Christmas 2007

Went down to Austinmer for a few days, including Christmas. Matilda and I looked at a bit of Ecclesiastes together, because she'd picked it out as something she wanted to read.

1 The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem.
2    Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
3 What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?
4 A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down,
and hastens to the place where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south
and goes around to the north;
around and around goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns.
7 All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again.
8 All things are full of weariness;
a man cannot utter it;
the eye is not satisfied with seeing,
nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 What has been is what will be,
and what has been done is what will be done,
and there is nothing new under the sun.
10 Is there a thing of which it is said,
“See, this is new”?
It has been already
in the ages before us.
11 There is no remembrance of former things,
nor will there be any remembrance
of later things yet to be

-Ecclesiastes 1.

I asked her what she thought of it, and she said she didn't really understand it. I said, that's not surprising, I don't think I understood it the first time I read it. It's in the Bible so we know that God said it, but it's almost like he's pretending that he doesn't believe in God.

We prayed that God would help us to understand his word, even the tricky bits.