A Most Wretched Adventure...Right in the House

"Seems to know as much about the inside of my larders as I do myself!" thought Mr. Baggins, who was feeling positively flummoxed, and was beginning to wonder whether a most wretched adventure had not come right into his house."

This delightful little quip from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit jumped to my attention about a month or so ago. Not surprisingly, it jumped out at me because it resonated with where life was, and is, for me. In order to fully understand the impact of this quote, a bit of background on Hobbits, and Mr. Bilbo Baggins in particular, is in order.

Hobbits are one of the creatures which populate Middle Earth, the world created in Tolkien's books. Identifying characteristics include: hairy feet, child sized height, and a love of food, pipe smoking, and song. More importantly though, hobbits hate anything out of the ordinary. They like life to be pleasant, familiar, and generally speaking, comfortable. Anything which smacks of adventure is to be avoided at any cost.

At the time of the quote above, Bilbo Baggins' life has been nearly turned upside down. A band of 13 dwarves has descended on his house, invited themselves to tea, and are about to whisk him away on a long journey full of many perils and dangers. While he's not aware of the trip he is about to take, Bilbo has some unsettling premonitions that an adventure is afoot. What's more, the adventure seems to be forcing its way into his life, whether he likes it or not. Not only is it forcing its way into his life, it's come right into his house! Forget privacy or a place to retreat. Apparently nowhere is safe when trying to avoid the adventure.

Isn't life often like this? One doesn't get to chose the adventures you go on, or when they happen. They simply invite themselves in and take you with them. And, they usually come along at very inconvenient moments. You know, the times where the very last thing you want to have is an adventure mixing up life for you. Further, they usually don't seem to want to leave you alone. As you crawl into your safe places of retreat, the adventures seem to find a way to follow you.

For better or worse, though, we don't have the option to pick and chose our adventures. As Lewis puts it in The Last Battle, we need to "take the adventure that Aslan sends us", even when that's a wretched adventure that is forcing its way right into our house. Knowing who is in charge of history makes all the difference in how we approach the twists that come up in our lives.

Most of my post has explained what adventures can be like. How to interact with them is an important follow up question. Assuming you agree with my description of adventures, how would you encourage someone to think about "taking the adventure"?