Rivendell rest

Finding Home in Anglicanism (Part 6)

I first read The Lord of the Rings series sixteen years ago, when I was pregnant with my oldest. I was 23, and I had tried to start them the previous year, but life (meeting my husband online, “courting”, and getting married in seven month’s time) got in the way, and it wasn’t really a season for reading much. But in 2009, I had oodles of time on my hands as my new husband worked, I made a home in the tiny travel trailer we lived much of our first married year in, and I tried to do everything I could to keep horrible pregnancy sickness from getting the better of me. The perfect time to read the trilogy that had garnered such a worldwide following. In that reading, I was intrigued and excited to finally be in the know of what everyone was talking about (it took me years beyond that to finally be able to watch the movies as I’m very visually affected by evil and darkness so I didn’t even have that knowledge), but I certainly didn’t appreciate the depth of the beauty of what I was reading. I think my mind was (understandably!) caught up more in thoughts of cloth diapers, co-sleeping, and homebirth, than the intricacies of Middle Earth.

Fast forward to this summer, and I’m re-visiting The Lord of the Rings series again. Last fall, my then eight-year-old son, Caedmon, discovered the series via audio-book and he became obsessed. His love inspired me, and then when I discovered that the incredible Anselm Society will be hosting a Lord of the Rings weekend in September, I knew I had to read them again, if only to keep up with Caedmon during the trivia night!

It’s been an utterly lovely journey, and I’m definitely gleaning more from them this second time around, especially since I’d like to think my literary appreciation has matured over the last decade and a half. I’m currently at Rivendell, and like many over the years, struck by the utter sense of peace and rest that pervades the time spent there. The beginning description is very apt… “Frodo was now safe in the Last Homely House east of the Sea. That house was, as Bilbo had long ago reported, ‘a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all’. Merely to be there was a cure for weariness, fear, and sadness.” Could you ask for anything more from a home?

Currently being at Rivendell in my reading meant that my interest was immediately piqued when someone I follow on Substack shared an incredible article called “A Church Like Rivendell” from The Narnian. Along with making me gasp and want to weep with longing at the picture gracing the top of the article, reading it drew me in and made me feel seen in ways that I haven’t for a long time. It opened with “There is an ache in the chest of modern believers. It’s not rebellion. It’s not boredom. It’s hunger…They want something sacred. Something thick. Something real.” That has been me for almost all of my adult life.

And then: “We don’t need to invent a new kind of church. We need to recover something ancient. Picture a church like Rivendell, tucked away in the hills, defiant against the darkness, humming with a beauty not of this world. A sanctuary like Elrond’s haven in Tolkien’s tales: a place of healing, memory, and music, ‘a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all.’ A place where the air itself might sing of rest, where even warriors lay down their swords for a while. In Rivendell, merely to be there was a cure for weariness and sadness. Can you imagine a church so homely and holy that just stepping inside lifts your burdens?”

I kept reading, and it was truly like looking in a mirror as the writer articulated so much of what I have looked for in a church for literal decades. Worship music that wasn’t a glorified concert, sacred rhythms, a focus on remembering Christ through weekly Communion, intentionally tying ourselves back to the ancient Church and the centuries of faithfulness there. So many things that I rarely articulated because it seemed like I was the only one.

This ache had been there for so many years that I have just accepted that it will never be fulfilled. But as I was reading this article, and every point was resonating with me, I realized: I have this now. Every single piece of that longing is now a reality in our lives since becoming part of our local Anglican church. The startling clarity of this abundance brought me up short in my reading as I started to process how completely this decades-long dream has been fulfilled. And I realized that it all could be summarized in one word: rest. (Underscored by the fact that multiple times over the past months of going to the Anglican church, my husband, who was raised in a very performance-based religious culture, has summed up the service by exclaiming, “It’s just so restful!”)

If you look at just the first several chapters of the Bible, you can see we were made to rest. “Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.” (Genesis 2:1-3) We were made in God’s image, and He intentionally rested. Not because He was tired, but because He knew rest is good. And so He established regular rest for us, because He loves us and knows what is best for us.

In a lot of ways, following that logical progression should be pretty simple, but I know for myself (and for most others I know), we struggle to truly rest. “Oh, there’s too much to do!” “Rest is for the weak.” “I don’t deserve to rest — I’m behind and I need to get this finished!” I would even venture to say that we’re actually scared to rest, either because we think others will judge us (since we believe our worth is in what we do), or we think we’ll never finish everything we “need” to do.

I was talking about this with my mom yesterday (she’s currently writing a Bible study on spiritual maturity, and we were relating part of that maturity to being able to rest in God), and I brought up something that had occurred to me over the course of our conversation. That it’s interesting that the Sabbath rest that God established for His people is cyclical, and it’s not a destination or earned. Resting on the seventh day wasn’t a reward achieved when you got to a certain level or accomplished a specific milestone. It was just matter-of-fact, and once the Sabbath was over, you went right back to what you were working at for the next six days, and the cycle continued. The term my mom used was “resting the yoke”, and I love that visual because it implies resting in the middle of what you’re doing, not because you’ve reached the point where you can remove the yoke. I think that’s part of what Jesus meant when He said “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:28-30)

For myself, the majority of my experience in Evangelicalism was hyper-focused on all the things you need to be “doing for Jesus”. As a young adult, I got caught up in all of that, but it turned sour as it quickly devolved into a focus on works, with an emphasis on “have you stepped out of your comfort zone for God?!”. (A friend and I were recently talking about how for so many years we were taught that Catholicism is especially focused on empty works, but over time I have seen the same works-focus in so many non-denominational churches as well. It’s not specific to any one tradition!) It becomes all about the doing, with nary a mention of the being in Christ.

And all that doing leaves no room for rest. We’re so desperate to prove something to God and others that we can’t stop and accept the grace of rest He’s extending to us. At our Anglican church, every single Sunday we are reminded of what are called “The Comfortable Words”: “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) and “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) They truly are ones we need to be reminded of every single week.

May we all find our Homely House, and remember Who is the “cure for weariness, fear, and sadness”, and accept His grace to us in rest.

“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God. For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.” (Hebrews 4:9-10)

“Finding Home in Anglicanism” series

Part One: Dust and brokenness

Part Two: Wholly beginner

Part Three: I never knew

Part Four: “O God, make speed to save us”

Part Five: The beginning of the Abundance Chronicles