The Scroll

15 - Joy

A young girl's exaggerated whisper was followed by a burst of muffled laughter and the rush of feet down the stairs. A woman's voice called out in anger from the apartment below, and the laughter immediately ceased.

Kohelet could hear the children retreating further down the stairs along with a constant flow of their mother's irritation. He knew that harsh voice well. She was one of those people driven by a perpetual need to control others. As a result she possessed the ability to quickly and effectively stifle joy in her children and anyone else around her.

Kohelet wiped a sleeve over his sweaty brow and shook his head. Would there ever be a time when he wasn't constantly evaluating others? He had been quietly watching people since he was a child, and that was likely the reason he had such a hard time relating to others in a meaningful way. It was difficult to enter freely into a relationship when you were always questioning motives.

He pointed his pen to the sky. "All this thinking and contemplation seems rather pointless, for amidst the masses of people, I feel insignificant, and within the span of history, I am so transitory. Even within my own head I feel lost and alone. I try to make sense of it all, but I always come up short. Then, when I tell myself to quit thinking about it, I just go around in circles again." He shook his head and began to write.

My days had been dedicated to a careful observation of all the work people do upon the earth. I hardly slept as I tried to figure out God's intent for us, but no one can fully comprehend everything that takes place under the sun. Despite my best efforts to search it out, I could not understand it. Even if a wise person claims to know what God is doing, no one can truly know the mind of God.

But the truth of that statement did not stop him from trying. What his future might hold was fueling his imagination, and he looked for any indication of what new troubles he and Benjamin might be heading into now that they were free of Mariah.

When I reflected on this, I realized that although the lives of the righteous and the wise are in God's hands, no one knows if success or failure awaits them. And a final destiny will come to all—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the holy and the unholy, those who worship God and those who do not. The blameless will die the same as the sinner, and those who make promises to God face the same end as those who are afraid to make them.

Indeed, the most distressing fact about living under the sun is that every one of us will eventually die. That knowledge fills our hearts with sadness and our minds with worry while we live, and then we die anyway. At least while we are alive we have hope, for as they say, "A live dog is better off than a dead lion."

Kohelet leaned back in his chair, put his hands behind his head, and looked out over the market. "Here I am, an old dog, also scrounging for scraps." The odor of his sweaty body rose up to his nose, and he put his arms down at his side. He was as smelly as Esther's hound, but at least he was alive and able to enjoy the simple rewards of the day. A dead lion was a curiosity, but you could look at it for only so long, before life would pull you on, and the lion would be forgotten.

We, the living, know that one day we must die, but the dead know nothing more; they have no further influence, and no one remembers them for long. Their love, hate, and envy have long since vanished; never again will they have a part in anything that happens under the sun.

The sun on his face felt good, but for each day it warmed him, it was also marching him closer to the day when it would rise and no longer find him under its steady gaze. Life passed quickly, but unfortunately many people were so caught up in the inevitability of death that they forgot how to live.

Kohelet studied the basket of fruit and wine Eli had left on his desk. The man was a master of presentation. The sunlight and shadows on the fruit and wine made them look more like a painting than real objects. The basket was a feast for the eyes, but it could not stay that way. Its contents were designed to be consumed, not just looked at. Left untouched, the fruit would rot and return to the dust.