Time in the Shire

My kids know that my favorite part of Lord of the Rings is when Frodo and Sam and friends return to the Shire, and Sam gets up his nerve to go talk to Rosie, and they marry and start a family. That is what all the wars, all the hardships, all the battles against evil, were for. That was the purpose.



Samwise Gangee, Rosie, and family
from LOTR wiki
 

The Shire wasn’t a utopian society. People were somewhat selfish, and occasionally annoying, but often neighborly. It might not have been perfect—but after the horrors of tyranny and evil, it was lush and green, humble, and home.

As C. S. Lewis puts this concept, “The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only—and that is to support the ultimate career.” Being a mom, or being a dad, is life altering, and what it’s all about. Civilization in microcosm is a mom and dad with their new baby—forever after a family.

So, regardless of what’s going on in the world right now, I’m spending time in The Shire, being Grandma. Daughter, Social Sphere, had her first baby this week, and I flew from Texas to the intermountain west (packing all my warmest clothes) to do the most important thing there is to do right now: hold a baby.

I don’t know yet if this will interrupt the writing schedule. I might keep mostly to a schedule—although my reading and research time is somewhat diverted. I will also be doing a fair amount of cooking and dishes, and laundry—the day-to-day things that Sam could take pleasure in after escaping the fires of Mordor. I haven’t exactly been in Mordor; I try to live in civilization. But I’m active in the constant vigilance freedom, prosperity, and civilization require. So maybe this is something like the 20 years between Bilbo Baggins’s birthday party and Frodo’s beginning the Fellowship of the Ring. Or maybe I just get to be part of the Shire forever, and that would be OK for this grandma.

Civilization is built on love. A new baby, who is your own posterity, fills you with love like almost no other experience in life. Parenting, done with love, civilizes the parents as they seek all good things in life for their child. What a blessing!

So, sharing a photo of love come down from heaven.

 

Going with the LOTR comparison, I’ll just mention I’m sharing a room with a dragon, but so far no fire breathing. I guess in The Shire even dragons are relatively civilized.