Hobbits and Hermits

My latest blog post for National Catholic Register is here.

Give me the hobbit’s life of adventure. I want to shrug on my backpack, pick up my stick and set off on the open road. I want to sleep rough with nothing but the freedom of the quest. Give me dragons to fight and giants to joust with. I’ll set off with a gang of rogues dwarves or a waiting king. It doesn’t much matter. I’ll take the ring to Mordor even though I do not know the way.

This is the life of following Christ–to leave the fishing nets on the shore and stand the world on its head and set off I know not where but I do know why. I’m a pilgrim, a nomad, a wanderer in the wilderness. I won’t put my tent stakes too deep for I have wanderlust and I wonder about the lust. I do not want compromise or the comfortable life.

It’s a pirate’s life for me.

But then I think of the other side of the hobbit: the cozy, fireside sort of fellow. That is where the hermit comes in. Forsooth! The open road! I am sure I am called to the enclosed life. Here in this cloister I will stay and this will be my adventure.