Hobbits in Black Hats

For those who care to read offline, and live vicariously through the realm that is Middle Earth, I highly recommend the latest issue of Christian History. (Note: At this writing, the previous edition is listed as the "current" one online, but hey, kids, scroll down and check out that back issue on Aquinas, eh?) This magazine currently examines the life and work of Lord of the Rings author J R R Tolkien; including the inspiration behind Middle Earth and its characters, his Catholic faith, and his role in the conversion of C S Lewis. Readers will also learn of Tolkien's artistic skill with the brush and pen, which graced the covers and pages of his early editions, and his discovery late in life, during the turbulent 1960s, of an emerging American following.

We also see Tolkien placed in the larger role of great Christian authors of the last century -- the so-called "Christian Humanists."

But the article that has meant the most to me, is the one about his circle of friends who gathered at Eagle and Child pub in Oxford, a group known as "The Inklings." Lewis, who was also among their numbers, wrote of this gathering: "The fun is often so fast and furious that the company probably thinks we're talking bawdy when in fact we're very likely talking theology." I don't imagine walking into The Cat's Eye in Fells Point (Baltimore) anytime soon, and engaging my fellow seekers in a lively debate between Thomism and Human Personalism; I will have to be content with dancing the night away.

Then again, as a wise man once said: "You can't have everything; where would you put it?"

Still, it's always great fun to join such fellows as Peter Vere, Michael Rose, among others, as I have over the past, over a pint at an Irish pub. There we would engage in the sort of acquired humor with a touch of Chestertonian wit, laced with frequent bouts of veiled ribaldry and inside jokes, not to mention the inspiration for numerous attempts at the written word. Such camaraderie would surely come close to the experience the gentlemen of Oxford must have had back in their day.

It's also the best part about reading too much for one's own good.

I will be sure and pack this issue with me, in one of the few items of light reading I'll be taking to the Buffalo Jam in West Virginia tomorrow week, where I'll be disappearing for a few days to commune with other zydeco dance gypsies. I'll be offline until this time next week, but I'll be posting selections from my journal entries upon my return.

Till then...

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.

(Update June 24: This link takes the reader to the editor's column on the Tolkien issue.)