Ecclesiastes 7: Elusiveness 
Thursday, September 5, 2024
A Favorite from September 13, 2008.
Wisdom and Righteousness are elusive, Qohelet tells us; and this does not surprise us. We seek these qualities throughout our lives because they lead us to our divine self, our immortality, our infinity. Today’s reflection invites us to seek our divine self by looking at the inversions presented as evidence that this divinity lives in us constantly . . . it is with us, even as we go in search of it.
Perhaps we do not find this divine self because we are distracted by the cares and needs of daily living; yet it is in this quotidian life that we find the divine. Qohelet reminds us that we best find understanding through sorrow, joy through grief, success through failure, happiness through pain, fulfillment through loss. He further invites us to examine the life of the wicked and the idolatrous as contrasted with that of the wise and the righteous. The former finds mirth in a present life of carefree festivity, while the later finds divinity in this life and in the next . . . through an ever-maturing communion with God.
Our divine self is elusive when we seek it with our human eye; yet it steps into full view when we drop all pretense and allow ourselves to be directed by the voice that challenges us through loss.
We find this divine self, Qohelet points out, when we put aside impatience and put on the enduring mantle of hope. We find it when we put aside relationships in which we are the hunter and the hunted, and make the decision to enter into those that blossom with fidelity and constancy. We find it when we commit to the worship of the one true God rather than false covenants of comfort or fame.
When we allow God to balance our lives, we journey from the dark places to the light, wisdom makes an immediate and steadfast appearance, and righteousness guards us as we weave between the stones in the obstacle path of our pilgrimage. The divine self we seek is no longer elusive.
And so in gratitude we pray as we read.
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth. Bring us your wisdom, O Lord.
It is better to hearken to the wise man’s rebuke, than it is to hearken to the song of fools. Bring us your wisdom, O Lord.
As the crackling of thorns under a pot, so is the fool’s laughter. Grant us your righteousness, O Lord.
Better is the patient spirit than the lofty spirit. Show us our divine self, O Lord.
Consider the work of God. Who can make straight what he has made crooked? On a good day enjoy good things, and on an evil day consider: both the one and the other God has made, so that man cannot find fault with him in anything. Be not elusive, O Lord.
Amen.
Image from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iris_%28anatomy%29
The Noontimes 