“You shall not pass!” Is there any other line in literature that better captures the virtue of courage?
You likely know the scene. The Fellowship of the Ring has journeyed through the long dark of Moria, and now they are fleeing before a host of orcs — and Durin’s Bane. Gandalf sends his friends toward the exit before turning to face the Balrog on the bridge. With the cold white of Glamdring in one hand and his staff in the other, the grey wizard faces down the foe of fire and shadow.
“You cannot pass,” he said. The orcs stood still, and a dead silence fell. “I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. You cannot pass. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass.”
The Balrog heeds him not but steps onto the bridge. Gandalf is just visible before him, “glimmering in the gloom; he seemed small, and altogether alone: grey and bent, like a wizened tree before the onset of a storm.”
A sword of flame flashes out. Glamdring rings in answer. The Balrog falls back a step.
“You cannot pass!”
Again the foe ignores the command, leaps full onto the bridge, and brandishes his whip of fire. Gandalf raises his staff — the white light hovers for a moment, a single star in an abyss of night — and smites the bridge. Light blinds. Bridge cracks. Staff shatters. And the Balrog falls.
But in his final malicious act, the enemy lashes his whip around the wizard’s knees, dragging him to the edge. Gandalf meets Aragorn’s eyes — “Fly, you fools!” — sways for a moment, and then disappears into the heart of the earth (The Lord of the Rings, 330–31).
Tree Before the Tempest
For many of us, this scene is part of the permanent furniture of our imagination. The grey wizard stands strong against the Balrog on the bridge and, in the end, lays down his life for his friends. Here is a fortitude that deserves celebration. A Christlike courage worth imitating.
With Gandalf’s defiant cry echoing in our ears, let’s delve down to the roots of this courage by asking two questions. First, what motivates such courage? What steels him to stand firm, a tree before the tempest? And second, how can we cultivate that same indomitable courage to face down our own Balrogs?
The Deep Roots of Courage
To begin, what is the root of courage? What separates Gandalf’s fierce fortitude from Smeagol’s small-souled cowardice?
In his little book on courage, Joe Rigney defines the virtue as “a stable habit of the heart that masters the passions, especially the passion of fear, through the power of a superior desire” (Courage, 32). There are three facets to that definition:
Courage is a habit of heart — something we must practice and cultivate.
Courage governs our passions — it reigns over our snap reactions and instinctual responses, especially those of fear.
Courage governs by the power of a superior desire.
Notice that desire is the root of courage. But not just any desire — superior desire, “a deeper desire for a greater good” (30). Both “deeper” and “superior” imply that our desires are ranked and ordered rightly.
Courage flourishes within a proper hierarchy of desires — what Augustine calls ordered loves. Fittingly, in Scripture, courage is closely associated with the heart, the home of our loves and desires (e.g., Psalm 27:14). English makes this connection even more explicit, where courageous is synonymous with hearty, lionhearted, and the like. Courage reveals that you have rightly ordered desires and loves. Fortitude shows you put first things first.
We see this clearly in the example of Gandalf. Ordered desires held Gandalf on the bridge. Yes, he valued his own safety. (That’s why he didn’t throw his life away fighting innumerable orcs.) But his desire for the safety of his friends and, more importantly, his desire for the good of all Middle-earth went far deeper. His ability to face down the Balrog on the bridge was the fruit of those deep roots. To borrow a description of history’s greatest act of courage, we might say that for the joy set before him Gandalf despised death and defeated the Balrog. And that joy in a greater good was the source of his courage.
Now, those of us who are Christian Hedonists know what our deepest roots should cling to. The triune God is the highest good in the hierarchy of goods. He is most beautiful and desirable. Thus, the taproot of Christian courage is a tenacious treasuring of Christ, a treasuring that rightly orders all lesser goods in relation to God, our first Good.
Too Easily Pleased
Before discussing how to cultivate these deep desires, it’s worth asking what makes us cowardly. What makes us flee when we should fight? What makes us surrender the bridge?
Well, if ordinate loves produce courage, the opposite must be true of cowardice and the opposite vice of rashness. Both vices, but especially cowardice, come when the taproot — which should sink down to the bedrock of the greatest good — remains shallow, just beneath the surface. That tree will be blown over by the first strong breeze. That man will flee when the Balrog steps onto the bridge. Shallow roots produce craven men.
In his sermon “The Weight of Glory,” C.S. Lewis helpfully exposes the source of these shallow roots:
Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased. (The Weight of Glory, 25)
That final line should haunt us: we are far too easily pleased. That is the habit of heart that breeds cowards and the foolhardy, “half-hearted creatures.” When our desires are too weak, when we are too easily pleased, when our longings for lesser things become disordered, we will not stand when we should — or even stand when and where we should not. Instead of a tree before a tempest, weak desires leave us like tumbleweeds, blown and tossed by the slightest breeze.
Gritty Habits of Heart
Now we return to our second question. If ordered desires make the difference between the virtue of courage and the vices of cowardice and recklessness, how do we cultivate deep desires? How do we develop Gandalf-like grit?
1. Look to the greatest Good.
When James teaches us how to combat the kind of disordered desires that form the soil of cowardice and death, what does he do? He orients our desires Godward:
All generous giving and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or the slightest hint of change. (James 1:17 NET)
James draws our attention to the greatest Good and connects all other goods to the Giver. He sends our roots deep. He puts the Sun at the center. This is the key to cultivating ordered loves and, thus, the key to courage. To have “a deeper desire for a greater good,” we must know and love the greatest Good. And all lesser goods must be loved for his sake, as his fatherly gifts.
Like James, Tolkien saw light and fire as powerful images of God. And so, in his legendarium, the Secret Fire is Tolkien’s name for the Holy Spirit. Thus, when Gandalf says, “I am a servant of the Secret Fire,” he is, in a sense, looking to the Father of lights, and that glance puts steel in Gandalf’s spine.
We see a similar galvanizing of Sam’s courage. At his lowest moment, crawling across the plains of Mordor, desperately needing courage, Sam sends his eyes heavenward, where he sees a white star:
The beauty of it smote his heart, as he looked up out of the forsaken land, and hope returned to him. For like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. (The Lord of the Rings, 922)
Sam’s vision rose higher than the danger around him. The gravity of good and of high beauty helped him govern the passion of fear, and he found the grit to carry Frodo up Mount Doom.
When we dare to look up at the Father of lights, the High Beauty, all his good gifts will fall into their proper place. Our souls will be shaped. Our desires will become ordered. Our roots will run to the right depths.
2. Imitate those who refuse to be far too easily pleased.
If you want to be courageous, mimic those who have stood against the Balrog on the bridge. Imitate Sam. Imitate Gandalf.
Imitate Moses — a greater wizard than Gandalf (Exodus 8:16–19). A man whose insatiable desire for the greatest Good led him to dare terrible things and face down mighty foes.
“By faith Moses . . . refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.” He relentlessly refused to be far too easily pleased because “he considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward” (Hebrews 11:24–27). Moses had deep roots. He looked toward the high beauty of the promised Christ. And that strong desire fortified him to face down a Pharaoh, win a wizard battle, and endure the scorn of Egypt.
And imitate Jesus. When offered all the kingdoms on earth, his desires were too strong to settle for a handout from Satan. When the virtues of our King came to the testing point, he applied his courage to the sticking point and performed the most valiant deed the world will ever know — because his desires ran deeper than death. “For the joy that was set before him, [he] endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2). No dragon can stand before that strength of heart! Imitate him and those who do likewise.
3. Make your stand on little bridges.
The courage of Gandalf, Moses, and Jesus is not made in a day or a month or a year. Courage to stand before Balrogs or face down dragons or take up crosses grows slowly out of mundane, day-to-day decisions to refuse to settle for mud pies. Oaks of righteousness grow from countless Hobbit-like choices — choices not to click what you shouldn’t, choices not to join in ungodly laughter, choices not to be pressured into that third drink, choices not to say peace when there is no peace, choices not to call him a her, choices to defend the downtrodden, choices to initiate conversations, and a thousand others.
By the power of the Spirit, our Secret Fire, the stands you take on those little bridges will enable you to hold firm when the Balrog comes. You will acquire fortitude for long love in a hard marriage. You will have the stability to embrace the challenging blessing of children. You will gain the tenacity to put your own sin to death and lovingly confront the sins of others. You will develop the boldness to leave familiar comforts for costly missions — whether next door or across the planet.
Over time, you will grow deep roots. You will be “like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit” (Jeremiah 17:8).
Desiring God