Life, Death, and the Futility of Everything: Part 4

Hey All,

In Spiritual Formations Henri Nouwen tells the story of a university professor seeking Zen. The professor walks into the Zen master’s house and explains the reason for his visit and his desire to learn all he can from the master. The Zen master served the man some tea. He poured the professors cup full, and then kept right on pouring. The professor watched and exclaimed, “What are you doing! The cup is full no more will tea will go in!” The Zen master responded by saying, “Like the cup you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I teach you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

For the past few weeks now (1, 2, 3) we’ve been wading through Ecclesiastes and exploring the worldview of Qoheleth. The reason for this study is because when I read Ecclesiastes I can see that my cup is full of my own misguided hang-ups, ideas, wants, and beliefs and that I am in desperate need of emptying my cup. I easily slide into a worldview dictated by my various desires, passions, and abilities. I start to lose sight of the fact that God’s name is not Carl. Ecclesiastes helps me to let go of those notions. Ecclesiastes is a spiritual enema. It helps clear out our heads and hearts so that God can help us put together a perspective and worldview in keeping with God’s will for us. A worldview rooted in love, charity, grace, mercy, and serenity.

  This week we’ll be covering chapters 2 and 3. To change things up we’re going to let YouTube help us with the gist of these two chapters. Chapter 2…well actually the whole of Ecclesiastes can be summed up by these:

Ralph Stanely: O Death:

I love that line “O Death won’t you spare me over till another year” that is followed later by Death’s reality “…having mercy is out of your (Death’s) reach.” Death is inevitable to all. You can eat all the right foods, be as smart as Mr. Hawking, exercise like Richard Simmons, and pray till you’re blue in the face it doesn’t matter ‘cause death will come a callin’ on us all.

The Notorious B.I.G: Mo’ Money Mo’ Problems:

In this song Puffy raps, “Ten years from now we’ll still be on top.” Quick question: Can anybody tell me whose album Bad Boy just released? Yeah…

Loudon Wainwright III: Hard Day on the Planet:

“We don’t seem to learn; and we can’t seem to stop.” Find an alcoholic or addict and ask them if this is true.

Liza Minnelli: Life is a Cabaret:

When I read chapter 2.24 I think of the crescendo in this song, “Start by admitting from cradle to tomb it isn’t that long a stay. Life is a cabaret old chum…and I love a Cabaret.” Yes it’s all a fleeting gasp of air but it’s the only breath we’ve got so we might as well enjoy it.

Denis Leary: Life’s Gonna Suck:

I kid, I kid…Okay Chapter 3:

The Byrds: Turn! Turn! Turn!:

     Any non-academic look at Ecclesiastes is legally obligated to reference this song at least once.

There are things in Ecclesiastes 2 and 3 that we are going to explore further. First, if we are to make the best of our time here under the sun it would behoove us to admit that we’re powerless over a whole lot of things. Secondly, things that we pursue under the sun with tenacity, like a good marriage, status, intimacy with our fellow man, a good time, and what not, while not inherently bad or evil, could lead to our destruction or the destruction of others. Now that’s a bold statement which we’ll come back to. But in order to do so let’s first flesh out what I mean by our powerlessness.

Jesus acknowledges that as we walk through the transition from Genesis 2’s garden to Revelation 21’s city things aren’t going to be as they should be. In Mark 14 a woman poured expensive perfume all over Jesus’ head to the surprise of Judas who claimed that it was a wasteful act. Jesus replied by saying, “Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me. She did what she could. She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial.” In Matthew 24 Jesus tells his followers that “…you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains.” These verses bring me to two conclusions. One, as followers of Christ we are to stand with the poor and oppressed, to care to for the sick, to provide for the orphaned and widowed, clothe the naked, and put away our swords. Second, we have to acknowledge that just because we are doing those things doesn’t mean that poverty will be eradicated, that no more children will be orphaned, that no more wives will lose their husbands, that all those who are naked will be clothed ,and swords will most certainly not easily be beaten into plowshares.  Does that mean we’re off the hook and we can just stand on the road waiting for Godot? Absolutely not! It means that we are free to focus on the problems and shortcomings of our own hearts, marriages, families, friendships, relationships, towns, counties, states, and nations. We can’t solve the world’s problem but we can tend to our little corners of the globe and do the best we can to create systems and ways of living that are nurturing, sustainable, loving, and merciful in those corners.

The second thing to explore in Ecclesiastes 2 and 3 is that some of the things of this world, while not inherently bad or evil, can lead to our destruction or the destruction of others if we pursue those things obsessively. Money is a prime example. It is often said that money is the root of all evil. This is not true. Money is not evil. Money is a tool like a hammer. Like a hammer, money can be used to create or destroy. The pursuit of money is not evil if money is being pursued in order to create things out of love. I attended a fundraising event recently for a transitional home. The sole purpose of the event was to gain money. It was not evil or wrong for the folks who run that home to pursue money in order to achieve the vision and dream God has placed on their hearts for that place. However if they start asking for more than they need and start raising money just to raise money well then they will have lost the plot.

In the same way the pursuit of what Qoheleth describes in Ecclesiastes 2:11-14 “the Good Life,” or in my context the “American Dream,” only becomes immoral if that life is brought about at the expense of another’s well being. If we pursue safety, comfort, sustenance, and a livelihood in a way that is harmful to another human being’s safety, comfort, sustenance, and livelihood then we are in the wrong. In the Lord’s Prayer we pray that God will give us our daily bread. The prayer is for our daily bread not my daily bread. It’s a communal prayer. Bonhoeffer points out that there is enough to go around for everyone. It is only when we take more than we need that folks go without. I can tell you that in my own life I’m taking part in harming another when I’m clinging too tightly to some perceived need. When my waking thoughts are consumed by a particular concern or want then I am in danger of over stepping my bounds and taking more than I need.  

Like the Zen master, God has chosen to wait until we empty our cups and become willing to receive what God has to offer us. God wants a relationship with us and nothing kills a relationship faster than one party forcing their will on another. God wants us be open to the worldview God has. To be able to see the world as God sees it, to weep when God weeps, to marvel at what God marvels at, to experience the world as God experiences it. God wants to be the Cindy Lou Who to our Grinch. The Grinch was only able to really embrace Christmas when he let go of his opinions and prejudices and opened his mind and heart. Ecclesiastes can help us acknowledge the limits and fleeting nature of wisdom, labor, good times, and life in general and let go of our pursuit of those things. It is only from that point that we will be open to the life God has to offer us. Ecclesiastes helps us to see that once we empty ourselves of the belief that money, wisdom, toil, or revelry or the like will give us meaning we are ready for God to fill our cups.

Have a good one,

Carl

Life, Death, and the Futility of Everything: Part 3

Hey All,

Today we pick up with the first passage in Ecclesiastes to look at wisdom; Ecclesiastes 1.12-18:

 ¹² I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. ¹³ I applied my mind to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the sun. What a heavy burden God has laid on mankind! ¹⁴ I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

 ¹⁵ The crooked cannot be straightened;
   what is missing cannot be made up.
 ¹⁶ I said to myself, “Look, I have increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” ¹⁷ Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.
 ¹⁸ For with much wisdom comes much distress;
   the more knowledge, the more pain.

Verse 12 serves as the formal introduction for Ecclesiastes with Qoheleth invoking the Solomon imagery we discussed last week. The reason to use Solomon as window dressing for his world is simply that if anyone would know the highest of highs and lowest of lows that this futile life has to offer it would be Solomon. During his reign Solomon reached the very pinnacle only to end his reign in ruin. If you've seen Scorsese's The Aviator you've seen something akin to Solomon's trajectory. Qoheleth moves on to the mission statement in verse 13 to apply his mind to study, using wisdom to view all that is done under the sun. The verse ends with a summary of Qoheleth’s findings. The summary illustrates Qoheleth’s unflinching look at creation. Even God will be brought into Qoheleth’s gaze.

Qoheleth serves as a good example for us today in that we should not be afraid to ask hard questions, to look unflinchingly on everything, to be “as wise as serpents and as gentle as doves” (Matthew 10:16). Qoheleth is an exemplary model of a wise serpent and yet, as is often the case, Qoheleth is a crap dove. This is important to note as we continue our journey into Ecclesiastes. Qoheleth has many things to teach us, show us, reveal to us, nevertheless we must remain discerning and fully present as we wade further in. I find that when approaching scripture I must remember to view it ultimately through the lens of Love. This is the only way I know to find something resembling the balance of wise serpent and gentle dove. To do otherwise too often leads me to despair and that is not my goal for us today. The goal is to look on the world as it stands under the sun and hopefully arrive at a place of acceptance.

¹⁴ I have seen all the things that are done under the sun; all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

 ¹⁵ The crooked cannot be straightened;
   what is missing cannot be made up.

My knee jerk reaction is to recoil at verses 14 and 15. I so desperately want to believe that Qoheleth is wrong here. Seventeen different Bible verses flash in my mind contradicting this simple observation. It is only when I remember that Qoheleth is limiting our view to things under the sun that I begin to adjust my view and see what Qoheleth is pointing to. When I look at the world we live in I begin to see Qoheleth’s point. What is crooked cannot be straightened out. What is missing cannot be made up for. I look at the time I’ve spent in the trenches of alcoholism and addiction and see all my brothers and sisters who were brought down in spite of very real desires to quit. I remember the bloated bellies in Africa. I see the arms scarred by cigarette burns. I see the eyes of victims. I remember Christmas Eve 1999.

I was stationed in Okinawa Japan at the time. I was a Combat Photographer in the Marines. One of the duties my unit was assigned to was to take crime scene photography for the Military Police. I was low man on the totem pole so I drew photog duty over Christmas. I got the call around midnight to meet the Corporal out front with my camera. When he showed up I asked what we were looking at and he muttered something about domestic abuse. When I got to the station I was escorted back to a room by a Staff Sergeant who told me to make sure I took pictures of everything, every cut, every scrape, every bruise, everything. I think he saw that I was scared and he asked me if I could handle it. I said I could. So, I walk into the room and before me was a man covered in cuts, bruises, and scratches. The dude looked busted up. Apparently he and his wife had an argument and she snapped. I’ll never forget the embarrassment and pain in his eyes. He made a bad joke about falling down the stairs into a door knob. I introduced myself and explained to him that I had to take pictures of him and the importance of me documenting everything. The wonderful thing about a camera is once you’re looking through that view finder you kind of check out. Everything else falls away and “the shot” is all that matters. After about 10 minutes I’ve got every cut, bruise, and scratch. I quickly said goodbye and walked out the door. As I was coming out the wife was being escorted down the hall and she noticed me and started cussing me out. Once I got home I dropped the camera and pager off with another Marine. I sat down opened a beer, lit a cigarette, and started shaking.

Up until this point I knew humans could be swine but it was more of a theoretical knowledge based on facts I’d heard about on the news, WWII pictures, and hearsay. Now I had seen it for realsees. I went on to take and develop far worse crime scene pictures but for whatever reason that Christmas Eve is the touchstone I return to as the example of just how crooked the world is and how things cannot be made straight. Abuse cannot be undone. A stolen childhood cannot be returned. A violation cannot be erased. The blood on our hands never really comes off. Some wounds are so deep the scars will always be present. There are no take backs or reset buttons. What is crooked stays crooked and there’s nothing we can do about it.

  ¹⁸ For with much wisdom comes much distress;
   the more knowledge, the more pain.

The more we learn about the world around us the easier it is to despair. The more we open ourselves to the struggles of our brothers and sisters the more we sense in some very real ways just how broken this world is. The distress and pain that Qoheleth identifies is rooted in the knowledge that we can’t make things okay. We know the world is not okay and that no matter how much we pour out of ourselves at best we’re still screaming at the tide to change. We’re never going to be smart enough. We’re never going to get it all right. The more wisdom we gain the more in touch we’ll be with just how ignorant and small we really are. We’re not strong enough, wise enough, good enough, or big enough to make things right. The big brother and pastor in me wants to skip ahead to Chapter 12 and offer up some platitude about how God works in mysterious ways and how all things are being made new. But you know what? The children of that couple will always remember that Christmas Eve in Japan. They will never forget the way those tears tasted. That husband will always remember the feel of his wife’s blows. The wife will always taste the anger. That Christmas Eve happened, it’s in the books, the parents may reconcile, amends may be made, justice may even be served, but none of that can add the love and grace that was missing. None of that straightens out the crookedness of that night.

The best thing I can do for my fellow brothers and sisters is bear witness. To stand up, accept that the world is all manner of broke, acknowledge that things are not as they should be. I can admit that their pain is valid. Recognize that those events that are the root of such pain happened and that their pain is real. I should not brush it off as being in the past, not that bad. Nor should I state with a certainty that I cannot possibly posses that it will get better, or that it’s all a part of God’s plan. It’s not my place to try and make it right, it is in my place to love and allow folks the dignity and space so that they may come to grips with the crookedness of the world and grieve all that it is lacking.

Have a good one,

Carl

Life, Death, and the Futility of Everything: Part 2

Hey All,

Today we begin our trip through Ecclesiastes. We’re looking at Ecclesiastes in order to understand what we can expect from a life lived in the world between Genesis 1 and Revelation 21. Last week we laid out the “where” and the “why” of this trip. Let’s now look at the “who” and the “how” of this journey and end with the Teacher’s opening salvo.

We are introduced to the writer of Ecclesiastes in verse 1: “The words of the Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem” Like all of Ecclesiastes this is misleading and slippery. Traditionally Ecclesiastes has been attributed to Solomon. Almost all scholars agree today that the writer of Ecclesiastes was most definitely not Solomon. The writer is indentified as “The Teacher” which in Hebrew is Qoheleth and it means collector of sentences, teacher, and speaker to an assembly. Qoheleth has a bit in common with Shakespeare in that no one can prove definitively that he ever existed and his works, in some circles, are considered to be the efforts of a group rather than a lone human being.

In 1898 C.G. Siegfried put forth the idea that as many as five writers were represented in Ecclesiastes. One of the reasons for this approach is that Ecclesiastes seemingly contradicts itself. In one section Qoheleth states that he hates life (2:17) and yet it another it is apparently better to be a live dog than a dead lion (9:4). There is no unanimous agreement for Ecclesiastes authorship. What is clear is that there are at least two folk's contributions in the book. The bulk of Ecclesiastes is written in the first person by Qoheleth which covers Chapters 1-12:8 while 12:9-14 are an epilogue written by another author. For our purposes here we’ll go with Qoheleth as the identifier of the writer of Ecclesiastes and the writer of the epilogue as a father or mentor reading Ecclesiastes to his son or mentee (12:12).

If Ecclesiastes wasn’t written by Solomon then why bring Solomon up at all? It’s important to first acknowledge that writers of antiquity played a lot faster and looser with “facts” than we do today. Well…some folks from today still play pretty fast and loose with facts. Anyway writers would write under pseudonyms of famous individuals to invoke images, emphasize authority, or to acknowledge a source for what they were writing. The reason Qoheleth conjures up the image of Solomon in the minds of his readers is to create a context for what he’s about to write. Solomon was considered the wisest man to ever live (1 Kings 3) and yet his reign ended in disgrace (1 Kings 11:9-13). If anyone would know the highest of highs and lowest of lows that this futile life has to offer it would be Solomon. So it is Solomon that serves as the window dressing for Qoheleth’s worldview. In my mind the voice of Qoheleth is that of Tom Waits: God's world weary carnival barker. Mr. Waits has never been one to shy away from the futility of life:

Let’s now turn to how Qoheleth approaches Ecclesiastes.  The Jewish understanding of the world at the time had three distinct realms: the heavenly realms inhabited by God and the angels, Sheol the realm of the dead, and the world “under the sun,” the land of the living, Earth. Qoheleth is exclusively interested in creation as it stands “under the sun.” This exclusivity limits our perception of the world to see how it stands independent of the heavenly realms or Sheol.  Those realms are mentioned only from the perspective of one who remains firmly under the sun. Qoheleth has looked at the world and attempted to discern some rational sense evident in the workings of the world through purely human eyes. The search has proven futile. The various pursuits this life has to offer, when viewed as an end unto themselves, are meaningless and fleeting. Take it Q!

 ² “Meaningless! Meaningless!”
   says the Teacher.
“Utterly meaningless!
   Everything is meaningless.”
 ³ What do people gain from all their labors
   at which they toil under the sun?
⁴ Generations come and generations go,
   but the earth remains forever.
⁵ The sun rises and the sun sets,
   and hurries back to where it rises.
⁶ The wind blows to the south
   and turns to the north;
round and round it goes,
   ever returning on its course.
⁷ All streams flow into the sea,
   yet the sea is never full.
To the place the streams come from,
   there they return again.
⁸ All things are wearisome,
   more than one can say.
The eye never has enough of seeing,
   nor the ear its fill of hearing.
⁹ What has been will be again,
   what has been done will be done again;
   there is nothing new under the sun.
¹⁰ Is there anything of which one can say,
   “Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
   it was here before our time.
¹¹ No one remembers the former generations,
   and even those yet to come
will not be remembered
   by those who follow them.

Not exactly the St. Crispin Day Speech is it? You can almost hear the world inhale and exhale with each line. The sun rises and the sun sets. The wind blows south and back around north again. It has gone on long before we got here it’ll probably go on long after we’re gone. Nations rise and crumble. Scenes thrive and die. Roses bloom and wither. Cornel West is fond of saying, “we’re beings towards death, we’re featherless two-legged linguistically conscious creatures born between urine and feces whose bodies will one day be the culinary delight of terrestrial worms” (Cornel West on Truth). Life begins with a violent push, a burst of light, and a smack on the butt, which is followed by a long low crawl through hostile territory, and ends as we, alone once more, fall exhausted into our graves. The world will barely notice our passing. No one is remembered. Even for the ones who get remembered for a time it must be asked; is it them who is remembered or is it a spectre of them that is distorted by the grime of humanity and time that is remembered more than the actual individual ever could be? Yes we’re all unique snowflakes. However, in the unrelenting blizzard of time we all pretty much look the same.

With the 1^st eleven verses Qoheleth firmly establishes that this life is hebel; a breath that is soon forgotten. The logical response to this is despair. Yet I believe that we must stare this cruel fact in the face and come to a place of acceptance with it. As we established last week this life we have is a breath preceded and followed by billions of other breaths. Nevertheless it is the only breath we’ll ever get and so what we do on our journey from crib to crypt matters a great deal. The great lesson to learn while we live is how to die.

We learn to die by examining the life we’ve lived in order to better direct the life we’ve got left. To comprehend our strengths, acknowledge our weaknesses, explore our dreams, come to grips with our nightmares, identify our defects, and polish our skills. To fully embrace our fleeting life is to accept uncertainty as the reality in which we live. During our time here under the sun we probably will not capital “K” Know anything. By that I mean humans are limited creations with the spark of the infinite. We know there is more to creation than we can ever possibly know. Learning to die is accepting our inability to fully comprehend anything. What we will see as we move forward with Qoheleth is that we are not in a place to discern what a fully worthwhile endeavor is. Once this is accepted we can then begin to live a life with a proper perspective free from the obsessions, fixations, cravings and addictions that so desperately want to drag us down. 1^st up will be wisdom. Until then, as all ways…

Have a good one,

Carl

Life, Death, and the Futility of Everything

Hey All,

The story of the bible begins in a garden. There is a harmony and rhythm to it. Like at the outset of a new romance there is a palpable sense of excitement. Everything is new, exciting, and unnamed. The physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual are all jumbled together not yet haphazardly packed away in their own boxes. The supernatural is intertwined with the natural. The Divine walks with humanity and there is no shame. Then a conversation goes sideways. Choices are made and that tranquility is shattered.

The story of the bible ends in a city that descends into that fractured reality and as a result all of creation is restored to the intended order. The lion lies down with the lamb. The last are first, the peacemakers blessed, the oppressed are saved. The powerful are humbled. Every tear is wiped dry. Love reigns supreme. Once again all of creation is in harmony with God.

The book of Ecclesiastes is how things are here in the middle of the story. Everything is not okay. The kids are not all right. The lion eats the lamb. The poor are last. The wicked win. The good are beaten, tortured or take part in torture. The good are oppressed, and killed. The victorious march on the bones of their enemies. Forget “winter is coming.” Brothers and Sisters, winter is here. To top it all off, the reality is that everything we do good or bad is hebel. Hebel in Hebrew is breath. Ecclesiastes acknowledges that everything we do is a breath, a puff of air, a wisp, a vapor, intangible, fleeting, fading, and meaningless. After all what is a breath? We take thousands of breathes a day without even thinking about them. The only breath that really matters is your last one.

What the teacher in Ecclesiastes is trying to convey is that your life is a breath surrounded by 6,900,000,000 other breaths. Those breaths are the result of billions of other breaths. What you do with your breath isn’t going to amount to much. But it is the only breath you’ve got. So what are you going to do with it?

For the next 6 weeks we’re going to wade knee deep into Ecclesiastes and explore the different traps, pitfalls, valleys, mountaintops, achievements, and pursuits this fleeting life has to offer us and be ever reminded to enjoy it because it’s the last breath we’ll ever take.

Have a good one,

Carl