When I say childhood, I mean just that. My father came into my room when I was about 10. I was reading a series of mystery books at the time, a little above my reading level, but nothing compared to what he handed me. First it was The Hobbit. “Everyone should read this,” he told me. I saw the size, opened it and saw the print size, and felt a slight sinking inside of me. This was going to be dull, I thought. Then I began reading about the Shire, and my journey began.

I never looked back.

I devoured the series. Then moved on to The Silmarillion (if you don’t know it, you should look it up). Then read the 10 books of notes J.R.R Tolkien’s son compiled from his father’s study. I couldn’t get enough of that magical land. My brother and I often acted out the scenes from the books. Toys from that series were much scarcer than they are now, but our imaginations made up for it. Stacks of books formed walls, plastic army men were the soldiers of Gondor, and plastic dinosaurs, cave men, cowboys and Indians, and an assorted collection of monsters from the Godzilla franchise formed the evil armies of Mordor. The fiercest of battles ensued, as Faramir’s company attempted to retake the wall of Pellenor from a Nazgul and his flying beast (otherwise known as my rubber Mothra toy).

Recently I completed my Blu-ray collection of Peter Jackson's Middle Earth films. The stories I loved had been brought to life in the big screen version of which I’d always dreamed. As I finished watching the last of The Hobbit trilogy and Billy Boyd closed us out with that heart-wrenching song (admit it, it was heart-wrenching), I suddenly became very melancholy. It felt like I was saying goodbye to a dear friend. In a way, I was doing just that. At the end of the theatrical journey through this land and its story, it struck me how much of who I am is owed to those books. Before you laugh at basing ones self- identity on a series of fantasy novels, hear me out. You see, in those books, I read about a land I would never really walk in, about people doing tremendous and heroic things, changing the fate of their world, in ways that, practically speaking, I will likely never be able to mimic (at least not in the world of the sane). As a boy, that inspired me. Reading about these lofty actions and grand quests, it made me long to do something grand myself. It filled me with a desire to be more, a need to do more, and a thirst to seek after more. It awakened in me a hunger for lofty action.

Don’t call for a strait jacket just yet; I’m not planning to get a sword and go looking for orcs. But as I look around me, I see people everywhere that are content to merely exist. Their actions, thoughts, words, etc. are merely a matter of course without a great deal of motivation behind them, or purpose. They are simply floating down the stream of life, occasionally looking around as if to say, “Huh, I suppose this branch of the stream is as good as any.” I’m not even saying I believe I will change the world on global scale. But when I do something, it should be to make a change. That sense of purpose can be invigorating. It lets me look at my 4 year old daughter dancing (if you can call it that) to “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” and thinking to myself that I’ve got a pretty amazing and daunting purpose. It lets me look at the people around me in what could be considered a somewhat mundane job and thing to myself that I’ve got a pretty amazing opportunity to influence someone for good. It means I can look at my wife, even in the moments that to an outsider appear commonplace, and think to myself that this marriage business she signed on with me (for some strange reason) is a very lofty aspiration. It’s why I want to teach, and it’s why I enjoy the study of philosophy and theology.

It reminds me that I need something greater than myself, and a purpose that is bigger than me, and drives me to my Creator for that purpose.