Some years back, I got to go to New Zealand. Before I left, I was given strict orders by my son Matthew to bring back something from The Lord of the Rings. The films were shot in locations all over New Zealand and there are still a few traces of the sets used in the production. For only a mildly exorbitant cost, enthusiasts such as myself could get a tour of the Alexander sheep farm and check out the remains of Hobbiton, including Bag End (where Bilbo and Frodo lived) and the Party Tree (where Bilbo gave his farewell speech and disappeared before the astonished eyes of all the Hobbit folk).
I figured, “Hey! I love the films and I’ll be crazy if I travel all that way (12 and a half grueling hours from L.A. to Auckland) and then don’t take the extra effort of getting to Bag End for what is likely to be my only shot at the place.” So I went and traipsed around Hobbiton, thinking things like “Here is where Gandalf shot off the fireworks for the Hobbit children! This is where the party happened! I’m sitting on Frodo’s front step! Cool!” (Yes, I’m a total tourist. What can I say?)
Finally, in obedience to Matthew’s orders, I took a small pebble from the doorstep of Bag End and gathered a few pine needles from the ground under the Party Tree. Mission accomplished.
When I brought them home, I told the whole story of my trip to the family, who gathered round to look at the pictures and ooh and ahh over different presents. Sean and Peter (the youngest) got fun toy birds from New Zealand and Luke (the oldest) got an NZ shirt. But the biggest cheers came for the rock and the pine needles (enough for everybody, not just Matthew). We watched the Hobbiton scenes from The Fellowship of the Ring on the DVD and I pointed out exactly where I’d gathered the needles and gotten the pebble. My kids unhesitatingly declared me World’s Coolest Father. I’m told the U.S. Mint is going to strike a medallion in my honor later this year.
And yet, what did I do but demonstrate that relics are a profoundly human thing? People love having a physical connection to things that matter to them, whether it’s pine needles from Hobbiton, or the watch that Grandpa owned, or the keepsake of a lover who is off fighting in a war across the sea.
When my father died, my first instinct was to be sure to retrieve from our shed the fishing poles we used on the Skagit River. I have them to this day. All the money in the world would not induce me to sell them. They are a tie with him, a physical, tangible contact with the love I have for him and, by God’s grace, that he still has for me somewhere in the heavenlies. They not only recall the past, they connect heaven and earth in a way and give me a little foreshadow of the hope of the heaven I tasted with Dad on those long summer mornings in the boat, waiting for the fish to strike.
Relics, heirlooms, keepsakes are profoundly human things. And since God has chosen to reveal himself in a human way by the incarnation of Jesus Christ, we do well to cultivate such physical connections between us and generations. I fully expect that my Hobbiton needles will become keepsakes, not only of Hobbiton, but of the love I bear for my children. By God’s grace, I pray that they pass from being merely human souvenirs to sacramentals: tokens of the love and delight I have in my boys and of their love for me. In that way, they will become signs of the ultimate physical connection we have with God in the family of the saints: the Eucharist of the Word made flesh.
Northwest Catholic - July/August 2016