Find Your People: Fellowship and “Frodos”

Unless you’re a twelve-year-old boy, you don’t keep watching the film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings to savor the slaying of orcs. You keep watching because of Sam and Frodo. Why? Because you long for such a friendship and a supreme purpose enriching it. We all do.

Tolkien knew that the power of a legendary tale does not lie in re-forged swords and dueling wizards. It lies in the power of friendships. Dark times and dashed hopes don’t reverse their affections, but rather, reveal their loyalty. They reveal their love—though it costs them everything. Toward the end of Peter Jackson’s film epic, Frodo, exhausted on a basalt boulder amid rivers of lava after the Ring’s destruction, tells his friend, “I’m glad to be with you, Samwise Gamgee—here at the end of all things.”¹

Oxford psychologist Robin Dunbar knows about Samwise Gamgee  too, in a manner of speaking. Dunbar says, “There’s been a complete tsunami of publications showing that your mental and physical health and well-being, and even how long you live into the future from now, is best predicted by the number and quality of close friendships you have.”²

But here’s the thing: In the West—or wherever technology and efficiency have become core values alongside making money—very few people have found “their people.” Very few. They may have found a group. They may have found a movement. They may have found a fandom with its darlings to adore. But, when it comes to people who would go with them to Mount Doom, there is no one. They are alone on an island in the lava.

It’s not just that most of us are still in search of our people; we’re still in search of the story where those people even are. It’s hard to find Sam and Frodo when you haven’t yet found Middle-earth.

Nevertheless, we were created with a built-in homing device in search of the story we were made for and in search of the people we belong to. Dunbar says that this search is not just psychological but neurological; our brains are wired for thriving in a community of 120 to 150 people.

Why? For one thing, in a community of that size, everyone knows your name and you know everyone else’s. It doesn’t take an Oxford don to convince us it is a good thing to be remembered. Likewise, we all know what it’s like to feel alone in a crowd.

My wife Karen and I once visited the church we had helped found when it was a small band of friends with borrowed folding chairs. Over the years since we had moved on, it had evolved into a megachurch with theatre-style seats. A sharp-dressed young man greeted us at the door. “Welcome!” he beamed. “Is this your first time here? We have a gift for you at the Visitors Center: a coffee mug with the church logo!”  Instinctively, my wife and I knew it was best to sit in the upper mezzanine level, where the number of people was smaller. We ran into old friends who had also sought the mezzanine. We found our people.³

If Dunbar had been with us, he would have nodded approvingly. He would have recognized the sense of safety and belonging that happens when someone simply knows your name. It’s mighty hard for that to happen past the 150 mark. What is more, in a community no larger than 150, everyone knows your needs, at least on the level of basic sustenance and safety. They also know your quirks and tendencies, building in some healthy accountability for your ways. And in a community of modest size, the group tends to self-organize; some taking on degrees of natural leadership; others taking on degrees of administration to carry out decisions; and others supplying resources or knowledge, helping ensure that both the decisions and the admin thereof are done well.⁴

Long before Dunbar’s Number was a thing, in 1965, Bill Gore, the head of W.L. Gore & Associates (as in Gore-Tex), recognized this reality and capped the size of his manufacturing centers at 200 employees each. Why? For the same reason Dunbar later discovered. We flourish when we’re known.

Now on the other hand, next time you drive by a colossal Amazon warehouse, you’re not looking at a place where Jeff Bezos does things the way Gore does. Nevertheless, even Bezos recognizes that, at least for his tech and product divisions, teams should be no larger than what two pizzas could feed.

Seriously. It’s called “The Two-Pizza Rule.” No amount of algorithmic efficiency can replace humans synergizing their skills in a group where they are known.

But back to Sam and Frodo. Why do they capture our imagination in a way a psychologist and a CEO cannot? It’s because they walk out their deep friendship in the context of a supreme purpose. Just look at the terrible things Sam and Frodo go through to fulfill their quest. They must summon courage and comradeship if they’re going to make it through to the end or die well while trying.

What’s true for friends on Middle-earth is true for friends on Earth as well. Read, for example, the words of the men who survived D-Day’s Omaha Beach. Read, for that matter, the words of Tolkien, who survived the First World War: “By 1918, all but one of my close friends were dead.”⁵

Or read the account of the survivors of the Battle of Gettysburg—the hallmark conflict of the Civil War in 1863—who gathered at the battle site in 1913. When the old men met at the place where they had clashed in combat as young soldiers in blue and gray, they were overcome with intense emotion remembering the battle that had cost 15,000 lives. “Those who were not there can form no idea of it,” one veteran wrote. Some wept openly.

Why is this? Supreme purpose. 

So let us form an essential statement from all we’ve been exploring, a timeless truth:

Every Frodo has a Sam, and every person searches for that same sweet spot of close friends and supreme purpose.

C.S. Lewis describes the love we find between Sam and Frodo, and indeed all the members of the company of the Ring, even Aragorn and Boromir during the latter’s dying confessions.

“In a perfect Friendship this Appreciative love is, I think, often so great and so firmly based that each member of the circle feels, in his secret heart, humbled before all the rest. Sometimes he wonders what he is doing there among his betters. He is lucky beyond desert to be in such company…

When the whole group is together, each bringing out all that is best, wisest, or funniest in all the others, then the blessed ‘glorious’ feeling of Friendship is reached—the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk. And no one has any claim on, or any responsibility for, another; but all are freemen and equals…

Yet an Affection mellowed by the years enfolds us all.”⁶

Lewis explores a four-way dynamic here:

1. We find a people who “get” us. We are welcome to offer who we are to the others, and we welcome them in return.
2. We find a people who call us up. Be it encouragement or course-correction, we welcome their influence. For just as Frodo needed Sam in order to fulfill his calling, he also needed Gandalf. We too, need good buddies as much as we need those with grace and gray hair.
3. We find a people where we serve the person we once were.⁷ In other words, we find “Frodos” whom we serve as a Gandalf. We shoulder tap them to set forth, advise them candidly, and back them up to the point of battling Balrogs. 
4. We find a glorious reality overshadowing us all. In Lewis’ words, it is something “‘glorious'” where “the whole world, and something beyond the world, opens itself to our minds as we talk.”

This glory—this “whole world, and something beyond the world”—originates from the one whom St. Paul calls “the Father of glory.”⁸ That little word “glory” is a crate of gold bricks worth unpacking. Insofar as that gold enriches people, Paul unpacks it this way:

I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, asking that according to the riches of his glory, he would grant you to be inwardly strengthened with power through his Spirit.

I also pray that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, so that you may be rooted and grounded in love. May you [thus] be strengthened to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and depth and height of Christ’s love which is beyond knowledge;

and that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.⁹

That’s a lot to take in, but one thing is clear: it’s happening while you’re with your people.

It would be good to find them.

St. James, terse in speech but loving, gives us an anchor point in the vast ocean Paul is showing us. James calls the source of close friends, supreme purpose, and every other good and perfect gift none other than “the Father of lights with whom there can be no variation or shifting shadow.”¹⁰ 

We find, then, an inevitable correlation between close friends, supreme purpose, and your Creator, who knows your name and the secret thoughts of your inmost self. This is the correlation: the more we attempt to draw near to our Maker, the closer we are to finding our people and the closer we are to finding our purpose. All three go together, which makes sense if you consider the mystery of the Trinity. It’s as if our thirst for God, our longing for friends, and our search for a meaningful life are choreographed to parallel our Lord’s search for us. For if we persevere in these things, one day we will say along with St. Paul, not only “I know God” but—even better—“I am known by Him.”¹¹

And there’s more good news to consider. According to St. Matthew, we have a task that is much less daunting than finding 150 people who remember our name. Two or three will do. For our Lord, whose name is so saturated with uncreated glory that we cannot but fall on our faces when he is fully himself, says to us in all gentleness, “where two or three are gathered together in my Name, there I am among them.”¹²

So it turns out that He’s in it for relationship too. When you find Him, therefore, you just may also find a handful of friends, perhaps as odd an assortment of companions as a dwarf, an elf, a wizard, and a war hero. But it won’t matter, for the Fellowship is formed. The burden is carried. The quest is fulfilled. The eagles come through.

That’s the sweet spot within reach for the one who trusts Him. You don’t need to be named Frodo to find it.

© Kurt Mähler

---

Ready to begin again? Subscribe now to Kurt’s monthly newsletter, Courage for Your Calling, and receive your free discovery tool, Recollect Watermark Moments—a reflective guide designed to help you identify the voice of your life experience that moves you from
disillusionment to decisive action.

• exclusive training videos
• firsthand stories
• book sneak-peaks

Begin again. Subscribe today.

---

Footnotes

1. Peter Jackson’s film adaptation draws faithfully from the original quote: “I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam.” J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King, Book VI, Chapter 3, “Mount Doom,” in The Lord of the Rings (New York: William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2015; orig. pub. 1954–55; 2nd ed. 1965). Compare with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, directed by Peter Jackson (Burbank, CA: New Line Cinema, 2003), film. ↩︎
2. Robin Dunbar, quoted in “The Age-Defying, Happiness-Generating Power of True Friendships,” Men’s Health, March 28, 2023, https://www.menshealth.com/trending-news/a43280592/true-friendships/. ↩︎
3. “Our people” included those on stage and in leadership. Love never changes though seasons of proximity do. ↩︎
4. My friend Billy Ray, at the time regional director for World Orphans in northern Iraq, set up camps no larger than Dunbar’s Number for Kurds, Arabs, Assyrian Christians, and Yazidis fleeing the onslaught of Islamic State in 2016. The approach was so successful that, when the United Nations High Commission for Refugees proposed to build well-funded but sprawling tent cities, the local leader said, “No thanks, we’ve got Billy and his organization. Move along.” Formed around clusters of families, Billy’s micro-camps saw a remarkable degree of self-governance, community development initiative, better hygiene, and lower crime. After the crisis, several camps took root and became villages in their own right. ↩︎
5. J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings (New York: William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2015), xix, “Foreword to the Second Edition.” ↩︎
6. Lewis, C. S. The Four Loves. San Francisco: HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2017 ↩︎
7. I have Rory Vaden of Brand Builders Group to thank for the phrase. ↩︎
8. Ephesians 1:17. This and the other Scripture citations are from a translation by Laurent Cleenewerck, EOB: The Eastern Greek Orthodox New Testament. Based on the Patriarchal Text of 1904. Boston: New Rome Press, 2020. ↩︎
9. Ephesians 3:14-19 ↩︎
10. James 1:17 ↩︎
11. Galatians 4:9 ↩︎
12. Matthew 18:20 ↩︎