I’m speechless. What a beautiful piece! Thank you! Like others said, you perfectly describe much of what I’ve been feeling lately.

And Retriever, you did as well.

I recall having a conversation with a friend of mine once who insisted that Lord of the Rings has no parallels with Christianity. For me, the parallels were unmistakable. But I also could see so many similarities with our lives today. And you are right, I think. Perhaps many of us are hobbits.

It also occurs to me, reading this cri de couer of yours, that I am guilty of worrying far too much on a day to day basis about the dreadful prospects for medical care in this country in future (because of my family members’ chronic illnesses) in an utterly selfish fashion.

I waffle these days, struggling to do the right thing personally, in my family, my community, but I don’t think the separatist solution is anything but escapism. Born of discouragement. I have been known to snarl at my keenly analytic spouse (both of us history and government majors in youth) as he reads aloud from the news to me, him making good comments to my cranky “Why do you bother…we’re all just powerless peasants now, so just settle into bread and circuses and stultify as the Anointed One wants us to!”

In effect, I sometimes think that I (and many of my far more virtuous and energetic friends, mostly evangelical Christians) are living like hobbits in the Lord of the Rings. Happily and busily preoccupied, planting our own small plots, tending our own loved broods, sometimes sorrowing over personal troubles, but oblivious of the great and terrible things threatening in the larger world.

So thank you for an exemplary post. I admire it because my own writing lately has been so tediously personal, and it’s good to be reminded of the big picture.

Have a blessed Easter, even if you celebrate it a week too early.

You continue to nail the mess we’re in and the inevitability of suffering and even separation.