Dear Friends!
I’m back from my Great Goose-y Adventure! Okay, really I was back last week, but we all know that any time we leave our “real lives” behind, it takes a second to get back on track.
Now, if you’re on the Godly Play Foundation’s mailing list (and you should be), you’ve already seen some scenes from the Goose in their most recent newsletter. We shared stories with so many sweet young friends, talked to everyone we could about children’s spirituality, and had a lot of fun.
This is the work that feels so contained in phrases like “Blessed to Be a Blessing.”
But all good things come to an end. And this week, the lectionary is really coming for us on that front.
Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
This passage from Ecclesiastes is one that a lot of people know simply for its ear worm-like quality. It’s pretty fun to say, if we’re being honest. But I have a vivid memory of the first time I was taught this passage in a way that made it make sense, that made it real.
It was my first year of college and I’d crammed my second semester to bursting with so many credits I needed special permission from the Dean, and one of those classes was a course in Wisdom Literature. Led by an eccentric Jewish Studies faculty member, this professor would arrive to class each week with our assigned materials – an Oxford Study Bible and printed packet – as well as a concordance, and all of the texts in their original Hebrew as appropriate. And so, when we came to this passage, he turned to the Hebrew, and began to explain.
The Hebrew word translated “vanity” is הבל (hevel), but hevel is not quite vanity or futility. It is not pointlessness or nonsense. Rather, it is closer to vapor or mist. It is about brevity, transience, but not pointlessness.
Sometimes when I think about this verse, I think about trying to hold a fistful of sand. You can gather it up, but as you try to hold onto it, the sand slips away. This is something those of you who are parents probably understand much more fully than I can, but isn’t it really something we all experience? We look back on our lives and the months and years have disappeared. They aren’t less beautiful for it, but it’s all so very temporary.
With this feeling in mind and summer rapidly scrambling toward its close even when it seems to have just started, this is the perfect time to take a moment. How can you preserve a little piece of time? Of this time together, of some great adventure that you may be on as a family, or a much smaller one. Of any simple day?
One bit of the Goose that I’ve been holding on to as I go through my days at home has been the mornings of listening to FolkPsalm at the Main Stage as folks were waking up and starting the day. Led by Charles Pettee who quips that obviously bluegrass is the original, intended music that Psalmist had in mind.
We can’t hold on to time, but we can thread ourselves a string of beads made of memories, a rosary of remembrance. And we all do this in our own ways.
As I am rushing forward through my days, planning for the coming Sunday School season, coordinating and mapping, it’s time to remember to be present in what is now.
Vanity of vanities! It’s not vanity or futility or any of it. It is the wind blowing through the trees, the sparkle of sun on the water. You can’t hold onto it, but it sure is beautiful.
Until next time,
Bird