Tuesday, January 5, 2010

A ROBUST [eeyore]?

Seize life! Eat bread with gusto,
Drink wine with a robust heart.
Oh yes—God takes pleasure in your pleasure!
Dress festively every morning.
Don't skimp on colors and scarves.
Relish life with the spouse you love
Each and every day of your precarious life.
Each day is God's gift. It's all you get in exchange
For the hard work of staying alive.
Make the most of each one!
Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily!
[This is your last and only chance at it,]
[For there's neither work to do nor thoughts to think]
[In the company of the dead, where you're most certainly headed.]

I was inspired this morning to look up Ecclesiates 9:9 from a tweet I read posted by Marriage Today:
"This year, resolve to live out Ecclesiastes 9:9: Enjoy life with your spouse. Don't just exist in the same house. Live joyfully together."
I read it first in the NIV and was a bit taken aback:

"Enjoy life with your wife, whom you love, all the days of this meaningless life that God has given you under the sun— all your meaningless days. For this is your lot in life and in your toilsome labor under the sun." Ecclesiastes 9:9

Wow! How is that supposed to be inspiring? I get the whole "enjoy your days" part but the rest made me think of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. So then I pulled up The Message translation and read this verse in context with the entire passage, which is above. Definitely much more encouraging and inspiring...but I still laughed when I got to the last 3 lines, which I put in brackets. He raises his fist to enjoying life with "robust" pleasure and then follows it up with...cuz you're just gonna end up with the dead anyway.

I wonder if Solomon was bi-polar???...

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