When I first read The Lord of the Rings, I was fixated on the trees in Lothlorien. Legolas describes them with reverence:
[Lothlorien] is the fairest of all the dwellings of my people. There are no trees like the trees of that land. For in the autumn their leaves fall not, but turn to gold. Not till the spring and the new green opens do they fall, and then the boughs are laden with yellow flowers; and the floor of the wood is golden, and golden is the roof, and its pillars are of silver, for the bark of the trees is smooth and grey.
The trees show seasons of beauty but never death. This is heaven for me. Heaven is not stagnant. It is not one moment perpetuated for eternity. Heaven is the life and beauty of earth but without decay.
And this is what we yearn for--the beauty without the pain, the abundance without the loss, the new without the end of an old new. It is always birth and life. So we do not fear change, we fear the end of what delights our soul.
And today I am a mother that fears the end of babies in my home. I am yearning for new life. But choosing to bring another soul into our family is the heaviest of decisions for we working poor. I can go on Zillow and find another home in another state where we can get better work and better pay, but then we would miss our family, our incredible neighbors, and our backyard with infinite adventures. I would not miss our ceilings, or the damn road an arms-length from the kitchen. But I would miss my new friends--the ones I looked for and worked for over these past six years. Yes, you. I would miss YOU.
So here were are at the idea of heaven. I will never stop yearning. It is who I am, and I believe who we all are. We are here to look for there, grasp it with a light hand of hope, and pull it toward us and the ones we love and meet and pass on the highway.
Now to take this mother-heart and create new delights with Lion and Bear.
