Over Hill and Under Hill (The Hobbit Chapter 4)

There hasn't been much activity on these posts lately. So I'm debating keeping this going, or replacing it with an occasional review of a children's book. Let me know what you think.

Chapter 4 again focuses on the difficult journey and Bilbo reminiscing about his home and the Shire. How far on our journey/adventure with God must we travel before we stop looking back to the past? Will we always be looking back to the past? I've read/heard somewhere that there are no plateaus on the path to Heaven. You are either making progress towards Heaven, or your slipping down to Hell. As my readers are well aware, it takes a lot more effort and time to climb upwards than it does to slip downwards. All the progress you have made for months or years could be wiped away in a day with the wrong decisions. So let us aim to always be vigilant, trust in the Lord for guidance, and constantly strive to be moving upwards.

I could not find anything Catholic or spiritual in the description of the thunderstorm. I just found it fascinating on a mythological level. The description of the stone-giants playing a game of hurling rocks truly made my imagination come to life.

In order to escape the thunderstorm, our adventurers send out a 2 man scout party of Fili and Kili to find them a drier place. They come back, a little too quickly, and find an absolutely wonderful dry cave with enough room for them and their horses. This reminds me of when Moses sent scout teams into the land of Canaan. Joshua and Caleb were the only two who returned with good news. Unfortunately, Fili and Kili did not investigate their cave well, and it turned out to be the front porch for goblin headquarters and led to our adventurers capture.

The description of the goblins spoke to me the most. "They make no beautiful things, but they make many clever ones...Hammers, axes, swords, daggers, pickaxes, tongs, and also instruments of torture, they make very well, or get other people to make to their design, prisoners and slaves that have to work till they die for want of air and light." I believe the goblins at Tolkien's time represented Nazi Germany, but you could argue they represent the darkest part of all of us. Is this a cause of our original sin?

I would lastly like to talk about the two swords, "Orcrist" and "Glamdring the Foe-hammer." They are simply known to the goblins as Biter and Beater. I would compare these to the Bible and the Rosary. I think I would refer to the Bible as Beater, because the Goblin's hated it worse than Biter, and because of the term Bible-beaters. It is important to note that when Gandalf and Thorin were being chased by goblins and turned to fight, the goblins were afraid of Biter and Beater not Gandalf and Thorin. This is how the demons feel about the Bible and the Rosary. They are not afraid of the people who use these tools, but the tools themselves, as they are the tools God has given us to fend off demons!

So what did you think of Chapter Four in The Hobbit? Read along with me, and comment at the bottom. Also, tune in two weeks for my reflections on Chapter Five, unless y'all tell me y'all are done reading about The Hobbit!

A special thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt who was generous enough to provide me with the 75th Anniversary Pocket Edition of The Hobbit.

A Short Rest (The Hobbit Chapter 3)

Chapter 3 is entitled "A Short Rest." I'd like to name it a "A Short Chapter" as there wasn't much in this chapter. It felt like one of those chapters that was there to progress the plot and nothing more. The chapter begins with our adventurers in a bit of somber spirits. Even though the weather had improved (which can definitely change your attitude when traveling), "they did not sing or tell stories that day...nor the next day, nor the day after that." Reality has set in for them, and they now realize this adventure will not be as easy as they once thought. This happens in our Christian life as well. We start off on fire and full of zeal, but eventually Satan comes along, and we get scared. The road starts to look dark, and longer than we thought it would be. We must remember though that we have the True Light as our guide!

"O!" said Bilbo, and just at that moment he felt more fared than he ever remembered feeling before. He was thinking once again of his comfortable chair before the fire in his favourite sitting-room in his hobbit-hole, and of the kettle singing. Not for the last time!" I'm not sure how y'all are but every now and then I think about my old life before my conversion. I think about how much "simpler" things were and about how it was so much "easier" to live in sin than follow God. This is a lie from the father of lies, Satan! You might think your life is "simpler" or "easier," but you will always be empty and hollow until you find rest in the One your heart was made for, God!

I particularly liked the path imagery. The description of how small it is, makes me think of Jesus speaking in Matthew 7:13. Enter through the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction. Gandalf appears almost saintly here as their guide. If not a saint, he could certainly be likened to an elder, who guides Christians on their way to Heaven. It makes me think of the saying, "No one gets to Heaven on their own." We all need some guidance and a helping hand. If we could get to Heaven on our own, we wouldn't need the Church. We could just all be spiritual but not religious and worship God in our backyard.

I must admit the silliness of the elves just aggravated me. Did anyone else feel this way or did I miss something? Maybe it's supposed to symbolize their innocence, but it just annoyed me. The last part that was interesting to me was Elrond's viewing of the map. He knew that this would not turn out well when gold, dwarves, and dragons were involved. This, not surprisingly, reminds me of 1 Timothy 6:10 where St. Paul talks about the love of money being the root of all evil. If your eyes are strictly on gold and nothing else, then your mind and heart become poisoned. Unfortunately, the poison is not contained only to you but can destroy others around you as well.

So what did you think of Chapter Three in The Hobbit? Read along with me, and comment at the bottom. Also, tune in two weeks for my reflections on Chapter Four!

A special thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt who was generous enough to provide me with the 75th Anniversary Pocket Edition of The Hobbit.

Roast Mutton (The Hobbit Chapter 2)

Reading and discussing Chapter Two of The Hobbit was a bit tough for me. I've had a lot on my mind, so I'm wondering if I missed some things, or the chapter didn't speak to me as much as Chapter One. I will press on though!

When we last left our young hobbit, Bilbo was going to bed after a long night of entertaining dwarves and trying to avoid an adventure. Upon waking he sees a mess in the kitchen and faces the reality that last night wasn't some awful dream, and that he had an awful lot of cleaning to do. I think we've all had mornings like that. However, if we look at it from a spiritual perspective, then it's as if Bilbo is saying surely God didn't really want me drop everything and follow Him. I mean who will take care of all the daily things that need done if I don't?

Enter Gandalf, who has grown weary of Bilbo's excuses. After directing Bilbo to the letter on his mantle, and before Bilbo can come up with more excuses, Gandalf scurried him off. Some people choose to see Gandalf as a God or Christ figure when reading Tolkien? If you choose to see him as one, do you think this was a violation of Bilbo's free will? Yes, Bilbo still had the ability to say "No," but it doesn't seem like he had the willpower to do so.

The journey then begins. At first Bilbo is enjoying the adventure and thinking to himself that it's not as bad as he thought it would be. Of course that is because he was still in "hobbit-lands" with his creature comforts of tobacco, pocket handkerchiefs, and plenty of food. It is only when he was in an unrecognized land, the weather got worse, and they lost a great deal of supplies that Bilbo started to regret his decision. This particular passage spoke most to me. When God first calls us on an adventure, we're not generally going to have hardships to begin with. If we did, most people would immediately change their mind and abandon the adventure. However, as we continue on the adventure, things will get tougher, and we must ultimately decide to continue to follow.

Lastly, I would like to talk ever so briefly about the trolls. It seems a shame to devote so little attention to one of the iconic scenes in The Hobbit, but time is running short for me. What I noticed mainly is that Bilbo makes some key errors in approaching the trolls. He did a fine job spying on them, but that is where it should have ended. Instead, he decided to try his luck at robbing them and failed miserably. Young Christians make this mistake when encountering Satan. We either are ashamed to ask for help or too proud. Both are grave errors and can be disastrous, even deadly.

So what did you think of Chapter Two in The Hobbit? Read along with me, and comment at the bottom. Also, tune in two weeks for my reflections on Chapter Three!

A special thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt who was generous enough to provide me with the 75th Anniversary Pocket Edition of The Hobbit.

An Unexpected Party (The Hobbit Chapter 1)

Welcome to my first every other Wednesday installment where I provide my spiritual reflections on The Hobbit. Before I start, I would like to put some disclaimers out. These are my personal reflections. They are not the textbook analysis of what each chapter means, but instead how certain sections struck me or made me feel. This will also not be a thorough reflection on every section of every chapter. I will address sections that spoke to me. I have to admit I was nervous starting these posts. I was afraid that I would read a whole chapter of The Hobbit and have no more than five words to say about it. Thankfully, with Chapter 1 at least, that was not the case.

The mere description of Bilbo's hobbit-hole was enough to make me pause and reflect on my own "hobbit-hole." Like Bilbo, my family is blessed to live in a beautiful house complete with "panelled walls, and floors tiled and carpeted, provided with polished chairs." We also have "bedrooms, bathrooms, cellars, pantries (lots of these), wardrobes (he had whole rooms devoted to clothes), kitchens, dining rooms." However, do I have too much? If God said to me, sell all of this and your house, how would I respond? Would it be a struggle for me like the rich young man in Mark 10:17-31?

Then, after a brief description of Bilbo's parents (and hobbits in general), an unexpected visitor arrives. We know this visitor as Gandalf, and in this particular scene he seems to be a Christ-figure. Bilbo is very hospitable to the stranger, much more than I would have been, but that quickly changes when Gandalf invites him to go on an adventure. What would I have said or done had I been in Bilbo's shoes? Would I have accepted his invitation to adventure? Perhaps, a better question...What do I say to God when He asks me to go on an adventure with Him? Am I willing to step out of my comfort zone and follow Him? Would I have been so willing to drop my nets on the shore like Peter, Andrew, James and John in Mark 1:16-20?

Bilbo, clever hobbit that he is, points Gandalf elsewhere in hopes of being rid of him. "You might try over The Hill or across The Water." This reminds me of Moses and the Burning Bush in Exodus 3 and 4. God gave Moses a job to do (or an adventure to go on if you'd like to look at it that way), but Moses kept coming up with excuses for why he couldn't and in Exodus 4:13 said, "If you please, my Lord, send someone else!" How often am I like Moses or Bilbo in turning down adventures out of fear and not wanting to put myself on the line?

Lastly, Biblo tells Gandalf, "Sorry I don't want any adventures, thank you. Not today. Good morning! But please come to tea - anytime you like! Why not tomorrow? Come tomorrow! Good-bye!" I couldn't think of a Scripture reference for this, but it reminds me of the thought of putting God in a neat little box. We want God in our lives, just like Bilbo on some level wants Gandalf in his life. However, we want God in our lives on our terms. We want to say, "This is God. I understand Him to be X, and never Y. He's here when I need Him, and when I don't I put him away on a shelf until the next time I need Him." God does not work like that though, so don't even try it!

So what did you think of Chapter One in The Hobbit? Read along with me, and comment at the bottom. Also, tune in two weeks for my reflections on Chapter Two!

A special thank you to Houghton Mifflin Harcourt who was generous enough to provide me with the 75th Anniversary Pocket Edition of The Hobbit.