Blurb:
Tolkien once feared dying before completing his life’s work (The Lord of the Rings)—so he wrote a story about it. Leaf by Niggle is that story, and it may be the most inspiring reflection on purgatory and heaven I’ve ever read!
Transcript of episode:
Introduction
“Dear friends, most people know J.R.R. Tolkien as the brilliant author of The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. But what many don’t realise is just how much of a patient labour of love his work truly was. Behind the grandeur of Middle-earth was a man who wrestled deeply with perfectionism, procrastination, and discouragement. Tolkien himself once admitted, “I am a niggler and a perfectionist, even in minor details.” Like the Hobbits he created, Tolkien much more cherished small, beautiful things—yet he bore the immense burden of crafting an entire mythology for England, which he never fully felt he had completed to his satisfaction. His term “niggler” denotes someone who fusses over tiny details, which he knew he was absolutely prone to do. So as he grew older, and his vision remained unfinished, Tolkien was tempted to despair. It was during this period that he awoke from a dream and, in just a few hours, wrote a little story called Leaf by Niggle. He later acknowledged it as a deeply personal allegory—about himself, his creative struggles, and the haunting fear of dying before completing his life’s work. But Leaf by Niggle is more than just an artist’s lament. Birthed from Tolkien’s subconscious and infused with the radiance of Catholic hope, it’s an imaginative reflection on purgatory, heaven, and what happens when our small, imperfect labours are gathered up and transfigured by grace. If you’ve ever read The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis, you’ll find a kindred spirit here—another tale that uses story to illuminate the mysteries of life after death. If today’s episode on Leaf by Niggle stirs something in you, I encourage you to also listen to Episode 55, where we explore this theme further.
Synopsis of the story
Leaf by Niggle is the story of a quiet, unassuming artist named Niggle, who lives in a little house and spends most of his time working on a large painting. His subject is a grand tree, rich with detail—especially its leaves, which he paints with meticulous care. However, Niggle is easily distracted and never quite finishes his work. He procrastinates and though he’d much rather spend his time perfecting his tree, Niggle was also too insecure to say no to other people’s demands, and finds himself often interrupted—mostly by his neighbour, a demanding gardener with a lame leg, called Parish. Niggle finds Parish irritating, but he still helps him out reluctantly. Sadly, no one seemed to have any appreciation for Niggle’s artwork. At some point, Parish shows up to ask for help to fix his leaky roof tiles, which was letting water into the house. After some delay, Niggle begrudgingly agrees, and goes out in the rain to help his neighbour, a favour which ends up getting himself quite ill and bedridden.
Then, just as he was well enough to begin painting again, Niggle is told by some authority figures that he must now go on a journey—suddenly and without delay. He is unprepared, both physically and emotionally to board the train. The “journey” as it turns out, is revealed as a journey to the afterlife, symbolising his death. In the town, no one mourns the passing of Niggle, though some people vaguely remember him as a minor artist—perhaps the man who painted a single beautiful leaf. Someone preserves that leaf in a local museum, appreciated by very few, but eventually even that painting of a leaf is lost, when the museum burns down.
Following his death, Niggle finds himself in a strange workhouse or hospital, where he is put to hard labour, made to follow a tight schedule, and to reflect upon his life. What begins as plain old toil in the workhouse soon becomes somewhat satisfying for Niggle. He is all the time watched over by two mysterious voices who assess his life. One focuses on his shortcomings, while the other defends the goodness in him—especially his small acts of kindness. Eventually, the two voices agree that Niggle’s time in the workhouse has reached its fullness, and agree to send him off to another land. To his amazement, this land it is the realisation of the very landscape he had tried to paint—the Tree and the country surrounding it are now fully alive, more real and beautiful than he ever imagined. His unfinished painting has taken on a life of its own. But even so, it is not complete. As Niggle explores the landscape, and his tree, he wishes that he had Parish by his side to help. Mysteriously, Parish is provided him, and the two begin to work the land and to garden around the Tree, conversing and bonding as they had never done before while on earth. Here in this land, Parish finally learns to appreciate the artistic wonder of Niggle, and Niggle, learns to appreciate the labour of Parih’s gardening. The two soon become friends, and Parish has a few lessons to learn too. In the fullness of time however, Niggle is finally called to go on by himself, to head towards the horizon and to climb the beautiful mountains of eternity. The end.
I hope the story as a standalone is already beautiful and profound in itself. My favourite moment was when Niggle realised that the very person he sacrificed painting time to help, became the very person by which he was able to complete his painting. This speaks to me of a profound truth – that no act of love in his lifetime goes unnoticed in eternity – for love is the very stuff of eternity. After all, God is love, and heaven, including the process of purifying ourselves to get into heaven is paved with loved. There’s so many themes I want to draw your attention to dear listener, so I’ll just launch and continue the journey that Niggle started.
Living with an eternal perspective in mind
I’ll start by speaking about living with an eternal perspective in mind. St Therese of Lisieux reminds us that we are put pilgrims in this lifetime, and that the world is our ship and not our home. Such a perspective on life might initially seem rather spiritual and airy fairy, but let me assure you dear listeners, that its implications are very practical. Let me ask… if you truly believed that life goes on beyond the grave, and that nothing truly good and loving is ever lost … how would you live differently? What would you be willing to let go of … and what crosses that you carry now would seem momentary and trivial? Remember that Niggle spends much of his life worrying over a painting that he’ll never finishes. When you read the story you can almost feel his anxiety as the looming journey ahead comes closer, as his biological clock ticks, ticks away… and his life dream is yet unrealised. He frets and curses the demanding interruptions of ordinary life.
You’ll remember that the story sort of ends quite tragically, with even his one leaf destroyed in the fire. But the beauty of the story is that it offers us hope, not the hope found in this life, but the hope that can only come when we lift the veil so that we may see over into the other side, a side won by Christ. The reader soon learns that all is not lost for Niggle, even though he clearly wasn’t perfect and needed purification (or a purgatory), a detail we’ll get onto later. But what we see are two traits that ultimately carry him over into heaven, (a) his faithfulness to following his call and (b) his acts of love towards his neighbour. Only our obedience and our love, carry over into eternity—everything else simply will fade into non-existence. The teachings of Christ and the church articulate this well.
Heaven as obedience to one’s vocation:
At some point in our childhood, we have had it engrained in us that heaven is for those ‘whose good deeds outweigh their bad’. And while such a belief is somewhat reasonable for a child, it is hardly a mature enough response for those who seek to follow the teachings of Christ. Let’s start then with what obedience means, and why it’s so important. Jesus summarises his epic Sermon on the Mount by saying that those who love him are those who are obedient to him. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” he says. Simply believing in Jesus does not merit a soul’s salvation, for even the devils believe in Jesus. No, rather it is obedience to Jesus that saves, and in the context of our story today, obedience to the call he has placed upon our lives. Niggle tried his level best to follow his calling as an artist. His heart remained pure- – Niggle wants to finish his painting, but frequently found that his human weakness – the people pleasing tendency, his procrastination and his perfectionism getting in the way. But that’s okay – he was still obedient to his vocation (a word in Latin which means calling) – and he is thusly rewarded with an opportunity to reap what he had begun sowing:
“Niggle looked up, and fell off his bicycle. Before him stood the Tree, his tree, finished. If you could say that of a tree that was alive, its leaves opening, its branches growing and bending in the wind that Niggle had so often felt or guessed, and had so often failed to catch. He gazed at the tree, and slowly he lifted his arms and opened them wide. It’s a gift he said. He was referring to his art, and also to the result; but he was using the world quite literally. He went on looking at the tree. all the leaves he had ever laboured at were there, as he had imagined them rather than what he had made them, and there were others that had only budded in his mind, and many others that might have budded, if only he had the time.”
In Tolkien’s vision, it is clear that his tree is present after Niggle’s death, because it was a fruit of his obedience, a natural reward for the one—in the words of Paul—who fights the good fight and finishes the race. Friends, it is not a coincidence that God chose you to be born in the time and family and place that you did. This means that there is a unique part that only you can play in God’s grand story, which on reflection is far more exciting than our own, self made stories. To follow his call, however imperfectly, is probably the greatest adventure of our lives. Obedience, then, rather than being an arbitrary set of rules and laws, means following the call that God has prepared just for us
Heaven as perfect love:
So that was obedience, we now turn our attention to love, as is the other act that carries on over into eternity (theologians will ultimately suggest that love and obedience to God are ultimately the same thing, and fair enough. But for the purposes of exploring Niggle’s story, lets’ separate them out for this episode). St John of the Cross says that “in the evening of our lives, we will be judged upon love alone”. St Francis says “remember that when you leave this earth, you can take nothing of what you’ve received, only what you have given away.” One the most loving things that Niggle does is right before his death… when he, though old and sick, agrees to venture out into the rain to help out Parish, whose roof needed patching up. Though he did it begrudgingly, he did it – again, the begrudging bit would get purified a little later in purgatory, but his actions still proved his heart to love his literal neighbour. In the story, the very canvas that he was painting his masterpiece gets torn down in order to patch the roof of Parish, which in the eyes of the world, would seem tragic for poor Niggle. But not in the eyes of eternity. For all acts of love are found in God. This act would be his redemption in some way – for in eternity, his actualised tree could only be made complete through Parish’s help. It is Parish the gardener who comes along and helps him finish the scene. Quoting the book Niggle exclaims:
“Of course, what I needs is parish. There are lots of things about earth, plants ad trees that he knows and I don’t. this place cannot be left just as my private park. I need help and advice.” See, this is where love and obedience are really one and the same act – because Niggle loved, he was able to be obedient to his call. We mustn’t think that loving our neighbour and obedience to God, are separate things at all. Jesus is both, and it is his example, we seek to follow.
Purgatory as the beginning of heaven.
So … what is purgatory, and what is heaven? What is which in the story? It’s interesting that the definitions are a little blurred even in our story, because theologically speaking, they are natural continuations of the other. Purgatory is the beginning of heaven, the forecourt if you like. It is not a sort of third destination a soul can end up, somewhere in between heaven or hell. No… rather anyone who experiencing purgatory is already on their way to heaven, and indeed, is guaranteed to heaven. But nevertheless, a purification and refining is still required – but however painful it is, it is a purification the soul is willing to go through. The more that the soul is purified, the more delight it experiences. As the saying goes, even the path to heaven is heavenly. This is seen through the various phases of purgation that Niggle goes through – first in the workhouse, and then in the countryside, ultimately culminating in his final journey to the Mountains, which symbolically, might denote heaven proper. In the workhouse, Niggle had to confront the fact that he was a procrastinator and couldn’t manage his time well. He had to work through the regret of not responding to Parish’s call for practical aid immediately. His penance then, was to do manual labour in the workhouse, carpentry, digging and toiling. At first it wasn’t pleasant at all – but it soon becomes sweet. Another thing he had to learn during this stage of purgatory was how to manage his time well – cos he was as you remember a procrastinator. Niggle does learn this here, and when he does, it feels satisfying. In his words:
“It could not be denied that he began to have a feeling of well satisfaction – bread rather than jam. He could take up a task the moment one bell rang, and lay it aside promptly the moment the next one went, all tidy and ready to be continued at the right time. He became master of his time, he began to know just what he could do with it,”
Having undergone the necessary work here, Niggle is then allowed to progress into the countryside, where he sees the grand vision of the tree. But as mentioned earlier, even this stage of the journey is allowed him for purification. We know that both Parish and Niggle were not technically in heaven yet, because they were still learning the things that they didn’t learn on earth, but this time, enjoying the process. Quoting from the book:
“Oddly enough, it was Niggle who now was the better of the two at ordering his time and getting things done. Oddly enough, it was niggle who became the most absorbed in building and gardening, while Parish often wondered about looking at trees, especially at The Tree.”
Even the journey toward heaven is marked by joy, and the more we grow in love, the more the pains of purification begin to feel like bliss. In this lifetime, though, we are often still like Niggle back in the workhouse—pre-occupied with our shortcomings, aware of what holds us back, and longing for something more. But this phase does not last forever dear friends. For purgatory is not punishment—it’s merely preparation – and the same fires of divine love are also the same fires doing the purifying. In the classic passage from 1 Corinthians 3, often referenced in Catholic theology regarding purgatory, we read: “If what has been built on the foundation [of Christ] survives, the builder will receive a reward. If the work is burned up, the builder will suffer loss; the builder will be saved, but only as through fire.” Applying this to our story, Niggle did indeed build his life’s work on the foundation of Christ, making him worthy of salvation. Yet, like all of us, some of his efforts required refining—works that, while sincere, needed to be burned away, even as he himself was saved and purified through that very fire.
This reminds us that, in this life, our call is not to achieve perfection, but simply to respond faithfully—to follow God as best we can, to love as Christ taught us to love. Even our imperfect efforts, offered with sincerity, place us on the right path.
So while in this lifetime, we need only do our best to follow God’s call upon us and to love as he taught us to love. These will surely set us on the right path … even if we do it imperfectly. Because when all is said and done, God sees the human heart, and promises us that “what is sown in tears, will be reaped with shouts of joy.” (Psalm 126)