I have been meditating on the book of Ecclesiastes lately. Tonight as I was driving home late I stopped on the coast to listen to the waves and look at the stars. I murmured to myself:
I am free to not make an impact. I am free to not have a legacy. I am free to be unimportant. I am free to be forgotten. I am free to not be amazing in the world’s eyes.
Of course, I am not trying to say in the least that I am free to ignore making a real positive impact and legacy during my life, but I am saying that my own short-sighted goals and worries that so often consume my thoughts are, in the grand scheme of things, so minor, so insignificant, that my borderline obsession with them is entirely laughable. Realizing this is freeing. It allows me to not grasp and cling to things that will soon pass away in a quick breath. And this––paradoxically––leads me to appreciate that which is temporary with greater attention and reception.
The Liturgists have a track entitled “Vapor (A Meditation)” spoken by Michael Gungor. Here Gungor does a wonderful job of thinking through the words of Ecclesiastes, putting our lives in the context of God’s creation and the history of humankind. I encourage you to listen to the wisdom contained herein:
Although often we may seem meaningless, God brings meaning to the meaningless as he conducts his cosmic orchestra throughout all of creation, time and space. Praise be to him, for from him and to him and through him are all things.
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