The Days Vanish Like Smoke

Saturday of the 25th Week in Course 2022

When we read this portion of the Wisdom book of Qoheleth/Ecclesiastes, it is always wise itself to remember who is writing it to whom. The “preacher,” Qoheleth in Hebrew, is a wise man of advanced years. The reader or listener is redundantly called, “O young man in your youth.” and is addressed “in the days of your youth.” We also need to understand that young men, no matter who they are, are notoriously unwise, especially in human relationships. That’s why the wise parent encourages a son to exercise very careful control of his passions. Men between the ages of fifteen and thirty are strong, and can overpower others. They have, unfortunately, poorly developed frontal lobes–the place of decision-making in the brain. So they make mistakes, and if they don’t have a strong and self-controlled father figure in their lives, they often make rash decisions and hurt themselves and others in the act.

So what is the advice here? “Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment.” And the judgment will be how well he followed the natural moral law, summarized in the ten commandments, or in a Christian context, in the easily remembered New Testament law: love God above all things and your neighbor as yourself. Why? Because youth and the early days–the dawn–of life are vanity. That means they vanish like smoke before you are aware of it.

What are you then left with when the physical faculties that gave such pleasure when you were thirty are chugging along barely above freezing at seventy? You are left with the understanding that you acted fairly, justly, compassionately during your early life. You are left with moral and spiritual health even if what hair you have left on your head is either white or invisible. All of us must depart this life in the spiritual state we have at the moment of “falling asleep.” And we will spend eternity either in a real and conscious loving relationship with the Blessed Trinity, surrounded by countless angels and saints, or in a real and conscious nightmare of separation from all love, from all respect, from all joy.

Look briefly at the story Luke recounts of what happened right after Jesus and His three main disciples came down from the mount of Transfiguration and Jesus drove out a demon that His other disciples were powerless against. “All were astonished at the majesty of God.” The witnesses saw in Jesus the One who could do anything, and maybe lead a rebellion against Rome that would drive them out of the Holy Land and restore the kingdom of David. But Jesus threw a whole bucket of cold water on that notion: “let these words sink in–the Son of Man will be handed over to men.” Yes, to be tried by a kangaroo court, condemned by a venal Roman magistrate, and dragged outside the gate to be tortured to death on a cross. All so the moment of defeat, of His falling asleep, could be followed by a real and eternal victory over sin and death. That is the invitation we hear over and over in the Gospels, and that we must respond to by spreading the news to everyone we know or meet.