Desolation of Smaug: Initial Reactions

SPOILERS FOLLOW.

If you read on and don't wish to know what happens in The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug don't say I didn't warn you.

"I go to prepare a place for you."

This is a funeral sermon I delivered at my congregation on December 6, 2013. The text was John 14:1-6. I like to respect individual's privacy to a very reasonable extent and so I've eliminated specific names. If you find these words to be helpful or comforting please feel free to pass them on.


Brothers and sisters in Christ, peace be with you, Amen.

When a loved one falls asleep, it hurts. This person whom we had known and loved for days and months and years is no longer with us, and of course, we miss them. Our heart pains us to look ahead to each day that they won't be by our side on this earth. This is just a glimpse of what we experience today as we remember our departed sister, mother, grandmother, [Deceased's name].

And even though we knew this day was eventually coming, it doesn't make the hurt or the pain simply go away. As [Deceased's name]'s body withered away day after day over the last few months it seemed as though this day was taking its time in coming. I know you found yourselves torn wanting to keep mom with us awhile longer, and yet also to see her go and be free of this body that had nothing left to offer.

Fantasy is Escapist

I ran across this quote of J.R.R. Tolkien on twitter tonight and of course it got me thinking:

"Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?"

This quote is recorded in several writings of Tolkien including "The Tolkien Reader".  I find it sums up Tolkien's motivation behind all his sub-creation of Middle Earth rather well.  When people would ask, or even criticize him, about the lengthy hours and obsessive moments spent over his many works, this is how I would imagine him responding.

Potawatomi Trail

Trip Report

This hike was planned out several weeks in advanced.  When I learned that my wife and kids were going to be out of town for the Thanksgiving holiday it opened the door for exploration on my part.  I stumbled upon knowledge of the Potawatomi Trail awhile back when I was researching marathons throughout Michigan.  Turns out there is a trail marathon held on the Poto in April every year and this got me researching the trail itself.

Aim at Heaven

The following is a passage from C.S. Lewis' fantastic book "Mere Christianity".  Every time I read through this work this passage strikes me.  It was starting on page 160 and begins the chapter on "Hope."

Hope is one of the theological virtues. This means that a continual looking forward to the eternal world is not (as some modern people think) a form of escapism or wishful thinking, but one of the things a Christian is meant to do. It does not mean that we are to leave the present world as it is. If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth 'thrown in': aim at earth and you will get neither. It seems a strange rule, but something like it can be seen at work in other matters. Health is a great blessing, but the moment you make health one of your main, direct objects you start becoming a crank and imagining there is something wrong with you. You are only likely to get health provided you want other things more -- food, games, work, fun, open air. In the same way, we shall never save civilisation as long as civilisation is our main object. We must learn to want something else even more.

I understand Lewis to be looking at life much as St. Paul did as he wrote to the Philippian Christians "for to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. (Phil. 1:21)"  It is common and even appropriate for Christian to yearn for the  days of sight in heaven.   We can take great comfort day after day knowing that that gift (eternal life) is a present reality for us.  Through baptism and faith we are owners already of it.  Yet, we don't yearn for heaven to the detriment of our joy in our days on this earth.  Rather, the joyful yearning for heaven is to add more to our days on earth. Or as Lewis put it, "aim at heaven and you will get earth 'thrown in.'"