Over this past weekend I got a chance to indulge in my love
of the Lord of the Rings series. Hobbits and the Shire and the mythos of Middle
Earth have captivated me since I first read the books 46 years ago. Yesterday I
watched the last movie depicting the carnage exploding in the great last battle
for Middle Earth. As I did it occurred to me that there are parallels between
that mythical story and our own time.
You may recall that the story begins with Bilbo Baggins the
Hobbit. Hobbits are given to a “live and let live” approach to life. Bilbo was
living a comfortable life in the Shire when he was approached to leave the
comfort of his surroundings to go on a dangerous adventure. In the course of
his journey with an assortment of wizards, dwarfs and elves, Bilbo learns that
there is evil afoot and that the shadow of evil is spreading daily. After many
harrowing experiences, Bilbo safely retires to his comfortable life in the
Shire and puts the reality of the growing evil and danger in the rest of Middle
Earth out of his mind. Fast forward 20 or 30 years and Bilbo’s nephew, Frodo,
is enlisted by the forces of good who are seeking to thwart the rapidly
spreading evil of the Dark Lord of Mordor. It seems that while everyone in the
Shire has been living the good life, the forces of evil have grown incredibly
strong and they are on the verge of completely overtaking all of Middle Earth.
In the end, the forces of good in Middle Earth finally united
in their quest to defeat the evil forces of Mordor. Good prevailed in Middle
Earth, but not without great cost. As a nation, we have been “living in the
Shire” for decades. We have enjoyed the “good life”. We have been oblivious to
the opposing forces that have been growing ever stronger and are now casting an
incredibly dark shadow over our land and around the world. We may find that in
our time our path will parallel that of the good creatures of Middle Earth. We
may find that we prevail, but only at great cost.
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