"He (Bilbo) used often to say there was only one Road; that it was like a great river: it's springs were at every doorstep and every path was it's tributary. "It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to."--Frodo Baggins in The Fellowship Of The Ring.

And so I have stepped onto the one Road. The one about which Bilbo told Frodo. The one that leads in front of all of our front doors. It is a road that rarely for me leads to exotic places but often to Kroger for adventures of a decidedly non-heroic sort. But today that same road led to the Chic-Fil-A (okay not so dangerous or adventurous) and then to the Lexington airport.

I was reminded that it is a more risky road than usual when they made me remove my shoes in an almost religious ritual before I could enter the holy of holies. Whether my stocking feet were to remind me of the danger of terror in a modern world or to reinforce the holy awe of the journey ahead, I can not say.

The familiar road so often traveled is now leading me to a place I have never gone before. Who knows what dangerous business it is sweeping me towards. But I am going to try to keep my feet even as it sweeps me across the sky to an ancient and mystery filled island. An old place that is new for me, the fertile land of so many great stories. Perhaps the key to its powerful stories is in the air, the loam, the winds and fog, or the people that the place produces. Who knows?

All I can say is that the simple concrete pad of a driveway at Raes Creek Court has launched me on a journey, with its risks and dangers, adventures and treasures. And I know that it is the same road that will finally bring me home.