Advent 2019, day three

One of Qohelet’s most enigmatic turns of phrase is,

I have seen all the deeds that are done under the sun, and, look,

all is mere breath, and herding the wind.

(Qohelet 1:14)

We humans expend ourselves attempting to herd the wild and free life-breath given us by God. In attempting to control the gift of life, it slips through our fingers. We grasp after it, but it eludes us. And we either keep chasing, or fall back.

This is so not only at a personal level, but — consequently — as a society. While some enjoy the means to chase where the wind may blow, attempting to herd life into some order, into some show of wealth and status, others are at any given moment within one step of being winded by a sucker-punch. Nowhere in the ‘developed’ world of democratic nations is the inequality between citizens greater than in the nation where I live. Children are living, in increasing numbers, in poverty many feel we should have left behind generations ago, while others are indifferent to their plight. The malaise of anxiety and depression — a ghost-life, mere breath — so common among us — whether because no matter what we do the odds are insurmountably stacked against us by our neighbours, or because of our unease at our own complicity in such injustice and seeming impotence to transform it — are symptoms of the toil Qohelet observed long ago (to borrow another of his phrases, there is nothing new under the sun).

In the light of our common life and death, we can do no better than to enjoy the simple gifts of security — as long as we have breath, until it is taken back by God — of work to offer, a roof over our head, food on our table, that we might rest in peace in the embrace of committed, loving relationships and not be torn apart.

Advent calls us to long for such as this, for us and for our neighbours. To catch our breath. And, instead of fighting against the wind of change where it blows, to be caught up and carried along by it.