14 There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. 15 So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.
16 When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth—people getting no sleep day or night— 17 then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it.
Ecclesiastes 8:14-17
One of the very impacting events in my life was as a young single, hitchhiking through Europe, visiting sites I had only read about in books. I was running from a broken heart feeling betrayed by someone I thought I loved and facing a future that was yet to unfold. One of the places I visited was the Holocaust encampment at Dachau and a museum attempting to answer the question, “How could this have happened?” Evil seemed to have run havoc for years and how many innocent people cruelly lost their lives as victims of hate, victims of ignorance, and victims of the government that sent them to war. It was a lose-lose time. It is hard to see any good coming out of hate and war. The Teacher sums it up with the word, “meaningless” in v. 14 of chapter 8 of Ecclesiastes. We go through events when we feel like life has flip flopped and makes no sense. A child dies while an elder holds on to life racked with pain and deterioration. Life does not make sense. Our sense of justice is that good guys should be rewarded and bad guys should be punished.
The Teacher concludes that enjoying each day, seeing its beauty and giftedness is the best way to live. There is always someone else who seems to have more goodies of life than ourselves and then we wonder if somehow they are better than us. Those rabbit holes are easy to slide down and we end up in depression, questioning our value. I have experienced great love and laughter in famine relief camps where we shared our corn and beans and I have also felt the emptiness of being present with glittery crowds and feeling invisible.
So the question worth meditating on today might be to ask ourselves what brings us “enjoyment” and secondly whom might we bless today with love. Take a moment and list as many memories as you can of times that have brought you joy. Thank God for those people and those times. Lord, help us to be a blessing to someone else today.
On the Way to Wonder 