There is much that Sam would like to go home to, the gentle beauty of the Shire, good friends and Rosie Cotton. Sam would like to be married, to build a home and raise a family. Simple and good desires....
The twentieth century philosopher and theologian, Paul Tillich, spoke about the need, in our age of anxiety about meaninglessness, to find a courage to be.
In many ways Frodo is a modern man in search of meaning. His restlessness is growing even before he leaves the Shire and when the Ring goes to the Fire he sees no more purpose to his existence. Sam is, by contrast, a pre-modern man, rooted in a sense of place and a stable society and unafflicted by Frodo’s anxiety...
a couple of posts back I criticized the Pope for acting like the isolated modern man was the only one in the world, and pointed out that a lot of cultures still saw meaning in family and friends and the blessings of ordinary life.
Before Vatican II, most Catholics knew that one could serve God in ordinary life.
This was popular back then as the "little way" of St Therese (since we can't do great deeds, we will do small deeds with love to serve God),
Nor is this idea limited to Catholicism: Luther agreed (insisting one could serve God just as well in the family as in the cloister)...and a Hindu saint told a lady who had come to him saying she no longer believed in God so could not pray, told her that her husband was god, her family was god, i.e. in caring for her family, she was serving God.
This is comforting to me: since I can no longer work as a physician saving lives in poor areas of the world, nevertheless, I can serve God in my daily deeds, which nowadays is mainly feeding the ten feral cats who come here at breakfast time to dine.
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