I can’t say how many times I’ve tried to write this and haven’t been able to. I’ve spent weeks trying figure out what to say, how to interpret Ecclesiastes 11. I’ve come up with countless little intros, illustrations about base jumping, about green valleys with deep, hidden rocks, to prove my point. When I was at school one day, I even saw that someone had thrown a slice of bread into the stream that runs through the campus—and I tried to write about that. It was white bread, probably not all that healthy. That soggy slice is actually a little more relevant in context, but still—that’s how desperate I was to try to make this post something more, something interesting. Most writers are tempted to desperately try to make what they do mean something; they want it to matter, to have a place. Because if their writing means, they mean, and there is nothing more terrifying than the prospect of not.
I considered supplementing this post with songs, with illustrations of my print-out of Ecc. 11 all marked up and messy—maybe that would prove that I had spent my time in the passage. If I’m being honest, it took my so long to figure out chapter 11 because I was neglecting spending time in it.
I’ve been stressed out lately. The culmination of the semester is coming up. I’ve got tests to study for, papers to write, sources to cite, research to complete, lessons to teach—the list goes on.
I’ve also got to finish my grad school applications.
I’m hoping that this post will not be too terribly long—I don’t think it needs to be. Instead, I think I’ve been trying to make my words many, to multiply them and in their multitude find some kind of comfort for how well, for how completely and utterly I’d explained this mystery to myself (Ecclesiastes 5:2, ESV). This would be profanity. I need to let my words be few and be right.
But there is a mystery I cannot explain, a place I cannot go, a place far off and exceedingly deep, where I cannot dwell. And there is such a futility to living in the barren places of worry, of pride, of vanity and doubt and selfishness. There is no material blessing, no gift, no word or sentence with which I explain to myself the future. I was not meant to live there.
Ecclesiastes 11 is the second to last chapter in the book. At this point, I would assume things are beginning to wrap up, Solomon is just about finished with his proverbs. What wisdom would he impart to me now, young, foolish, inexperienced?
I wanted to spend time talking about 11:7, 11:10—but I know that’s not what I need to know in the chapter. Instead, this speaks to me:
Cast your bread upon the waters,
for you will find it after many days.(Ecclesiastes 11:1 ESV)
The problem is that grad school feels like such a risk. I have no guarantee of acceptance. Sure, I’ve worked hard, done what I can—but what is good enough? If I am accepted, fabulous, things went according to plan. If I am not, it would feel like a failure, like I wasn’t good enough. And, if I’m being honest, I have no backup plan other than to do my best for a year and try again.
In this moment, in this time in my life, is my place of uncertainty. This is my place of casting, where I hold my bread in my hands and toss it upon the waters, into the storm, the rushing, the waves, the foam as it crests, breaking with a terrifying violence upon the rocks.
This is my place of many days, even though I would rather they be few.
But this can also be my place where He who was far off draws near and close. That place should be my every place. My every day. And it is so easy to forget.
Songs of Ascent 