Tag Archives: Dogs

1 These are the words of the Teacher, King David’s son, who ruled in Jerusalem.

² “Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!”

³ What do people get for all their hard work under the sun? ⁴ Generations come and generations go, but the earth never changes. ⁵ The sun rises and the sun sets, then hurries around to rise again. ⁶ The wind blows south, and then turns north. Around and around it goes, blowing in circles. ⁷ Rivers run into the sea, but the sea is never full. Then the water returns again to the rivers and flows out again to the sea. ⁸ Everything is wearisome beyond description. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied. No matter how much we hear, we are not content.

⁹ History merely repeats itself. It has all been done before. Nothing under the sun is truly new. ¹⁰ Sometimes people say, “Here is something new!” But actually it is old; nothing is ever truly new. ¹¹ We don’t remember what happened in the past, and in future generations, no one will remember what we are doing now.

¹² I, the Teacher, was king of Israel, and I lived in Jerusalem. ¹³ I devoted myself to search for understanding and to explore by wisdom everything being done under heaven. I soon discovered that God has dealt a tragic existence to the human race. ¹⁴ I observed everything going on under the sun, and really, it is all meaningless—like chasing the wind.

¹⁵ What is wrong cannot be made right.
    What is missing cannot be recovered.

¹⁶ I said to myself, “Look, I am wiser than any of the kings who ruled in Jerusalem before me. I have greater wisdom and knowledge than any of them.” ¹⁷ So I set out to learn everything from wisdom to madness and folly. But I learned firsthand that pursuing all this is like chasing the wind.

¹⁸ The greater my wisdom, the greater my grief.
    To increase knowledge only increases sorrow.

Ecclesiastes 1

Dear God, I’m actually going to sit down and read all of Ecclesiates (it’s been a while and I don’t remember that much about the arc of the book) before I just drop into studying it because I think I need the context of chapters 2-12 before I can get a feel for where Solomon (I’m just going to assume this is Solomon and not someone writing in his voice) is coming from in chapter 1. I say this because, for a wise person, he seems awfully naive in this chapter. He comes across as too immature. There must be more to the message he has for us than, “I’ve seen the future and all I can say is, ‘Turn back.'”

When I started reading this passage this morning, my first thought was to think he has it all wrong. He starts with a basis for his argument that is faulty. The basis is that life is about us. Our lives our about us. My life is about me. He is right that the world is just on a cycle and it keeps repeating itself with our lives just being an infinitely small part of that cycle. I can see it in the lives of the dogs I’ve owned in my life. I don’t think I can name every dog our family owned as a child, but I can break down the 54 years I’ve been on earth into eras of my pets. My childhood until 18 is one era with many dogs coming and going, but I’ll call this the “Weezer” era because there was one dog we had from the time I was five until after I left for college. Then, seven years later, my wife and I got our first dog, Darlin’. That era lasted 14 years until she aged out and towards the end of her life we got sisters from the pound, Polo and Clover. That era lasted 15 years, and now we are in the era of Evvie. Our hope is that this era will last us into our late 60s.

These dogs had meaningful roles to play in our lives. They loved us, and they gave us something to love. They didn’t really do much around the house. They didn’t earn their keep. We didn’t make any money off of them. In fact, they have all been a resource drain. They have taken time, money, and even some heartache. They angered us when they destroyed something or peed in the house. They delighted us when they played or cuddled up next to us. The sisters, Polo and Clover, fought with each other, and all of them tried to figure out how to get along with other dogs we encountered, and sometimes they failed at that too. But because a dog’s lifespan is much shorter than mine, I can see the fleetingness of life in them. I see the energy of a puppy, the learning and hunger for knowledge of an adolescent, and ultimately the fatigue of the elderly. Their memory’s live in my heart, but even those memories will die with me one day.

Is my life much different? Does it matter to me if it isn’t? I have a feeling that is the question Solomon is going to wrestle with here, and I’m here for it. If it’s not something along these lines, and the whole book is just moaning that he is not more important then I will be really disappointed.

Father, I know you have things to teach me. I know you’ve only given me one short life to live here on this earth. Help me to use it well. Help me to glorify you in all that I do. Help me to die to myself willingly, pick up my cross and follow you.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen