"A Wide World"

Bilbo is “presumed dead” by the hobbits of the Shire, but it was only the journey of life, which took him to places his friends and neighbors could not imagine. 

When Gandalf returns to visit Bilbo, much later, he has some words of wisdom: “Surely you don’t disbelieve the prophecies, because you had a hand in bringing them about yourself?  You don’t really suppose, do you, that all your adventures and escapes were managed by mere luck, just for your sole benefit?  You are a very fine person, Mr Baggins, and I am very fond of you; but you are only quite a little fellow in a wide world after all!” 

 

Truly, the world is large (however much our technology seems to shrink it), and we may find – even if our purposes do not always master the unfolding of events – that our journeys take us to astonishing places, and that the daunting scale of the world merely allows for great adventures, the likes of which we had never imagined.

Image: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/earth-from-space.html

 

[This concludes my coverage of The Hobbit.  I plan to explore The Two Towers next.]