🌌 On Sub-creation

Tolkien's concept of the Christian call to create and share good stories

Mae govannen, friends! Josh here. This week’s newsletter is a guest piece from

Keela Dee

, who previously wrote on Tolkien’s Special Soup Recipe for Jokien with Tolkien. Be sure to check out her podcast 11ses, her Substack

Keela Dee Subcreations

, and her Instagram as well.

In today’s piece, Keela discusses Tolkien’s concept of “Sub-creation,” explaining it and applying it to our own experiences as creators of all kinds. I enjoyed reading it and am excited for you all to read it too!

Photo by Braxton Apana on Unsplash

On Sub-creation

Tolkien's concept of the Christian call to create and share good stories

by

Keela Dee

“man, sub-creator, the refracted light / through whom is splintered from a single White / to many hues, and endlessly combined / in living shapes that move from mind to mind.”

-J.R.R. Tolkien, Mythopoeia

I first read Tolkien and became obsessed with his stories, his philosophies, and his term “sub-creator” in 2016, and went on to base my entire personality off of it. In fact, my social media handles, my writing persona, and my motto in life are all centered around sub-creation, a word Tolkien wrote into his poem Mythopoeia, and then briefly explained in “On Fairy-Stories.” I believe that this quote, and several of Tolkien’s other writings, point to the importance of  sharing stories, particularly for Christians. So let’s break it down a little bit.

Sub-creator

First let’s examine what Tolkien (and I) believes the term “sub-creator” means. Basically, we as humans have a sense, a desire, a call to create because we were born out of a creator. The prefix “sub” means underneath or lower. It’s subordinate. It’s secondary. God is the number one, primary Creator above all, and we are surrounded by His primary creations. His earth, His people, His creatures are all beautiful examples of His handiwork. And since we live in the existing world around us, we are often inspired to create our own worlds within it.

Maybe that means keeping a home or building a family. Maybe that means establishing a successful career or volunteering for a cause you believe in. Maybe that means literally creating secondary worlds, like Narnia, Middle-earth, or Camp Half Blood. Whatever we do, we are creators under God, because of God. Technically, Tolkien might believe that anything we create counts as a sub-creation, but we are sinful people and I choose to think of the word as a reminder that all my creations should glorify God and serve His children.

Refracted Light

Philippians 4:8 tells us “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things” (NIV). We also know that out of the heart the mouth speaks (Luke 6:45) and (my addition) the hands sub-create. If we are to refract God’s “perfect White” light, we must be looking at it. We must know it intimately. We must do our best to imitate it and its noble, right, pure, and lovely ways. We are each living our own stories and Ecclesiastes 8:15 says “So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad.” This is how we can honor and glorify our God. This is how we reflect and refract God’s perfect white light into many different hues. We follow His commands, we love our neighbors as ourselves, and we have a good time doing it. We travel, we dance, we watch the sunset, we take in the creation and sub-creation all around us, and we hopefully add our own noble, right, and pure sub-creations to the mix.

A quick side note here to mention that Tolkien believes ALL humans, Christian or not, sub-create. Everything we make with our hands or our minds goes back to God’s primary creation. However, as previously stated, we are sinful beings and not all sub-creations are going to honor God. It’s important for us as believers to know and be close to God’s white light because there are those who are far from the light. While they might occasionally get a hint of the light in their sub-creations, it is not as much as if they truly understood the light where they themselves were created. So let’s get as close to that light as possible so our God-glorifying sub-creations can outweigh the others.

A Single White to Many Hues

But Tolkien doesn’t stop with reflecting, in fact, he doesn’t even use that word. He uses refracting, like when a white light passes through a prism like in the Pink Floyd logo and produces the full spectrum of visible colors. It is our sacred call as Christians to be witnesses, and by that I mean literally to witness. To get out and see God’s powerful creations out there and then tell someone about it. We need to become sub-creators. We need to share stories. We need to see God’s white light, refract it into many colors, and share those colors with any and everyone who will look upon them. We need to put pen and paper to the good God is doing in our lives. We need to tell others about the beauty all around us. We need to contribute to that beauty if we can.

A warning to note here: when confirming the definition of refracting, it can also mean to distort or bend, like when you see a straw in a glass of water. As mentioned earlier, we are sinful beings with the capability of corrupting God’s goodness with our own selfish desires. There are plenty of not-God-honoring sub-creations out there, so let’s do our best to not contribute to those.

Endlessly Combined

Whether you have fully locked into the fact that you are a sub-creator, we all do work of some sort and I bet we all struggle at times to see the significance of said work. Maybe we cook meals for thankless people, write blog posts for 10s of readers, or stress over documents that our bosses barely glance at. But I’m here to tell you that it is your job to endlessly combine the many hues into the living shapes that are enjoyed by the ones who are paying attention. And even if no one is, you are doing it for you, and as already mentioned, you are doing it for the glory of God.

Tolkien uses the word “endlessly” to describe this work and I believe him. Because not only does our work have earthly significance by providing beauty and pleasure and function, but it can have eternal significance as well. Read Leaf by Niggle by Tolkien for a sweet and beautiful picture of this, but essentially, there will be houses and books and wine and paintings and food and music on the new earth. So practice for eternity. Jesus spent the first 30 years of His life building tables. While we don’t know how successful their carpentry business was, we can be confident that those tables were created with the best, most intentional craftsmanship there ever was.

Living Shapes

So what do these “living shapes” become? After we’ve gotten to know God’s pure light, we’ve refracted it into many colors by living a good life and telling others about it. These shapes then become stories “that move from mind to mind.”

Think back on your favorite stories from your life. Maybe you are remembering a book you grew up with or a comfort movie. Or maybe you’re thinking of the time your family traveled to the Grand Canyon, the time your dad pulled you out of school for a special surprise, or the countless nights spent giggling with your best friends. All of these experiences are compiled into our cauldron of story (as I further discussed in my last guest post), and will be spooned out in various ways.

Maybe we start making jokes like Michael Scott when we re-watch The Office, or maybe we remember an anecdote from a teacher when we encounter hard times. These stories, these sub-creations, are living shapes that move from mind to mind, and when you experience them, you tend to take them to heart and incorporate them into your world without even realizing it.

Your sub-creations matter. Your plate of food that gets sped-eaten by your child, your debut song with 40 listens, your Excel spreadsheet that is for your eyes only but makes your job way more efficient, your art, your writing, your woodwork, your lesson plans…they all contribute to this world, God’s primary creation, in a unique way. So do your best work, live your best life, and sub-create in a way that honors God, so that these stories can be shared into eternity.

To Discuss:

1. What kinds of sub-creations do you enjoy? How have you seen those impact your daily thoughts?

2. Have you considered yourself a sub-creator before? In what ways have you sub-created recently?

3. What sorts of sub-creations would you like to exist in eternity?

There and Back Again

Wherein I share highlights from previous years of Jokien with Tolkien

Hey there! Josh here again. This week last year I put out two posts on the same day! What could have caused such a thing?

Well I sent out my scheduled post in the morning, the month’s Tolkien Treasures:

Then later that day, news broke that Warner Bros. was making NEW Lord of the Rings movies! This, of course, necessitated a discussion post here on Substack:

🚨 NEW LOTR Movies?? 🚨

Needless to say, big day for LOTR fans. Here we are a year later…and not much in the way of official new information. But do not be deceived, for another new LOTR movie is surely still being made. And you’ll definitely hear about it here when we know more.

Appendices

• Special shout-out and thank you to Matt W, who upgraded to a paid subscription to the Jokien with Tolkien: Extended Edition this week! This edition of Jokien with Tolkien is free to read but cost time and effort to create, so if you’d like to support me and all the guest writers of Jokien with Tolkien, consider a paid subscription here on Substack, Patreon, or throwing some change in the tip jar.
  
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