For the most part I'm enjoying Terry Breverton's, Immortal Words: History's Most Memorable Quotations and the Stories Behind Them. The other morning after reading one of the Buddha's recommendations, " Doubt everything, find your own light," I was thinking of one of my sweetest distant relatives who has given a great amount of credence to the Buddha's advice yet her heart is continually vexed in doubting and despondency itself. I think rationally so because of the question: what kind of assurance can one have that this "light" is real light or true? As I've been thinking about her compared to myself, we both have one thing in common-that is the hunger for meaning, the quest for understanding, the search for answers and solutions at the center of both our human condition.
As clinically trained in the study of Rational Emotive and Rational Behavioral therapies, I understand that reality must be essentially recognized but there is very little that begs the question of what the nature of reality is? Nor was that the purpose of using either of the therapies. I have had to find the answers to what it's existence is all about, what is the purpose of life, if any, and what should I try to give answers to, elsewhere. For years I had neglected a much-neglected resource for reflection in this area and I have of late returned to the book of Ecclesiastes, from the preacher, or Qoheleth in Hebrew. It is a book that speaks profoundly to this time of my life, asking questions, setting out contradictions, and forcing me to sense what absurdity, as an outlook, is really like.
As clinically trained in the study of Rational Emotive and Rational Behavioral therapies, I understand that reality must be essentially recognized but there is very little that begs the question of what the nature of reality is? Nor was that the purpose of using either of the therapies. I have had to find the answers to what it's existence is all about, what is the purpose of life, if any, and what should I try to give answers to, elsewhere. For years I had neglected a much-neglected resource for reflection in this area and I have of late returned to the book of Ecclesiastes, from the preacher, or Qoheleth in Hebrew. It is a book that speaks profoundly to this time of my life, asking questions, setting out contradictions, and forcing me to sense what absurdity, as an outlook, is really like.
As I open the book, I'm immediately confronted with its most famous words, "Vanity, vanity, all is vanity and a striving after wind." Or in another translation: "'Meaningless! Meaningless!' says the Teacher, 'Utterly Meaningless! Everything is meaningless.'" Not a very inspiring start, is it, son! Here this guy has given a great part of his life to exploring life, in examining what is good for humanity to do under the sun, and, what I get out of it is, some severe depressing results. Is everything in my life bound by inevitability? Really? Have my freedoms been constrained by overwhelming necessities? Has that led to my depression at times? Is this the reason why there seems to be an endless cycle of repetition, at this seasons in my life that I feel boredom, pointlessness, and despair?
Not all hope is lost for me! Thank You Lord, that I have read of many a sage, philosopher, and guru that have come to similar conclusions. What I find unique to Ecclesiastes is how the author tackles the issues and what he is leading me to see. By laying out the vanities of life, the propensities of youth, the all-encompassing reach of death, and the vast urgency of wisdom as a potential life-philosophy, he engages a chaotic world with some serious reflections. The writer has taken me on a journey through my life to this point, reminding me with questions and exasperations that I have encounter and will inevitably do in these remaining years. I am seeing how his own desire is to try and figure things out so he can live well and be content, and encourage me to do the same. I think he was probably hoping to discover the key or missing ingredient, the clues to true and lasting success and happiness, as I am.
But then, a wrinkle; the world he began to see is one that displays both good and bad at the same time. He sees the superiority of wisdom, yet even the wise are reduced by death. He sees injustice being done and oppressors prevailing, yet he also notes there is a higher justice. He cites the sayings and actions of wise people but then goes on to point out how quickly they are forgotten! And frankly it has become a tone that is beginning to wear on me. I too, see ambiguity and fuzziness, a mixture of pain and problems, food, friends, atrophied mussels, wisdom, and a spiritual hunger. These things all dwell in the same world at the same time, and this is a difficult reality for me to digest, as I experience them. Like Qoheleth, I want some better answers, a tidier analysis, more comforting visions—and I have them, but not sitting here, reading in doubt and darkness.
But then I get my soul legs under me and realize Qoheleth is showing me the futility of life without God. He is making me feel what life is like from an honest look at how things truly are. He is giving me a severe picture of reality and suggests that God is still worth seeking somewhere in the midst of it. Even prior to the coming of the Messiah, Qoheleth paints my stark need for the God who is there.
Father, God, thank You that even though this world is disordered and damaged and finding answers in it is absurd, You have not abandoned me to absurdity. Thank You for coming into my world of pain and confusion to become my Qoheleth, Teacher, Guide and Comforter. I want to thank You, Jesus, for going to the cross with the full force of every ugly, honest reality of Ecclesiastes on Your shoulders. Standing for me in that darkness, giving me an equally severe image of a God worth seeking in the midst of it. Amen
