To Middle Earth and back
Does anyone else remember the old hymn, 'To be a pilgrim'? It was published in 1678 and taken from John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
He who would valiant be
'Gainst all disasters
Let him in constancy
Follow the Master
There's no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent
To be a pilgrim.
Who so beset him round
With dismal stories
Do but themselves confound
His strength the more is.
No foes shall stay his might
Though he with giants fight
He will make good his right
To be a pilgrim.
Since Lord Thou dost defend
Us with Thy Spirit
We know we at the end
Shall life inherit
Then fancies flee away
I'll fear not what men say
I'll labour night and day
To be a pilgrim.
I love it so much. It is one of my favourite hymns ever and I've just really enjoyed singing it again....don't know what the neighbours thought....we have quite a lot of neighbours.....
Tolkien's Lord of the Rings is about a pilgrimage. According to Wikipedia, whom I always trust, 'A pilgrimage is a journey, often into an unknown or foreign place, where a person goes in search of new or expanded meaning about their self, others, nature, or a higher good, through the experience. It can lead to a personal transformation, after which the pilgrim returns to their daily life.' Although Frodo Baggins returns from his pilgrimage, Christians never return from theirs.....the road that we walk by faith, just keeps on going. Spiritually speaking, on this earth I will never return to my armchair like Bilbo returned to his.
Well we have been to Middle Earth and back. Our lovely and beautiful daughter Sophie got married in New Zealand, not far from the site of the Lord of the Rings films' Misty Mountains; if you know your geography of Middle Earth.
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These days my husband and I wonder why anyone likes travelling for its own sake. Like Bilbo Baggins, we like comfort and familiar things. But journeys are necessary....all the unpleasantness of 48 hours on trains and airplanes were worth it for the wonderful privilege of being with our daughter when she married her rather gallant husband. We spent a wonderful month with them before heading back to the UK, where we spent the next weeks largely travelling visiting friends and family.
Despite the pain, that never totally goes away, of being separated from family and friends, we are glad to be back in Ankara and with our dear friends here. We are glad to sleep in the same bed every night and go back to the routine of studying Turkish and our academic work. But it has reminded us, that like Bunyan's Christian and Tolkien's Bilbo and Frodo, the life of a believer is a pilgrimage that is as demanding as the physical discomforts of trying to sleep in airports and queuing for hours in Manchester Airport's terrible Terminal 1. On the Christian journey there are many discomforts, disasters, discouragements and sometimes we may even fight with spiritual giants, getting wounded in the process. The journey to be with our daughter on her wedding day was so wonderful. We were so blessed in the going and wouldn't have missed it for the world. Likewise, I am so blessed on this Christian pilgrimage and I am not missing it for the world.