Round the coast and Out of the Window

Round the Coast and Out of the Window
Acts 20.1-12

The greatest epic of modern times is based on a journey. Millions who have seen the movies of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, not to mention the millions who have read the books, sometimes over and over, are often so taken up with the power and fascination of the story that they do not step back and reflect on what Tolkien was doing. He was standing in a long, ancient and noble tradition, telling the story of the world, and of the central human dramas, in the form of a travel narrative, getting Frodo and his companions to Mount Doom in order to do what needs to be done, but what only they can do. Many of us lead sedentary lives, seldom moving from home for more than a brief holiday. Few people, even today, spend most or all of their lives on the move. We nevertheless feel the power and the pull of a story which enables us to reflect, at a deep, structural level, on the journey through time which we are all making. The ‘journey’ of our lives has many twists and turns. We carry memories of, as we say, ‘where we’ve been’ in the sense of ‘what has happened to us’. We carry hopes and fears for ‘where we might go next’ in the sense of ‘what may yet happen to us’. Even if we live in the same street, or the same house, all our life long, we are on a journey whether we like it or not, and we greatly value stories that help us to see things like that...

Taken from Acts for Everyone Part 2 by Tom Wright