September 3

OT -- Ecclesiastes 4:1-6:12
Oh, poor Teacher. He is so depressed. Being rich, being poor, being old, being young, being king, nothing is making him happy. He is also trotting out all his proverbs -- you will recognize quite a few as they are in the study of Proverbs we have already done, a further indication that Solomon was closely associated with this book.
If Solomon was my friend and he was pouring out all this misery and unworthiness, what would I say? How would I respond? Can you respond?
There is a scene in one of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries where Holmes is railing against his failures to Watson. Clearly, he has had too much of HIS chemical of choice -- cocaine -- and is spiriling out of control. If it can happen to Sherlock Holmes, it can happen to all of us.
What does Watson do? Well, for one, he makes Holmes put on his coat and hat and they set out for the park. And walk. And Holmes jabbers and pokes and says hateful things to Watson who continues to walk and listen. And eventually, Holmes calms down, they get down to the case at hand, it is solved and presumably, Holmes is better.
What about us? Is this part and parcel to when the blues, the overwhelming of the political hatefulness, the poverty, meanness and crime take over? What about when your parents show decline, your marriage feels stale or stalling, your children are inattentive?
What do we do then? Is life really meaningless?

I fight my own battles with the blues. Sometimes I do better than others but this time of year with the heat and humidity have almost always pulled me down.
I put my timer on, do SOMETHING for some period of time, walk my own walk, try not to isolate myself.
And one thing that I cannot do right now because of the section we are in -- I really do try to limit my exposure to other people's dismalness. This year, well, I will just have to muddle on through, exposed to Solomon's misery.

Psalm 47:1-9
Any other time and this psalm would have lifted my spirits right on up. But I am still pulled down by Solomon.
I do love that line:
"He CHOSE our inheritance for us"
emphasis mine.
Chose. He chose us. And He chose who our parents, grandparents and so forth were just so we could be His. Now, how comforting is THAT?

Yesterday at the market, one of the vendors who is UBER political wanted to talk to me about Paul Ryan. Now, why he thinks *I* would be interested in talking politics, I have no idea. Maybe I just have the reputation of a listener. I can assure you, I have zero interest in talking and/or listening to political discourse.
But he went on and on, I finally got him to move on by saying "God has all this in His hands" and he shambled off. And I said that to push him away because he doesn't really believe that. But I realized that I do. I shook my head, put my tent up but it was a profound moment brought on by the weird-do three tents down.

Much love to each of you.