--can be similar to the experience of the seminarian, or it can be something else entirely. I can't help but think of Frodo at the Council of Elrond in The Fellowship of the Ring, after all the talking is over and it has come down to who must bear the Ring to Mt. Doom:
No one answered. The noon-bell rang. Still no one spoke. Frodo glanced at all the faces, but they were not turned to him. All the Council sat with downcast eyes, as if in deep thought. A great dread fell on him, as if he was awaiting the pronouncement of some doom that he had long foreseen and vainly hoped might after all never be spoken. An overwhelming longing to rest and remain at peace by Bilbo's side in Rivendell filled all his heart. At last with an effort he spoke, and wondered to hear his own words, as if some other will was using his small voice.
"I will take the Ring," he said, "though I do not know the way."
There's no sense of peace here, no joy--only obedience to a divine call beyond thought and emotion. A sense of what must be done. A doom, to use the term from Norse legend, as Elrond immediately recognizes: "I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo."
This past week as we finished up the Quenta Silmarillion in my Tolkien class we discussed the career of Tuor, son of Huor, of the House of Hador and an ally of the elves of Beleriand in their fruitless war against Morgoth. By the time Tuor is twenty-three, after losing his father in battle and being fostered by the elves, he has been captured by the enemy, enslaved and, after escaping, outlawed in the high country of Mithrim. From here he is called:
But when Tuor had lived thus in solitude as an outlaw for four years, Ulmo set it in his heart to depart from the land of his fathers, for he had chosen Tuor as the instrument of his designs . . .
Ulmo is one of the Valar, the divine Lords of Arda, Lord of Waters, and is the most active in assisting the cause of elves and men against the evil of Morgoth. Ulmo's call to Tuor reminds me somewhat of the call of Abram in the twelfth chapter of Genesis: "Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you. . ." Or the prophet Jonah, called to go and cry out against Nineveh, "that great city."
In both of these biblical calls there is a journey to somewhere else, and so it is with Tuor. He travels west, toward the sea and there he dwells awhile until the sight of seven great swans flying south gets him moving again. He reaches Vinyamar, the great, deserted elvish city on the coast, and there finds a suit of armor and weapons awaiting him. It was left long before by Turgon, now elven lord of Gondolin, by the command of Ulmo. The pieces are coming together. Tuor puts on the armor and goes down to the shore as a storm blows in from the sea. The majestic figure of Ulmo rises out of the water and commands Tuor to seek out the hidden city of Gondolin. The vague but compelling call in Mithrim has become a specific prophetic vocation: to speak to the city and to Turgon, its king, not in judgment but in warning, for doom approaches; destruction is near.
On his way back east to Gondolin along the southern marches of the Shadowy Mountains with his companion Voronwe, Tuor sees a lone figure traversing the frozen pools of Ivrin. Though he isn't named in this tale, we recognize Turin, Tuor's cousin, hastening north toward the mountains and his mother's home. He is being driven by the lies of Glaurung, the dragon, to a vain pursuit that will ultimately lead to pitiful tragedy and death. A far different call than that of Tuor, rising out of fear and guilt and the evil designs of Morgoth.
This is one of Tolkien's plot parallels, or intersections. Their physical proximity is a signal that we are meant to compare the respective careers and callings of these two figures, Turin and Tuor. First cousins, alike in name, exiles, both fostered by elves, yet engaged in far different vocations. Tuor will try to rescue a city. But more importantly, he will fall in love with an elven princess and together they will bring forth the savior of Middle-earth. Turin, on the other hand, who has already accidently killed his best friend, will kill a dragon--but he will also unknowingly marry his own sister and drive both her and himself to suicide.
But that is the Secondary World of Tolkien. In our own Primary World, the world of the here and now, callings are more ambiguous. Certainly less dangerous. My seminarians aren't being called to rescue a city. But as Tolkien understood, it all comes down to the same thing: Follow the call and do the best you can with what you have. And don't listen to dragons.
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