“’Meaningless! Meaningless!’ says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.’” (Ecclesiastes 1:2, NIV)
These words don’t seem to offer much hope. Without careful reading they don’t. Carefully read, however, they are the path to joy.
I have had some understanding of the Book of Ecclesiastes, but a few new windows were opened by Rob Bell’s “An Introduction to Joy” show. I learned that the Hebrew from which “meaningless” is translated is hevel which means vapor or mist. Life is but a mist. Life’s problems are but a mist. As well, are the good things that happen to bad people and the bad things that happen to good people.
What is one to take away from the Book of Ecclesiastes? Joy. I don’t intend to get into a deep or theological study of the book. I am going to just embrace the theme of joy and…carpe momento.
For purpose of demonstration, Rob Bell had a small spray bottle on stage. He sprayed it every time he said “meaningless”. It has me considering all the meaningless bull**** that I let get to me on a daily basis. It is all hevel.
I have determined to keep a mist bottle in the car. When I am frustrated by the driver who comes to a complete stop at the round-about or who insists on driving under the speed limit in the passing lane or…, I will spray a mist to remind me that it is all but a vapor.
Joy is the offspring of grattitude. It is a choice. It is a fruit that is to be cultivated.
Life is meaningless in the sense that it is vapor. As such, we must live in the moment—carpe momento—and be joyful. As a wise man once said, “everything is dust in the wind”. Perhaps the meaning of life is a Kansas song—not that life itself is meaningless; rather, all that we allow to burden us is hevel.
We’ll see how my experiment in hevel works.
Be your best today; be better tomorrow.
Carpe momento!