Ephemeral

I have an affinity for the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible.  It's a melancholy book indeed, and recently I read a note penned into one of my old journals that's being redeemed: "blessed with melancholy, I am."  I've long fought with God, "why have you made me this way!?" Oh yes, I have.  I have looked at others who always appear to be vibrantly happy and said, "see, why can't I just be like them!?"  I have questioned, "What is wrong with me?"  The answers I have found always lead me back to the same thing:  this is the way that God made me.  I'm a thinker who loves to philosophize.  My thoughts are like prisms; I must question and view from all angles.  But see, He reminds me, they are reflectors of hope, of rainbows...  My smiles do not always reflect my interior life, but I'm learning...  learning how to live in this skin and not fight it...  learning how to embrace the way that God has made me, and love it.   I'm learning how to make peace with myself, and in turn, make peace with my Maker.  I'm learning that I'm loved just as much as anyone else is.  And finally, finally, I think I've reached a place where I've accepted me as me.  And truly, I am happy.  It is a good place to be.

When I started this post this morning, I had no idea that all of the above was going to come out on the screen.  It started with the photos of this painting and the word "Ephemeral."  I got my dictionary and started to flip to where the word leads, and opened Biblegateway and Goodsearch to look for the verses that came to mind.  This is how words are composed into a thing of cohesion.  This is how one things leads to another...

 

Ephemeral:  a fancy way of saying that nothing lasts forever.  This painting, when I saw it, reminded me.  It's the first word that popped into my head as I viewed it, on a day that I sure needed to remember.  Other words I love are connected to it:  transient; evanescent; fleeting. 

The book of Ecclesiastes hosts some of the most pensive words that have ever been strung into phrases.  It actually brings me joy to read them this morning.  The words wholly juxtapose the eternal with the ephemeral, the finite with the infinite.  This is reality, isn't it? 

 

The words of Ecclesiastes... may they bring you joy when you read them, instead of heaping sorrow upon sorrow.  May you find in them, as I have, the joy and peace for which I believe they were intended...  Water to the soil of knowing that there's something better waiting on the other side of veil, and that in this life, we can know it; and this understanding is what will bring forth life - the promise of the eternal and infinite - as we live here in this skin, this finite existence. These seemingly strange juxtapositions live within us and we can birth them into the world as we encompass the truths that we read into our very being, "striving after the wind, and feeding on it."

 

Ecclesiastes 1:1-11
"These are the words of the Quester, David's son and king in Jerusalem.  Smoke, nothing but smoke. [That's what the Quester says.] There's nothing to anything—it's all smoke.
What's there to show for a lifetime of work,
a lifetime of working your fingers to the bone?
One generation goes its way, the next one arrives,
but nothing changes—
it's business as usual for old planet earth.
The sun comes up and the sun goes down,
then does it again, and again—the same old round.
The wind blows south, the wind blows north.
Around and around and around it blows,
blowing this way, then that—
the whirling, erratic wind.
All the rivers flow into the sea,
but the sea never fills up.
The rivers keep flowing to the same old place,
and then start all over and do it again.
Everything's boring, utterly boring—
no one can find any meaning in it.
Boring to the eye,
boring to the ear.
What was will be again,
what happened will happen again.
There's nothing new on this earth.
Year after year it's the same old thing.
Does someone call out, "Hey, this is new"?
Don't get excited—it's the same old story.
Nobody remembers what happened yesterday.
And the things that will happen tomorrow?
Nobody'll remember them either.
Don't count on being remembered."

Ecclesiastes 11:7-8
"Oh, how sweet the light of day,
And how wonderful to live in the sunshine!
Even if you live a long time,
don't take a single day for granted.
Take delight in each light-filled hour,
Remembering that there will also be many dark days
And that most of what comes your way is smoke."

...and smile, knowingly...