Get Busy Livin', or Get Busy Dyin'

Today the lectionary gives us a strange little gift from the book of Ecclesiastes. I love the book of Ecclesiastes. This is not to say that I fully understand the book of Ecclesiastes, but it's such a strange little book. Right after the Proverbs, it's another book of wisdom. But the wisdom of Ecclesiastes' wisdom is not quite the same vibe as the Proverbs.

A Proverb that I chose more or less at random: 

Don’t love sleep or you will be poor; stay alert and you will have plenty to eat.

You see - this is wisdom. A little saying that helps us understand how to live better. Don't love sleep too much! Ok! I'm going to ignore the advice, but at least I understand it.

But here is the second verse of Ecclesiastes:

Perfectly pointless, says the Teacher, perfectly pointless. Everything is pointless.

 Now this? Not exactly helping me much. Instead of giving us one large chunk of Ecclesiastes, the lectionary gives us a sampling of verses from the first couple chapters. Let's fast forward to see how we're feeling halfway through the first chapter:

I applied my mind to investigate and to explore by wisdom all that happens under heaven. It’s an unhappy obsession that God has given to human beings. When I observed all that happens under the sun, I realized that everything is pointless, a chasing after wind.

...

Oh.

Ok. 

Not doing much better, I guess.

But let's not dwell on such a dismal outlook about *waves generally around*. Let's lift our spirits and celebrate the redemptive wisdom that the author shares in the no doubt much cheerier second chapter:

 I mean, What do people get for all their hard work and struggles under the sun? All their days are pain, and their work is aggravation; even at night, their hearts don’t find rest. This too is pointless.

I'm starting to really love sleep.

Do I fully understand the book of Ecclesiastes? No. Do I understand why he's saying these sorts of things? Yeah, I kind of do. Everyone gets busy and stays busy. Everyone sacrifices themselves on the altar of 'busyness'. We're all on our grind, on our hustle, making it work, putting all out there, doing it all, and other idioms to describe how we punish ourselves for incremental gain. 

You stay hungry, stock photo business bro.

I'm not saying that we should aspire to the level of despair that we see in Ecclesiastes, but maybe we should start to recognize that when we push ourselves past our limits we start to lose the point of what we're supposed to be doing here. We were made for each other, for community, for love, for hope, for sharing, for laughing, for crying, for being. When the end of busyness is the pursuit of busyness, then all is perfectly pointless.

When our busyness gives us over to the support and love of each other, then maybe we can start to rest assured that maybe we're approaching what it is that we are supposed to do. 

Or maybe it's all pointless. 

But I'm going to keep trying to figure it out.

Peace,

Jeff

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