The Ecclesiast Strikes Again

I had a wonderful weekend--attending a Michael W. Smith concert at the Biltmore, eating delicious meals, treating myself to both the Architecture and Butler's Tours at the Biltmore, walking across the swinging bridge on Grandfather Mountain, and going gem mining. I highly recommend all of those activities! I also recommend coming to the mountains for a few days, and walking in a stream, and fishing (if fishing is your thing). Even so, I went to an Alzheimer's Nursing Home Facility on Tuesday, and I've been reading the book Same Kind of Different As Me this week. And, well, my brain has been doing what it does: thinking. Here are some of my thoughts (started on Tuesday night):

If I'm not careful, then I could become fatalistic in my thoughts tonight...wondering the point of it all and such. Like…

I really don't feel like much has changed in history. Humans are humans, wanting the same things from generation to generation. Always thinking that life is busier than ever before, always thinking that things are worse than ever before, always waiting for an end.

Always a gap between rich and poor, always stereotypes and judgments, always bickering and fighting, always some who look after the well-being of others, always some who don't.

I think about the Vanderbilts. George was a nice rich fellow. Thoughtful. Giving. Truly amazing in so many ways. But there were and are so many more not nice ones.

Slavery has always existed. It still does. The forms of things have changed, but the root issues have not.

If we're supposed to be working toward the redemption of the world, then why does it seem like we're getting no closer?

I think…no amount of work that I do. No amount of records or trainings or keeping words or anything has a point in the end.

I’ve had such a good time on vacation—especially over the weekend. It was fun to live in the moment. To be happy. To experience life. But soon it’ll be over and I look around and think of everything that I should be doing. Calendaring and writing and sorting and keeping records and such...and it feels so heavy. Like. I want to go back on vacation. I want to live in the moment--well--as much as this brain allows me to.

I don’t want to always feel behind or like I should be doing something when I want to do nothing but be. Yet…if I didn’t have things to do, then life would be boring. I get that.

I’m not trying to complain. I'm just saying that I wonder what the point of life is. Many people say that life on this earth is just a passing time, that true life is eternal. But shouldn’t there be a point to this passing time? Living it only to see if we pass a test that guarantees us eternal life seems…I don’t even know the word.

Many people say the point of life is to enjoy it. And I guess in the end, that's all there is. Isn’t that what the writer of Ecclesiastes concluded? Might as well live the life God has given us, huh? Rather than lagging behind…

Do you ever have thoughts like these? If so, how do you manage them?

Also…what’s something that you’ve done recently that you have truly enjoyed? What’s something that has made you grateful to be alive (regardless of the point of it)?