Sing Like A Hobbit

 

 

     

“These Hobbits Will Sit on the Edge of Ruin and Discuss the Pleasures of the Table.”

 A sob sticks in my throat. Images raging on Instagram fill my mind. Winds roar and fires blaze in Los Angeles. Flames flare up on the Getty museum, burning down Moonshadows in Malibu. I took a girl there once. Scorched memories. Seeing the smoke and the ruins reminds me of Mordor and darkness, of Hobbits and hope, of Merry and Pippin enjoying Long-Bottom leaf and the smoke of a pipe at the ruin of Isengard.

When my first marriage burned to the ground I cried with friends. I turned Spotify up loud while singing along with Third Day; ”There’s a light at the end of the tunnel”. Psalmodies of passion, lament and praise kept me going. The Creator has set it up so that these crack open your heart and infuse hope. The act of singing is an act of defiance. Eating and drinking too.

If you’ve never sung from a place of heart-ache and desperate loss take a lesson from Hobbit Sam Gamgee.  Believing the quest to be at an end, he sings, “above all shadows rides the Sun, and Stars for ever dwell: I will not say the Day is done, nor bid the Stars farewell.” When dark pervades, I cry to God in hope. Somehow singing grounds me. As do friends, bread and good ale. Hence the attitude of the Hobbit. May we have the same!

Photo by Sergio García on Unsplash

Why God With Us Matters

Darkness pursues him. Running, running, he can’t keep it up.  His feet stumble; you can see he’s tired.    Darkness will crush him.  Darkness is gaining; the hero is tiring.  His heart too; losing hope.  Alone.  Not going to make it.  Out of the shadows; someone else coming.  Running the same direction.  Running toward the hero.  Running with the hero he shouts encouragement.  They gain strength; darkness lags. 

To persecuted, fearful, world-worn travelers God’s consolation is this, “I am with you.”  The solution isn’t escape from the pain. It is supernatural accompaniment through it.  I don’t fully understand it. But one can catch glimpses.  In the Lord of the Rings when Frodo tells Sam he is going to Mordor; Sam responds, "I know that well enough, Mr. Frodo. Of course you are. And I'm coming with you.” During my divorce I had some close friends that walked through the fire with me.  Barad-dûr, back-stabbing and bitter days are more easily faced when strength is encouraged by---and borrowed from—friends.

We desire lives free from trauma.  That is not realistic Let’s face it. The darkness comes.  If it finds us alone we despair.  God’s heart is to draw near.  The Psalm says God draws close to the broken-hearted.  It is this knowing that this is His heart that speaks to our heart. God who has a name for each star that He created is moving with us through each situation we face.  That is our solace and our delight.  The creator of the cosmos is a refuge for us. 

“Though I walk through the valley…Thou art with me.”  The famous Psalm.  God is not aloof and we are not alone.  That is why it makes a difference.  There is a knowing that God is with you and in Christ He has felt everything.  The pain has a purpose.  God is in your corner.