Traveling Companions

“You can trust us to stick to you through thick and thin – to the bitter end. And you can trust us to keep any secret of yours – closer than you yourself keep it. But you cannot trust us to let you face trouble alone, and go off without a word. We are your friends, Frodo. Anyway: there it is. We know most of what Gandalf has told you. We know a good deal about the ring. We are horribly afraid–but we are coming with you; or following you like hounds.”   Merry, to Frodo, The Fellowship of the Ring."

I cry a lot these days. Those wretchedly beautiful heart wrenching tears of change and loss and recognition of how deep and tight the silken chords of fellowship are wrapped and entwined around the most tender, palpitating nerves of the heart.   And so you mourn what you are losing, but celebrate what you have.  A strange and painful and beautiful mixture of emotions.

Bilbo and Frodo were both invited to embark upon a journey.  But they did not journey alone.  If we journey to our quest alone we will surely perish, or starve, or turn back in failure or desperation.   Man was not made to journey alone.  As we look ahead, to this road stretching into the horizon, we know that we are surrounded by a loving and caring and strengthening fellowship of companions.   

And like Frodo, when Sam and Merry and Pippin came running alongside, our hearts burst with the painful, happy knowledge of what it feels like to be loved.