It is the virtues—through God’s grace—that keep us on the straight and narrow path of morality, dignity, and freedom. And J.R.R. Tolkien, arguably the greatest mythmaker of our era, illustrated seven of these virtues in his books about the history of Middle Earth.

To the headmaster, administration, faculty, parents, and, especially, to the Ascent Classical Academy of Northern Colorado graduating class of 2025, I offer my profound congratulations as well as my profound thanks for being invited to speak to you on this incredibly important occasion.

To being I must note a few personal things. First, I’ve been teaching since the summer of 1995. This is my thirtieth anniversary of being in the collegiate classroom. I have been at Hillsdale College now, for 26 of those years.

Second, one year—one of the most glorious of my life—I spent as a visiting chair at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and we lived—rather happily—in Longmont, just a bit south of here on the Front Range. As much as we cherish Michigan, we very much miss our time here next to the Rockies.

Third, I’m originally from one state east of here, Kansas. I’m a son of the Great Plains, but we always vacationed either in Colorado or Wyoming.

Fourth, and perhaps most important, I’m the father of seven. My oldest is age 26, and my youngest is age 13. So, I have kids your age, and I feel very much connected to your generation (even though I’m an old guy, age 57).

Let me just reiterate, I’m thrilled to be here on this august occasion. As a proponent of classical liberal education—the great ideas and the great books of the western tradition—I am especially taken with your emphasis on the seven core virtues: Courage, Moderation, Justice, Responsibilty, Prudence, Friendship, and Wonder. In some shape and form, I will address each of these in my talk this evening. I am, of course, as I should be, reminded of the ten virtues of Western civilization. The four classical virtues:

Prudence: the ability to discern good from evil

Justice: giving each person his due

Temperance: to use the created goods for good

Fortitude: to do right no matter the cost

The three Roman virtues:

Labor: a recognition that hard work and excellence please the gods

Fate: the notion that we each mean something and have a purpose

Piety: the honoring of our mothers, fathers, and gods

The three Christian virtues:

Faith: to believe in things unseen

Hope: like pagan Fate, to believe that we matter and have a place in our Father’s eternal kingdom

Charity: that we sacrifice ourselves for one another.

Thinking about your seven virtues as well as the great virtues of the Greeks, the Romans, and the Christians, I am once again reminded of the meaning and significance of the western tradition. There are, certainly, professional haters of the West. Those who see only racism, sexism, and colonialism. To be sure, we—that is Western civilization—are guilty of many crimes, especially when it comes to the treatment of those of African descent and of American Indian descent.

But, I would also clarify and assert that Western civilization gave the world liberty, equality, and republican government. It also supplied the world with a pantheon of heroes: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Cato the Younger, St. Perpetua, St. Augustine, St. Benedict, King Alfred the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Sir Thomas More, Erasmus, Edmund Burke, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan, and John Paul II. I would gladly place any of these figures against the figures of any other civilization the world has produced and hold my head up in pride.

You, as graduates of Ascent Classical Academy, have the high duty of carrying on the tradition of the West to the next generation and the generation after that.

As I think of the many virtues just discussed—all of which I beg the students to treasure throughout your lives, for we must remember, it is the virtues—through God’s grace—that keep us on the straight and narrow path of morality, dignity, and freedom. I am reminded of one of my all-time favorite heroes, a professor of English literature and language at Oxford, J.R.R. Tolkien. He is arguably the greatest mythmaker of our era. Indeed, I am certain that five hundred years from now, 18-year olds will study Tolkien the way we study Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Milton.

I first encountered Professor Tolkien—through his writings—in 1977, right after my tenth birthday. Though four years after his death in 1973, the fall of 1977 saw the release of Tolkien’s masterpiece, The Silmarillion, edited and finished by his son, Christopher. Though I was too young to understand it in all its brilliant complexity, I recognized greatness in it, and I tried to read it something like 15 times, failing each time.

Since then, however, I have read The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings too many times to count. Each reading stimulates my intellect, but most importantly each reading stimulates my imagination.

A war hero, having served in World War I, a professor, a daily Mass Catholic, a conservative, and a myth maker, Tolkien was very much a western man. He would greatly appreciate the seven virtues of Ascent Classical Academy.

Let’s run through them.

The first virtue, Courage. Of course, the entire story of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings is about courage. The courage of the small to do the mighty! Bilbo, Frodo, Sam, Merry, and Pippin are the least in Middle-earth, but through their tenacity and their courage, they become the greatest heroes of their generation. Imagine Sam, a gardener in Hobbiton, storming the dark tower, mistaken for an Elf-lord revealed in all his wrath. Or, perhaps, even better, in his attack on Shelob, the spawn of Ungoliant, a deep darkness from the ancient world. As Tolkien recorded it:

Sam did not wait to wonder what was to be done, or whether he was brave, or loyal, or filled with rage. He sprang forward with a yell, and seized his master’s sword in his left hand. Then he charged. No onslaught more fierce was ever seen in the savage world of beasts, where some desperate small creature armed with little teeth, alone, will spring upon a tower of horn and hide that stands above its fallen mate.

To me, Sam is the true hero of the great epic.

Courage also implicitly recognizes that we will each encounter hardships in our lives: the loss of a friend or a loved one, the loss of a job, etc. In each of these we must become greater than we believe we can become. Again, I think of one of my favorite scenes in The Lord of the Rings, when Frodo and Sam and Gollum come to the edge of Mordor.

Dreadful as the Dead Marshes had been, and the arid moors of the Noman-lands, more loathsome far was the country that the crawling day now slowly unveiled to his shrinking eyes. Even to the Mere of Dead Faces some haggard phantom of green spring would come; but here neither spring nor summer would ever come again. Here nothing lived, not even the leprous growths that feed on rottenness. The gasping pools were choked with ash and crawling muds, sickly white and grey, as if the mountains had vomited the filth of their entrails upon the lands about. High mounds of crushed and powdered rock, great cones of earth fire-blasted and poison-stained, stood like an obscene graveyard in endless rows, slowly revealed in the reluctant light. They had come to the desolation that lay before Mordor: the lasting monument to the dark labour of its slaves that should endure when all their purposes were made void; a land defiled, diseased beyond all healing – unless the Great Sea should enter in and wash it with oblivion.

And, yet, the three keep going, despite the loss of hope.

The second virtue, Moderation. When I think of moderation, I think of accepting one’s gifts as well as one’s faults. I think of patience. To me, this recalls The Council of Elrond. Each person speaks in his turn, each adding to the conversation, and thus, contributing to the wisdom of the group. Only through moderation and dialogue can any community arrive at truth, beauty, and goodness.

The third virtue, Justice. Traditionally, justice means to give each person his due, that is, like moderation, to recognize our greatnesses (the gifts God has bestowed upon each of us) as well as our faults (we are, after all, fallen human beings, though made in the image of God). Justice pervades all Tolkienian sagas.

I am especially reminded of Aragorn’s rule as king. There is a minor character—a favorite of mine—by the name of Beregond, a guard of Gondor. He brilliantly violates his oath to Denethor, the corrupt and crazed steward of the city, to save the life of Faramir. Tolkien notes that Beregond has done the right thing, the moral thing, the ethical thing, but, in so doing, he has violated the law. Therefore, he must be punished. His punishment, though, is to serve as the head guard of Faramir after the War of the Ring. Justice is done.

The fourth virtue, Responsibility. Here, I am reminded of the wonderful conversation between Gandalf and Frodo.

“The rumours that you have heard are true: he has indeed arisen again and left his hold in Mirkwood and returned to his ancient fastness in the Dark Tower of Mordor. That name even you hobbits have heard of, like a shadow on the borders of old stories. Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again.’ ‘I wish it need not have happened in my time,’ said Frodo. ‘So do I,’ said Gandalf, ‘and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

This is so true—not just for Frodo, but for all of us. Each moment of each day, we, in our glorious free will, make choices. Sometimes we choose well, and sometimes we choose poorly. We make choices constantly. Socrates, the greatest of the Greeks, taught us that we must never, under any circumstances, choose evil. Even with the best of intentions, an evil act taints the good and taints our very soul.

The fifth virtue, Prudence. Classically, prudence is choosing between good and evil. Again, with Socrates, we are called always to choose the good. Again, I am reminded of a conversation between Gandalf and Frodo.

‘Yes, alas! through him the Enemy has learned that the One has been found again. He knows where Isildur fell. He knows where Gollum found his ring. He knows that it is a Great Ring, for it gave long life. He knows that it is not one of the Three, for they have never been lost, and they endure no evil. He knows that it is not one of the Seven, or the Nine, for they are accounted for. He knows that it is the One. And he has at last heard, I think, of hobbits and the Shire. ‘The Shire – he may be seeking for it now, if he has not already found out where it lies. Indeed, Frodo, I fear that he may even think that the long-unnoticed name of Baggins has become important.’ ‘But this is terrible!’ cried Frodo. ‘Far worse than the worst that I imagined from your hints and warnings. O Gandalf, best of friends, what am I to do? For now I am really afraid. What am I to do? What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!’ ‘Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need. And he has been well rewarded, Frodo. Be sure that he took so little hurt from the evil, and escaped in the end, because he began his ownership of the Ring so. With Pity.’ ‘I am sorry,’ said Frodo. ‘But I am frightened; and I do not feel any pity for Gollum.’ ‘You have not seen him,’ Gandalf broke in. ‘No, and I don’t want to,’ said Frodo. ‘I can’t understand you. Do you mean to say that you, and the Elves, have let him live on after all those horrible deeds? Now at any rate he is as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.’ ‘Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”

The sixth virtue, Friendship. Again, the idea of friendship pervades every aspect of Tolkien’s mythology. Whether it’s the deep friendship of Bilbo and Gandalf, Frodo and Sam, Legolas and Gimli, or Merry and Pippin, Tolkien clearly loves the idea of companionship.

In Tolkien’s own personal life, he had two significant groups of friends. As a teenager, he was a part of a tight-knit group. They called themselves the TCBS, and they—exactly your age—dedicated themselves to renewing the world through beauty. Tragically, of the four members of the TCBS, Tolkien’s closest friends—two were killed in 1916 in World War I, and Tolkien himself barely survived the hell of the Somme.

As an adult, Tolkien’s best friend was C.S. Lewis, the greatest Christian apologist of the last century, the author of Narnia and the Space Trilogy. Between 1931 and 1949, Tolkien and Lewis met every Monday morning, every Tuesday for lunch, and every Thursday evening, where they read their fiction and poetry to one another. Truly, it was a grand friendship.

The seventh and final virtue, Wonder. We see wonder throughout The Lord of the Rings. Whether it’s the wonder at Rivendell or Lothlorien, the hobbit continue to encounter that which is glorious and beyond their understanding of reality. It prompts them to become greater than they originally were or thought they could be.

Again, though, it’s worth turning to the text itself, especially at another moment—deep within Mordor—when all hope seems lost.

“Frodo sighed and was asleep almost before the words were spoken. Sam struggled with his own weariness, and he took Frodo’s hand; and there he sat silent till deep night fell. Then at last, to keep himself awake, he crawled from the hiding-place and looked out. The land seemed full of creaking and cracking and sly noises, but there was no sound of voice or of foot. Far above the Ephel Dúath in the West the night-sky was still dim and pale. There, peeping among the cloud-wrack above a dark tor high up in the mountains, Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. 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. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even his master’s, ceased to trouble him. He crawled back into the brambles and laid himself by Frodo’s side, and putting away all fear he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.”

And this brings us to the end. Here you are, at the end of your Ascent experience. You’ve been formed by your parents and all those who came before you, and you’ve been formed by your many teachers and administrators here at Ascent. You carry a glorious heritage into the world. Remember the virtues that shaped you, and you will be in good hands—whether you go onto college, into the work place, or in service in the military.

Still, I do beg you to remember two things.

First, each one of us is created unique—never to be repeated—made in the image of God and as temples of the Holy Spirit.

Second, every decision we make from now until our last breath matters.

Let me conclude with Tolkien’s own words:

“So it may be said that the chief purpose of life, for any one of us, is to increase according to our capacity our knowledge of God by all the means we have, and to be moved by it to praise and thanks. To do as we say in the Gloria in Excelsis: Laudamus te, benedicamus te, adoramus te, glorificamus te, gratias agimus tibi propter magnam gloriam tuam. We praise you, we call you holy, we worship you, we proclaim your glory, we thank you for the greatness of your splendour.”

Thank you.

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