Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23
Proper 13 (18) - Year C
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23 or Hosea 11:1-11
Being so sure . . . a vanity.
Knowing nothing . . . a vanity.
Thrusting away . . . a vanity.
Expecting return . . . a vanity.
Truly, everything . . . a vanity.
So? Get what you can while you can? Give it all away as soon as you can? Focus on our differences as a way of dividing people? Focus on our differences as a way of building a commonwealth?
Again, (having just seen again the film parable, "Pleasantville") we are left with the question, "Do you know what's going to happen next?" The litany response is, "No, I don't."
Now we can get somewhere. The freedom to change, and know it, is the beginning of wisdom.
The issue of passionless repetition may be more basic than a particular fundamentalism that would keep things unchanging. This may be more important to our work with one another than any other hermeneutical technique of interpreting scripture. There are more active ways to constrain the present by the past than there are stars. There are more subtle ways of constraining the future by the present than grains of sand.
We again meet the boundary of enough and shy away. Have mercy!
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/august2004.html
Ecclesiastes 1:2, 12-14; 2:18-23 or Hosea 11:1-11
What a vanity, this tough-pretending G*D. Old Ephraim has been busy with the business of living in human form - unhappy business. We hate our toil; G*D hates our toil. Finally there is despair from humans and despair from G*D - the more we are called the more we went in the opposite direction. Thus, despair in all directions.
A solution to this unhappy business is not despair squared, but a recognition that, despairing or not, we and G*D won't give up. Those old hounds of heaven have been unleashed. Fierce despair/anger won't be unleashed. When the hounds arrive, great licking of faces will occur. Forgiveness as slobber -- compassion, warm and tender -- will find us at home again.
- - -
caught between
vanity and vanity
hearken back
at distance
once loved
given up for lost
and threatened
nothing left
still loved
compassion shines through
no more wrath
welcome home
what sense this
wavering wind of uncertainty
trembling bird
new future