Greetings, welcome to Theo’s blog. I am reminded of once entering a remote mountain village. As a tourist, it was like ascending into another world. Perhaps, the best way to illustrate it is one’s first reading of J.R.R. Tolkien’s description of the Shire. There are places in this world, foreigners find fascinating, (or at least I do) if the internet has not opened them up already. For me, it was all quite idyllic. What wonders the world offers the otherwise bored in its common most cracks and crevices along its rich topography.
As I made my way into the initial boundaries of the village, an elderly woman seemed to “pop up” out of the ground from nowhere covered in perspiration to ask, “Where in the world from whence did you come?” At least that is what I recall of the translation of her query. Indeed. She seemed so connected to the rich soil upon which she toiled. I had travelled many days on many forms of transportation from another country entirely into her mundane world. That in itself is worth another tale for another time. Perhaps, the first foreigner of at least a different color to do so to her knowledge. How quaint.
My answer was nowhere near exotic as the moment demanded. With all the simplicity I could muster, I proffered that I merely put one foot in front of the other and ended up there. It is largely like any journey I suppose, but only longer and quite a bit more tedious. After all, wasn’t it Bilbo Baggins who gleefully crooned
The Road goes ever on and on,
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.[1]
I daresay, these steps have not all been made physically. Many more have been done mentally. I do not know if they are worthy of musings or not, but I shall try when time permits to share them here. Most are more of the theological persuasion which often gets into the philosophical. For now, it would seem there will not be much method to my madness.
I cannot say this is the only way to see them. I am quite sure honestly there are much more profound and better ways to perceive them. I know I have in my many years travelled to many places and changed destinations. It is hard to say exactly where home is. You may even have a more excellent view of them from where you sit or have journeyed. But these are mine; however, feeble they may be. At least one can pray that I find better ground if the tales herein are found to be faulty or groundless.
I guess that is the point of these blogs and social media, for one to get it out of their system and share them with the world who awaits and cannot make such journeyings themselves. I am no expert in these matters precisely and my skill at production is minimal at best. For those who have asked, I finally have succumbed to your pleas to put them forth herein. I hope the fashion upon which they fall here does a bit of justice to their actual content, and I don’t miss the mark by too far as to cause one to stumble or fall off to slee–! Zzzzzz… Haha!
[1] ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
