"Not All Who Wander Are Lost"

Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Favorite T-Shirt #4

Oldest Son, Michael gave me this one. It truly depicts the love of adventure Charlene and I have developed.

In the first eight years of our marriage we lived in nine houses in eight cities and towns in two states. That love has led us to Haiti, including residency there for two years, to Italy, on adventures to Africa and from Florida to Minnesota, back to Florida and back to Minnesota - and I suppose for me, to Viet Nam.

It caused us to adopt two older children, one seven and one ten – the ten-year-old after we were “empty nesters”. And now it is leading us from Eagan to Roseville. Our latest adventure is to take the message of Jesus to the refugees and immigrants living next door to the Roseville church building.

The expression comes from a poem left in a letter from Gandalf to Frodo. In that letter, it appears as part of a postscript reminding Frodo to make sure that the "Strider" he meets is "the real Strider". The poem thus appears in that context as a means of identifying Aragorn. Aragorn indeed later quotes the first two lines, not knowing the poem is in the letter, and this does help to confirm his identity.  – Wikipedia

The poem goes like this:

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.” 

-      J.R.R. Tolkien, “The Fellowship of the Ring”

The shirt is symbolic of our sense of adventure. We wake up every morning wondering what new adventure God has prepared for us that day. By looking at life that way, we have avoided a lot of disappointments and have welcomed changes in our lives that others might have avoided or bemoaned.