All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.
From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.
It's clear that this poem of Tolkien's is a frequent prayer of mine, because when I went to name this post "Not All Who Wander Are Lost," I realized that I already had a post by that name. What can I say - until that day when the crownless again becomes king, I will keep returning to these words of hope. Ashes, shadows, withering, brokenness, frost, and wandering are so much of reality...I need to be constantly reminded that they are not all of reality - they are not the whole picture. The whole picture - when we no longer see through a glass darkly, but clearly, face to face - rewards our patience with glittering gold, flourishing life, found souls, and justice renewed. Oh, I crave that day!
I am a wanderer. I go through much of life wondering what it would be like if I were somewhere else. Wanderers are not adventurers (though often we might like to be); we do not delight in travel or change for their own sakes, but endure them as a means to an end. The trouble is, we don't always know what that end is. Usually we set off toward some ambiguous "better": an unplottable Utopian dream. We follow clues when they are obvious, but sometimes we lose the scent of Truth. We can't help stopping to smell the roses along the path. And sometimes the path that was once so clear evaporates before our very eyes, like white blazes in a blizzard. We may very well be headed in the wrong direction, but we're afraid to stop moving.
Constant movement has its place in our society - in fact it is probably the norm in urban Chicago. Turnover is expected, and young professionals especially are allowed the leeway of being "poor bachelors" (or bachelorettes) for most of their twenties. But there comes a point when your friends and family start to wonder where your wanderings are taking you. You are haunted by the spoken or unspoken injunction to "settle down," whether that means finding a mate or just finding a place you can lease for more than 12 months and a job that gives you health insurance. Grad school might buy you some time, but it also buys you debt that sooner or later must be paid back with interest. Putting together your life is like putting together one of those torturous puzzles that has two sides, no edges, and no picture on the box to refer to. Half the time what looks like progress is all a mistake, and other times what feels utterly fruitless ends in a breakthrough.
How do we show the world - and for that matter, ourselves - that though we wander, we are not lost? What is our compass, and how can we be sure that its north is North?
