Today was one of those days. I felt lost, like I could not
find my way home. I drove over to the Fruit and Spice park at 2 pm. It is a
bright and sunny day, but everything felt dark. I enjoyed meeting some new
people and walking around the park. Then I came home and took a nap.
When I awoke, I didn’t want to get up. What is the point? In
the past, taking salsa lessons, studying, reading, thinking, writing helped me
soften the pain, or at least forget it. I have been working hard, developing
course material and teaching classes.
Now however, dancing no longer interests me and I am
actually tired of reading books. There is no point to writing and posting
online, no one cares and nothing will change.
All things are wearisome;
Man is not able to tell it.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
Nor is the ear filled with hearing.
9 That which has been is that which will be,
And that which has been done is that which will be done.
So there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one might say,
“See this, it is new”?
Already it has existed for ages
Which were before us.
All things are wearisome;
Man is not able to tell it.
The eye is not satisfied with seeing,
Nor is the ear filled with hearing.
9 That which has been is that which will be,
And that which has been done is that which will be done.
So there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there anything of which one might say,
“See this, it is new”?
Already it has existed for ages
Which were before us.
Ecclesiastes 1:8-10
Is this what ‘nothingness’ is like?
The Finnish theologian, Tuomo Mannerma, talking about Luther’s
theology of Two Loves, says,
“God works in two ways; God leads
human beings into hell and then brings them back again. In other words, God
turns human beings into “nothing,” making them weak and crazy sinners, but also
makes them “be” and exist again, making them holy, strong and wise. Luther calls the former action the work of
God’s left hand, and the latter the work of God’s right hand” ~ Two Kinds of Love, Martin Luther’s religious
world, p. 32.
So, I
guess this awful place I am in makes me somehow an extraordinary candidate for
God’s creative love? I’d like to see exactly how that works.
“God gives life to the dead and calls into being that
which does not exist.”
(Romans 4:17) but I didn't know it would be this awful getting dead and coming
to nothing.
And
God has chosen the weak things of the
world to shame the things which are strong, 28 and the
base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the
things that are not, so that He may nullify
the things that are, 29 so that no [t]man may boast before God. (1 Corinthians 1:27-29)
Well look at me now, there is no boasting going on now, is
there?
Solomon: I realized that this also is striving after wind.18 Because in much wisdom there is much grief, and increasing knowledge results in increasing pain.
