So, we reach the end of this long, winding chapter.  

A summary comes on Wednesday (I promise), but for now I leave you with this odd thought:  fundamentally, we are deeply afraid of ourselves.  I am not interested in secular notions of self-affirmation, nor do I think such ideas helpful.  We are, after all, made to be in Christ.  But it is clear to me that our generation thinks very differently about ourselves than previous generations, and that much of that is problematic.

I am not ashamed to admit that I am a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. Unlike some people, I was not raised on them so I am a latecomer to the tales. But I appreciate the depth, wisdom, and Christian lessons of Tolkien's masterful story. Though it pains the purists, my introduction to the stories actually came through the films-it was only after seeing Fellowship of the Ring that I began to read the books.

In a scene from that movie, Aragorn, the future King, gazes down at a broken sword and wonders if he has the ability to fulfill his duty. The sword was his father's, who had failed in his task. "His blood flows through my veins," he laments while wrestling with fears of failure. It is a moment of self-doubt, of quiet reflection about the limits of his ability and the depth of his own goodness. His sword, which is symbolic of his Kingship, is broken. It will not be until the third film that his sword is remade and Aragorn assumes the full responsibility of his Kingdom.

The scene where Aragorn wrestles with his doubt is crucial in this respect: it is not present at all in the books, which were written some forty years prior to the movies. For whatever reason, the makers of the movie decided that it was an important scene to include. The Aragorn of the books is far more confident, assertive, and self-assured than the Aragorn of the movies. He also assumes the role of King far earlier than the movies, indicating that he clearly understands his mission and is confident that he will fulfill it.

Why the change? Why did the makers of the film make Aragorn so agonized about whether he would be able to fulfill his duty as King? The answer, I think, is that the makers of the movie made Aragorn a man of their times, not Tolkien's. Our 21st century culture resonates with his questioning, with his probing of the dark corners of his soul, and with the doubt he feels about his ability to fulfill his mission. We suffer from a sense of foreboding that we hold within us some darkness that will overwhelm us. In other words, we are full of fear. In a moment of seriousness and gravity, Chesterton writes,

The man who makes a vow makes an appointment with himself at some distant time or place. The danger of it is that he himself should not keep the appointment. And in modern times this terror of one's self, of the weakness and mutability of one's self, has perilously increased, and is the real basis of the objection to vows of any kind.

In other words, we fear marriage because we fear ourselves. We cover ourselves with fig leaves not only to keep others out, but to keep ourselves out. We are deeply ashamed of who we are, causing us to avoid being "naked" at any price.

This fear of ourselves has been unfortunately magnified by the divorce culture. We see failure all around and it seems presumptuous to think that we can survive marriage unscathed. The fear of divorce is heavy upon us, and our feelings of inadequacy are occasionally overwhelming. There is, of course, some good reason to doubt ourselves. Darkness cuts through the human heart. But we have lost the ability to acknowledge our sinfulness while simultaneously retaining our confidence that we can, with hard work, remain faithful to the marriage vow.

The reason? We are part Aragorn-from-the-movies, part Treebeard (another character). In the movie, Treebeard declines to fight against evil until he sees with his own eyes a horrendous evil that he cannot explain. Before the vision, Treebeard had attempted the path of neutrality, remaining uncertain about whether the fight was actually the right fight. And so it is with us. Even as Christians, we are afflicted with both self-doubt and an insidious doubt that we are right about the world and everyone else is wrong. We have made value relative-beauty is in the eye of the beholder-and consequently been neutralized in the fight against evil.

This is the challenge young people must face: we are, on the whole, unsure of whether there is anything worth fighting for, anything worth devoting our lives to. Like Aragorn, we lack confidence in ourselves. Like Treebeard, we lack confidence in the mission. It is Chesterton, again, who taught me this:

A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth: this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert -- himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt -- the Divine Reason...Thus we should be wrong if we had said hastily that there is no humility typical of our time. The truth is that there is a real humility typical of our time; but it so happens that it is practically a more poisonous humility than the wildest prostrations of the ascetic. The old humility was a spur that prevented a man from stopping: not a nail in his boot that prevented him from going on. For the old humility made a man doubtful about his efforts, which might make him work harder. But the new humility makes a man doubtful about his aims, which will make him stop working altogether.

There is no one more doubtful about their aims and goals than my generation, especially in romance. We have been told that marriage is better than the alternative, but aren't persuaded enough to pursue marriage with a sense of mission and purposefulness. And because marriage and romance is difficult, we will not do the hard work it takes to find the intimacy we have been made for. We have no interest in going to the home that has been prepared for us. And at bottom is a deep anxiety about our own ability to keep the marriage vow, an anxiety that has been reinforced by our own experiences of divorce.

But there is good reason to press on. The joys of intimacy are awarded to those willing to traverse the dangers of marriage and romance. We must acknowledge sin, but remain confident that we too can remain faithful. We must make sure our goals are correct, and then double our effort to reach them. Marriage is for those who want pleasures so rich, so lofty that they are willing to brave hell to win them. It is for those who believe in marriage so deeply and passionately that they will fight for the marriage against all foes, including their own sin. That is the romance to which we are called.