Having spent a wonderful four days in Kentucky, I finished out my spring break among friends and family in Battle Ground, Washington. I love going home. I love the town I grew up in. While I was home I lounged around my parent's house, I went out to eat with friends and family, I watched a friend's ice hockey game and I went to a wedding.
As I did these things I thought of a conversation I had with a friend at Asbury Seminary a couple of years ago. We were talking about Tolkien and the philosophy behind his
The Lord of the Rings. I liked what my friend, Daniel, had to say about it. He said that the point of
The Lord of the Rings was not the adventure. It was not about being out in the world, achieving notoriety or personal greatness. The point was that The Shire was worth fighting and dying for. Those simple Hobbits, going about their simple tasks, living their ordinary lives was the real point of Middle Earth, not the slaying of dragons or taking the Ring to Mt. Doom. The older I get, the more I come to embrace this kind of thinking. It's not that the adventure doesn't appeal to me. But if I didn't have a place to call home. If I didn't have a hometown filled with people I love and people I have a hard time loving, filled with the best and worst memories of my life, filled with all kinds of broken people who God died for, the adventure would be meaningless. So maybe I don't completely agree with Daniel that adventure is not at all the point of
The Lord of the Rings. But without the Shire, I think the adventure would have been empty and selfish.
2 comments:
Hey Matt, it was really good to see you last week and I'm glad your spring break was a worthwhile one...I like what you said about having a place called home worth fighting for. God has given us great friends and family and a wonderful place in the Northwest that we both call home. What's even better is that we will share the same home for eternity. You know I was thinking about what it might be like with our glorified bodies. I bet we could really do some extreme mountain climbing then. God bless you brother.
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"Fear not, O land;
Be glad and rejoice,
For the Lord has done marvelous things!...
Be glad then, you children of Zion,
And rejoice in the Lord your God;
For He has given you the former rain faithfully,
And He will cause the rain to come down for you---
The former rain,
And the latter rain in the first month."
Joel 2:21,23
Hey Josh, I also like to imagine what it will be like in our glorified bodies. I think perhaps the reason for the immensity of the universe is that it is for us to explore in our glorified bodies. And yes, we will definitly have to do some extreme mountain climbing. Of course, having a home worth fighting for is based almost completely on the people who are there so I'm glad I have friends like you back home which makes it worth fighting for.
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