Origin Story of the Ordinary

"And then there was the Shire-folk. I began to have a warm place in my heart for them in the Long Winter, which none of you can remember. They were very hard put to it then: one of the worst pinches they have been in, dying of cold, and starving in the dreadful dearth that followed. But that was the time to see their courage, and their pity one for another. It was by their pity as much as by their tough uncomplaining courage that they survived. I wanted them still to survive. But I saw that the Westlands were in for another very bad time again, sooner or later, though of quite a different sort: pitiless war. To come through that I thought they would need something more than they now had. It is not easy to say what. Well, they would want to know a bit more, understand a bit clearer what it was all about, and where they stood.

They had begun to forget: forget their own beginnings and leg­ends, forget what little they had known about the greatness of the world. It was not yet gone, but it was getting buried: the memory of the high and the perilous. But you cannot teach that sort of thing to a whole people quickly. There was not time. And anyway you must begin at some point, with some one person. I dare say he was 'cho­sen' and I was only chosen to choose him; but I picked out Bilbo." ~Gandalf

 I identify as a halfling, as I wrote before, in the sense that I am a mostly anonymous member of a significantly sized group, the Catholic Church.   I am important to a few people, but have no political or social power beyond that.   I'm not an influencer, and that's good for everyone.   I don't get invited to synods on synodality, and so on.

Halflings or hobbits in the Kingdom of God are ordinary, the laity, and their ordinary powers are normally centered close to their homes.   They marry and raise children; they perhaps befriend their neighbors; perhaps they have some influence in the local running of things, though with wider influence tends to come greater temptations:  to pride, to greed, to management, to misdirected action.  

Still, for better or for worse, halflings have a latent superpower.   I'm not sure if all of them do, but it seems evident that any of them might do.  In other words, you can't generally predict which family or which community might produce a superhero,  someone who changes the course of history.  A saint and a great saint, as St Maximilian Kolbe said.

This is one of the characteristics of eucatastrophe in history, it seems.... a small, single individual does ordinary things, follows a call to something more, and all the forces of evil are left reeling, at least for the time being.

An Israelite slave's foundling son becomes the leader of the Israelites out of slavery and into a Promised Land where they can worship the one true God in freedom.

A young maiden in an outpost of the Roman Empire becomes Theotokos.

An unlettered 24th child of peasant parents gives advice to popes.  Another unlettered child of peasants leads armies in France to victory.

A merchant's son rebuilds the Church, and more peasants' sons become sainted Popes who confront evil forces.

The forces of evil today seem to have turned their Eye on the Shire, so to speak -- noticing how often they are routed by little ones, their energies seem often targeted towards the corruption and weakening of the  little ones in the quiet, hidden areas where the little ones' potential superpowers can be cultivated.   

What Screwtape's minions or the Abyss or whatever you want to name the forces of evil most desires is to distort good things enough so that the halflings turn to troublemaking.    They become a Bill Ferny, a Sacksville-Baggins, a Ted Sandyman.   Perhaps some even become a Smeagol.  

The evil forces' game handicap is that they can never really win in the end, except in ruining some who serve them.    The ones they corrupt end up doing damage, sure, but even their corruption often lends help to the Eucatastrophe.    You end up with a Pharaoh, a Herod, a Roman emporer that does its worst but ends up contributing to the final happy turn of the plot.

As pawns or halflings or hobbits, mere individuals, it is crucially important on a daily level to preserve what is good and fight against what is evil.    Mistakes can be made, and are made.   We are ordinary people.    Frodo couldn't discard the Ring; it took Gollum's agency, used in desperate greed, to destroy the thing and defeat Sauron.    We are not always fully aware of the role we are playing in the scheme of things.  

It comes down to doing the things we should be doing day by day, fighting against temptations, and being prepared in a sort of general way for the moment that we may be called to do something more.   There is a sort of tension between the habit of ordinary, important things and the "inclining of the ear" to hear the call to something more.  

There is something else to consider in this account of origin stories.  It's that every origin story has not only a crucial individual, but many supporters around him or her.   There are a lot of support characters, a kind of circle.   Just because their roles may be secondary in the eucatastrophe, doesn't mean that they are dispensable.   Moses had Miriam and Aaron, Mary had Joseph.   Frodo had Samwise Gamgee who literally carried him for a while.   

As may be evident, I am writing to myself.  It is tempting to become discouraged as evil waxes powerful, and either turn away into illusion or use the enemy's methods to combat the enemy.   I am trying to describe the ordinary powers of the little ones and they are, so far:  doing the ordinary good things you are supposed to do, being attentive to calls for something more, and developing strong support bonds with at least a few others in your life.   I don't think it's an accident that saints often come in little clusters; that gathering a small band of brothers, a Fellowship, is the next step after hearing a call.