The road goes ever on and on...

Yes, yes, yes, it is the second week of Advent, but there is also another major event happening this week.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is being released.

TONIGHT.

I AM IN FACT SITTING IN THE THEATER WAITING FOR IT TO START AND POSTING THIS BLOG.

DEDICATION.

One of the early loves of my life was science fiction/fantasy literature.  I often lean more towards fantasy than hardcore sci-fi, and I grew up devouring the Chronicles of Narnia, the Dragonriders of Pern, Harry Potter, and, of course, Lord of the Rings.  When I was in 7th grade, we were studying the Hobbit, and my group was assigned present chapter 14, Fire and Water, which we did as a skit.  I played Bard, got to practice archery in class, and can still recite Bard's "arrow, black arrow, I have saved you to the last" speech.

I will, of course, be seeing The Hobbit at midnight.  I did not schedule myself to go to any rehearsals on Friday for that specific reason.  In my pre-Hobbit preparation, I've been rereading The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, and my roommates and I have watched all of the LOTR movies.

I have had trouble relating to the Advent theme this week.  On the 2nd Sunday of Advent we light the candle of peace, which always seems a little hokey to me.  I am a New Yorker--my life is governed by the lack of peace in it, and furthermore, I am in theater, a business built on conflict.  Good plays have good conflict.  Good theater is built on anything BUT peace, because peace is ultimately boring.  One of my favorite lines from Jane Eyre is, "It is in vain to say that humans ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it."    We thrive in conflict--we love it, we hate it, but conflict is what makes us feel alive.  That's why peace is such an impossible idea… we simply cannot make it last, and secretly, we don't want it to.

I recently gave into the "Keep Calm and…" trend that has spiked recently.  From the original "Keep Calm and Carry On", a saying from Britain in WWII, has come a plethora of journals, posters, t-shirts, keychains, mugs, etc, proclaiming that phrase or variants on it.  Different fan communities have coined phrases having to do with their fandom, such as "Keep Calm and Call Batman" and "Keep Calm and Carry a Sonic Screwdriver" (Doctor Who).  My resistance to this finally caved when I found a shirt that said "Keep Calm and Leave the Shire". This is of course the shirt I am wearing to the midnight release of The Hobbit, but beyond that, there's something that's very geekily emotional that that phrase opens up.  (noting that this is largely because I'm making major changes in how I live my life, like… how I pay my rent, etc, and there's a part of me that would love to stay in the familiar Shire instead of making the changes I know I need to make.)

Leaving the Shire is no reason to keep calm.  The Shire is the peaceful part of Middle-Earth, where hobbits live with only minor conflicts (like uppity young hobbits stealing Farmer Maggot's mushrooms).  Once you leave the Shire, though, you are subjected to the dangers of the world, where there are dragons, goblins, orcs, and wraiths. 

But perhaps the scariest part of leaving the shirt is the fact that you never know exactly what's going to happen when you leave.  Things never go exactly as planned.  There are always twists and turns and trolls threatening to sit on you and squash you into jelly.  No one has ever had an adventure that went smoothly, no roadblocks, everything achieved in record time and home in time for dinner--otherwise they wouldn't be adventures. As Bilbo says to Frodo, "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."

This image returns in the Hobbit and LOTR again, particularly by way of a traveling song sung by Gandalf, Bilbo, and Frodo.  You don't know where the road will lead, but by stepping onto it into an adventure, you agree to follow it.  There is a comfort in the road.  This isn't perfect.  Eventually decisions are made about which way to go at forks, sometimes the road leads strange places, and other times the road is lost altogether.

The thing is, if we step into the road, if we make the choice to join an adventure, we are accepting all of the toils that the road can bring.  We know that things won't be perfect, but we also know that that imperfection, those conflicts, and those dangers enliven us in a way the comfort of our hobbitholes do.  And in that acceptance, there is a certain kind of beautiful, active peace.  It is not a peace that promises ease… and incidentally, neither is Christ's peace.  One of my theological pet peeves is when people try to convert people to Christianity by offering an easy pass through life, when they say that Christ will solve all their problems.  Christ never promises ease.  Christ calls us to take up our crosses and follow, and the early Christians were subject to persecution and death.  Following Christ's call means leaving behind all that is familiar, not stopping to say goodbye to loved ones or bury your dead.  There is nothing easy about that road.  But there is a peace in accepting what the road has in store, and deciding to follow it forward.  In this peace, you can breathe in all the humanity our conflicts have to offer, step forward, and live.

The road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began
Now far away the road has gone
And I must follow, if I can
Pursuing it with eager feet
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.