\n<\/p>\n
We all react to COVID-19 in our own way. Some hoard, some hide. Some fear for their own safety and the safety of loved ones. Some are exhausted by little ones at their feet, some are craving human contact beyond social media.<\/p>\n
However we respond to the new normal, this virus has cramped our style. And now it looks like things won\u2019t be back to semi-normal until (optimistically) early May or so (who am I kidding . . .).\u00a0<\/p>\n
And we all want to get back to normal, to the way our lives were before. We want to visit whom we want when we want, buy food or eat out, start the %@&#! baseball season, not cancel weddings and graduations, and basically not catch a potentially life-threatening virus because someone 4 feet away from us cleared their throat.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m down with that, but all this is putting me in a rather pensive, Ecclesiastes-like train of thought, namely:<\/p>\n
Yes, this post is taking a sharp turn to despair, but not really. Give me a chance.<\/p>\n
I am thinking about my life now and my life \u201cBC\u201d (before coronavirus), and although they are so very different, are they really that different on the deeper level of meaning?\u00a0<\/p>\n
The book of Ecclesiastes<\/a> takes on the question of meaning the way only a tortured soul can\u2014with the kind of honest \u201cprove me wrong\u201d clarity we rarely get to when things are going well for us.\u00a0<\/p>\n The anonymous writer, whose pen name is Qohelet, is obviously working through some issues, and concludes that \u201cnormal\u201d is at the end of the day meaningless\u2014or \u201cvanity\u201d as some translations have it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Our \u201cnormal\u201d is for Qohelet of no lasting consequence. His line of argument, which he repeats throughout the book, goes something like this:<\/p>\n ********<\/p>\n Everything, absolutely everything is utterly meaningless, and trying to find some meaning amid the absurdity of life is about as productive as chasing a gust of wind.<\/em><\/p>\n (Seems like a ball of laughs. I wonder if he does kids\u2019 parties. It gets worse.)<\/p>\n Why do I say that everything is absolutely, absurdly meaningless? Because, if you think about it, nothing that we do\u2014none of our frenzied toils and labors\u2014actually benefit us in any lasting, meaningful way in the final analysis.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n (Surely you can\u2019t mean that, Qohelet. I have all sorts of things I can point to in my life that tell me I\u2019m getting a lot<\/em> out of benefit from my work. . . like that screw and nail organizer I just bought, this blog post I\u2019m working on, or . . . )<\/p>\n If I may interrupt, the reason none of our labors amount to anything is because, in the end, we lose\u2014we all die. And not only do we die, but we will be quickly forgotten by those who remain just as we have forgotten those who have died before us.<\/em><\/p>\n (Why do you have to bring that up?)<\/p>\n That is the inevitable end of us all. We all die. Fool and sage, rich and poor, the industrious and the lazy, the righteous and the wicked. The same fate awaits us all, and what we do\u2014our daily frenzied rushing about\u2014cannot change that one bit. That\u2019s the way the world works. That\u2019s the way God has set it all up.<\/em><\/p>\n