There are moments in the great myths and stories of the world when the light goes out, and all that is left is the thick, impenetrable dark. In these moments, hope, a thing so fragile, is not just misplaced, it seems utterly lost. We find ourselves in such a place.

We are in that moment just before the real story begins, when the world is unraveled. The old ways are discarded, the rituals are ignored, and the great tales that once gave meaning to our lives have been forgotten or are no longer believed. We find ourselves in such a time now.

Ours is a time of barrenness. We see a West where the fires of procreation flicker and fade, a generation not building towards a future but instead falling into the abyss of pharmacological despair. The very bedrock of our existence, the continuation of our line, is questioned and cast aside. It is the mythic equivalent of a long winter, where the land sleeps and the seeds of what is to come are buried deep, unseen.

The very longing for God that we all feel is proof that we are not fit for this world under current management. But for too many, this discomfort is evidence that they’re born in the wrong body or in desperate need of Prozac.

This is a time of spiritual and social famine. We watch as the ancient sanctuaries of meaning collapse: families fragment, individuals withdraw into a technological isolation, and the very language we use to define ourselves and our world becomes slippery and contested. Words that once held us together now tear us apart. We can’t agree on what it means to be human, male, female. We can’t even agree on the term “life.” The old ways no longer hold.

When a culture no longer believes in its own story, its words lose their anchor. Was the birth of this country the product of the revolutionary freedom loving spirit of 1776 or the oppressive 1619? The sickness manifests in the soul. We no longer know who we are or the role we play in the world. We are adrift, our great ships of civilization broken on the rocks of our own making. This is the heart of our mythic descent.

This is the moment when the darkness reaches out and pulls itself over the world like a blanket. It seems the story is ending but the story is not ending; it is being prepared. When Christ was crucified, all seemed hopeless. The dark world must have exhilarated as He was nailed to the cross. The claws of demons must have raised in triumph. But nothing was what it seemed to be. The cross, which they saw as a tool of their victory, became the very symbol of their downfall. It is in the very heart of this great unraveling that the conditions for a new tale are born.

Hope is not found in the grand, sweeping gestures of the powerful or in the tired speeches of our elites. It is lost, and it must be. For only when all is broken and the old paths are impassable can the hero emerge from the fringes. The hero of this moment is not the king with a great army, but the simple, unlooked-for individual who carries a forgotten truth. It is the person who, in the midst of the chaos, decides to hold a simple conversation, to commit a small act of kindness, to tend a single garden.

This is the great work of our time. To not just stand witness to the end of an era, but to be the one who, in the middle of a collapsing story, dares to begin a new one. The hero is not who we think they are. They are not coming from the center of power but from the humble, unassuming edges and margins. They are the ones who, in the face of a great void, choose to plant a seed. The simple act of saying “I will” when the world says “There is nothing left” is the first step of the great journey.

This is the moment in JRR Tolkien’s Bilbo Baggins, a hobbit of simple comforts and smaller ambitions, crawling in a tunnel of utter blackness, separated from his companions and stripped of his very sense of self that the great story of Middle-earth takes its unexpected turn. The epic struggle between good and evil, kings and shadows, pauses for a breath in the life of one small, lost hobbit.

It is in this forgotten cave, by the edge of a cold pool, that Bilbo’s fate, and perhaps the fate of the entire world, is decided not by a heroic deed or a grand gesture, but by a simple, fumbling touch. He reaches out into the darkness and his fingers brush against a cold, hard, round thing lying on the cavern floor. This small, mundane act of discovery is the fulcrum upon which the whole story pivots. This is not the moment of the hero with a shining sword, but a hobbit who would much rather be back in his armchair by a warm fire.

The Ring, a thing of immense power and malevolence, is found not by a king or a wizard, but by a humble being who represents a simple, uncorrupted goodness. It is this fundamental truth—that a small, good character can bear a great weight that gives the story its soul. The Ring, designed for the most ambitious and powerful, finds its way into the pocket of the one least suited to wield it, yet, in this very unsuitability, lies its salvation. The courage of Bilbo is not the kind that marches to war, but the quiet, persistent bravery of a being who simply wants to get home. This is the seed from which the world’s renewal will one day grow, a single golden ring in the pocket of a hobbit who is simply trying to find his way home.

Gandalf said to Frodo in Lord of the Rings, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

This is our time. I believe it will be a struggle. I believe there will be violence, darkness, and malevolence. We are not called to match it. We are called to love. Love our friends. Love our family. And yes, love our enemies. Forgive. Pray. Do all the little things. The little good things that God asks of us, and God will work the rest out.