I’m preparing to go out of town as I write this, and will be out of time when it goes live (my posts are generally pre-written and scheduled for release), so travel is on my mind.

Travel is such an important trope in life and in fiction. I’ve heard it said that the two greatest symbols of human life are the road and the garden. (That was from a text we had to read in my narratology course in grad school, I think.)

Travel. The road.

Roads go ever ever on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Roads go ever ever on
Under cloud and under star,
Yet feet that wandering have gone
Turn at last to home afar.
Eyes that fire and sword have seen
And horror in the halls of stone
Look at last on meadows green
And trees and hills they long have known.

-Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit

The road is the contrast to the garden–the garden that symbolizes flourishing, stability, home.

In this life, we can only appreciate things by contrasts. Christians have always spoken of this life as a road, as a pilgrimage to our heavenly home, the New Jerusalem, the new garden more beautiful than Eden.

Meanwhile, it’s true even in an earthly sense that we never appreciate home as much as when we return there after some time away.

Travel is harsh, uncomfortable, frustrating, stressful. Busy. Those experiences teach and shape us. And for that we should all be grateful.

We should also be grateful for home–for rest, and a sense of belonging that can never be complete in this world even if it’s real.