This weekend I read a passage from the book of Ecclesiastes at a funeral. It’s a familiar passage. Most of you can probably sing it in the song made popular by the Byrds. But even the well-known words of Ecclesiastes 3 are the living Word of God, so I wasn’t surprised when someone asked me after the funeral, about some of the “times” that the teacher Ecclesiastes writes about – a time to kill, a time to hate - words of God he found troubling.
In a message on Chicago Sunday Evening Club, Sr, Joan Chittister makes some thoughtful comments on the third chapter of Ecclesiastes. She writes, “The purpose of time is to alert us to ourselves so that we can become… with its affirmation of all the dimensions of life, the only thing it’s really worth our time to be: a total human, a deeply spiritual being.
That's the call of Ecclesiastes. It's an awesome thought. If God is in this particular life struggle, and this life struggle, this painful separation, this shocking loss, this deep deep pain, this change of status, of life, of love, has something to do with the development of the God-life in me, then it is to be dealt with reverently and lived through trustingly. Then raging will cease. Then the despair will dissolve. Then the bitterness can ebb. It is not Ecclesiastes implies that God is in this awful thing treating us like mice in cages and tweaking our tails with glee. No, it is that we are living in God, no matter what life is like for us at this particular moment. So, then, what can possibly be taken away that will leave us bereft, once we decide to live in the presence of God?
Young widows know life's sting. Old inventors know its zest. Middle aged women know its allure. Young couples know its excitement. Middle aged men know its false promise. Children know its partiality - that many thrive some of the time, and that some struggle ceaselessly. But through it all, whatever its twists and turns along the way, life leaves us images of the serene elderly, the ones who fought the fight and found it energizing, found it good. They are proof for the rest of us that if we do not resist it, if we dance the dance of life whole and entire, we, too, may come to the end of it weathered and strong, wizened and laughing, quietly satisfied with what we have learned, for what we have become that we could not have been without our own particular recipe of cleansing pain and perfect joy in proper proportions. There is no such thing as a meaningless moment. Life is a growing thing going from seed to sapling, but always, always toward its purpose, the shaping of the self into a person of quality, compassion and joy. But for that to happen every smaller segment must be faced and cannot be fled.
Indeed, Ecclesiastes weighs them all. He teaches there is a time to kill whatever it is within us that keeps our souls from flying free. There is a time, he says, to refrain from embracing whatever it is that is smothering the heart. There is a time to weep the tears that dignify the going of those things and people in life who have brought us to where we are today. There is a time to embrace the good of life with great thumping hugs that give energy for the rest of the journey. There is a time to reap, to work hard, to achieve and assure the fruits of life. There is a time to glory in the gains of life, to run through life head up and lusty, gathering as we go, piling up the good things and laughing as we do. There is a time to love, to find ourselves in someone else, so that we can find ourselves at all. There is a time to lose, a time to let go of whatever has become our captor in life. There is a time to be born, fresh and full again out of old ideas, old forms, old shapes. There is a time to laugh, to let go of the propriety and old pomposities and join the bungling, lunging, silly human race. There is a time to die, to put an end to things, to stop the carousel, to surrender to the forces of time and trust them. There is a time of war, of struggling against the forces within me that make for my destruction. There is a time to heal ourselves from the hurts that weigh us down and keep us from taking charge of our own emotional lives. There is a time to build up, to construct the new world, to co-create the globe, so that what we leave behind is better than what we have received. Finally, there is a time for peace, for coming to grips with the demons within us, for staring them down and smoothing them out, so that we can spread peace like velvet.
Article exerpted from: 30 Good Minutes Message by Joan Chittister "Time: The Great Spiritual Director" Program #4019 First air date February 16, 1997
In a message on Chicago Sunday Evening Club, Sr, Joan Chittister makes some thoughtful comments on the third chapter of Ecclesiastes. She writes, “The purpose of time is to alert us to ourselves so that we can become… with its affirmation of all the dimensions of life, the only thing it’s really worth our time to be: a total human, a deeply spiritual being.
That's the call of Ecclesiastes. It's an awesome thought. If God is in this particular life struggle, and this life struggle, this painful separation, this shocking loss, this deep deep pain, this change of status, of life, of love, has something to do with the development of the God-life in me, then it is to be dealt with reverently and lived through trustingly. Then raging will cease. Then the despair will dissolve. Then the bitterness can ebb. It is not Ecclesiastes implies that God is in this awful thing treating us like mice in cages and tweaking our tails with glee. No, it is that we are living in God, no matter what life is like for us at this particular moment. So, then, what can possibly be taken away that will leave us bereft, once we decide to live in the presence of God?
Young widows know life's sting. Old inventors know its zest. Middle aged women know its allure. Young couples know its excitement. Middle aged men know its false promise. Children know its partiality - that many thrive some of the time, and that some struggle ceaselessly. But through it all, whatever its twists and turns along the way, life leaves us images of the serene elderly, the ones who fought the fight and found it energizing, found it good. They are proof for the rest of us that if we do not resist it, if we dance the dance of life whole and entire, we, too, may come to the end of it weathered and strong, wizened and laughing, quietly satisfied with what we have learned, for what we have become that we could not have been without our own particular recipe of cleansing pain and perfect joy in proper proportions. There is no such thing as a meaningless moment. Life is a growing thing going from seed to sapling, but always, always toward its purpose, the shaping of the self into a person of quality, compassion and joy. But for that to happen every smaller segment must be faced and cannot be fled.
Indeed, Ecclesiastes weighs them all. He teaches there is a time to kill whatever it is within us that keeps our souls from flying free. There is a time, he says, to refrain from embracing whatever it is that is smothering the heart. There is a time to weep the tears that dignify the going of those things and people in life who have brought us to where we are today. There is a time to embrace the good of life with great thumping hugs that give energy for the rest of the journey. There is a time to reap, to work hard, to achieve and assure the fruits of life. There is a time to glory in the gains of life, to run through life head up and lusty, gathering as we go, piling up the good things and laughing as we do. There is a time to love, to find ourselves in someone else, so that we can find ourselves at all. There is a time to lose, a time to let go of whatever has become our captor in life. There is a time to be born, fresh and full again out of old ideas, old forms, old shapes. There is a time to laugh, to let go of the propriety and old pomposities and join the bungling, lunging, silly human race. There is a time to die, to put an end to things, to stop the carousel, to surrender to the forces of time and trust them. There is a time of war, of struggling against the forces within me that make for my destruction. There is a time to heal ourselves from the hurts that weigh us down and keep us from taking charge of our own emotional lives. There is a time to build up, to construct the new world, to co-create the globe, so that what we leave behind is better than what we have received. Finally, there is a time for peace, for coming to grips with the demons within us, for staring them down and smoothing them out, so that we can spread peace like velvet.
Article exerpted from: 30 Good Minutes Message by Joan Chittister "Time: The Great Spiritual Director" Program #4019 First air date February 16, 1997
