A futile, vain, and meaningless summer was had by all.

   School starts again in two weeks. I have a place to live and some iced tea in a glass. Reviewing all the things I didn't get done this summer would also be a waste of time. But one of the things I did do was go to Evan Wilson's excellent four-week bible study on Ecclesiastes. It was eye-opening. Evan articulated insights that I feel I had been struggling toward for a long time, but had been unable to  quite coalesce on my own. I am very grateful for the chance to listen to him. Of course I won't remember it for long.
   I was already most of the way into a proper futilitarian frame of mind: convinced that we won't be here long, accomplish anything, nor be long remembered. But there are a couple of things that struck me in particular.
"What is crooked cannot be made strait" (1:15)
   We are living in a fallen world and subject to futility. We can't fix it. But oddly, Evan said, futility paves the way for the virtues. Someone who's trying to fix something misses the chance to instead respond to a situation with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness or self-control.
   "Consider the work of God; who can make strait what he has made crooked?" (7:13)
   I suppose this is much like the other verse, I'm just still mulling over the implications. Especially in the arenas of how to treat ones' self and others. Right now I have more questions than answers, and they keep running ahead of me. I grew up in more of a pietistic tradition where I was trying to be perfect and not really need the grace of God, which is to say, not really need Him. Which was Adam's sin all over again, and where futility comes in. We're dependent creatures: we will never not need him. Futility reminds us of this, even though we're proud and kind of dim.
   "Be not righteous overmuch, and do not make yourself overwise; why should you destroy yourself?" (7:16)
    Another mind-bender. I'm sure I gawked at this as a kid and then blew it off. I'm still not sure I quite get it, I may have to ask Evan again, but I'm tending to think that both have the potential to ruin the moment or avoid it entirely with just too much stuffed-shirt prudence. The moment is really all we have.