You’re a Keeper

“Keep it secret. Keep it safe.”

This strange line from Peter Jackson’s rendition of J.R.R Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is a favorite of mine. For a long while, I felt silly that I cherished this peculiar poetry until its wisdom unraveled in my meditation on the power, purpose, and pain of accepting responsibility.

Have you ever had something very precious to care for and guard as though your life depended on it? I must admit that I have lived most of my life with rags and trinkets, things I couldn’t have cared less if I lost or chucked them. Moreover, I grew up in places and spaces where life itself was wasted along dirt roads and gutters, and I was raised at a time when the life of a girl child deflated the strength of men’s hopeful expectations.

I have lived in places and with people who scorn the treasure of a human heart in favor of mocking and cruelly handling its delicate matters. In all these things, I have come to learn that our concept and perception of value determines how we act, behave, and care about the objects and subjects we ascribe value and worthlessness.

When something or someone is of great value, the wise person takes care to insure and protect the integrity of the precious object or subject. Therefore, in Lord of the Rings, it was wise for Gandalf to impress on young Frodo to keep secret and keep safe the valuable and highly sought-after object in his charge.

What is value and worth anyway?

There is a saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I have come to love this saying because it transfers great power to me.

In a world among people who callously desecrate the value of human life for comparably worthless things like money and power, retaining reverence for human beings, is the beginning of life transformation for the individual and humanity as a whole.

The environments I’ve traversed sought, and for some time succeeded in persuading me that I was at the mercy of events, persons, and narratives that rendered me helpless and always wanting. Yet, I am discovering that dependency and helplessness are illusions seductively spun before us, in the hope that we fall head over heels into their voids. When we choose to believe them as truths, we are undone, and our lives are forfeit.

Nonetheless, as long as we still have breath, we are always able to recover our lives and rebuild the ruins of our resignation.

The road to recovery and reconstruction of our lives according to our chosen design is paved with steep effort. Perhaps this is why it is easier to abdicate the task to the puppeteering of others and the frailty of a negligent and slug character. Very few people embark on the long traipse to freedom, and fewer still complete the pilgrimage. But to the devoted, the prize is peace.

When we are not in the firm keep of ourselves, we suffer constant self-consciousness and fear of man and the evil one. The alternative is a life exuding serene confidence and steadfastness.

Becoming your own person’s keeper demands a very high price, and there are no sales, discounts, or freebies. The seeker of this power must fully commit to paying the full price, and then some. There is no other way.

The irony is that we are all in fact our own keepers, or at least this is who we are defined to be as humans. But alas, we have abdicated our responsibility and thereby forfeited all the rights that accrue.

Being a keeper of oneself means taking up ownership of caring, nurturing, and governing your whole life. No one else can nor will do this for you. Only you and you alone can decide to take up full responsibility for your whole life. This is akin to what Christ means by “take up your cross.”

When meditating on this phrase of Christ, I was graced with the insight that not even The Christ will pick up your cross for you!

This stunning reveal radically turned my life right-side-up.

In some “Christian” circles, feeble souls languish in miserable lives waiting for Jesus to swoop in and pluck them from this or that. But this mindset expands to other circles: women waiting for a man, the poor waiting for the rich or governments or politics or handouts, blacks waiting for whites….sigh.

Ultimately, when these foolish hopes come to desolation, these souls resign in blasphemy that their miserable condition must be God’s portion – their cross to bear. What a wicked tragedy.

In the beginning, when God created mankind, He charged us with dominion: the responsibility to govern, produce, multiply, and replenish beauty, order, abundance, and love in our personal lives and our shared environments. To desert this command is the bane of all our ills, and to repent is our salvation.

Every single human bears the command to keep his or her life well such that it can safely flourish in the exponential order ordained by the King of kings. As such, we must relinquish the folly of blame-shifting, pity-partying, and entitlement in favor of the truth that we are to pick up our cross, take our lives into our own hands, and make them glorious demonstrations of the God in whose image we were made.

When I relented and took up the mantle of a Keeper, my most important and toilsome task was tilling my mind. This involved uprooting every false imprinting concerning my value, the worth of my life, and the powers I wield.

As I continually change my mind about my value and life’s worth and align it to God’s valuation, I awaken to diligent safekeeping: of my thoughts, because they are the seeds; of my emotions, because they are the fertilizer; and of my words, because they are the creative force that brings about the abundant life that I desire, or destruction, decay, and death – which I abhor.

Moreover, I am getting mega kicks out of learning to rule well in my personal life, my relationships, and my work. I sometimes groan as to why I let it take so long before I rose to the station God ascribed for me. I may never be Duchess in the known mortal kingdoms but, I don’t need to be. God has crowned every human with glory and honor.

Indeed the environments and cultures we are born and grow into teach us to diminish and despise what the Creator of the universe has decreed. Nevertheless, anyone who would consider the wisdom of God superior to all other wisdoms, can become a keeper and reign in life as God intended.

Although it was agonizing at first, learning to take more and more responsibility for my life is growing to be an exhilarating obsession. The more responsibility I embrace, the more power I have to choose and design the person I want to become and the life I want to have.

Like with the “precious” ring of power in LOTR, I have also become aware of the many distractions that vie for my devotion. Therefore I must keep my precious mind and heart safe and in sharp focus on the truth and responsibility I have come to know, which is that I am the Keeper of my life.

And so are you –

Whether you accept or abdicate, your birthright is royalty, and royals rule and govern.

Having lived too long as a civilian, I understand and know it will be wrenching to unlearn and rehabilitate from commoner thoughts and ways. Yet, after a little while, you will sample the glory and distinguishedness, of being the image – a son or daughter – of the Most High God.

May you be amenable to pick up your cross, your Keeper mantle, and reign in life.

xoxo

Nimi