The Cycle of Life
Ecclesiastes 1 begins with a poem reflecting on the cyclical nature of our world. Generations keep being born and dying but the earth remains. The wind blows, every direction, it may stop but it always returns. The sun keeps rising and setting; repeating its circuit every day. The rivers keep flowing into the sea but the sea isn’t filled. Eyes are never satisfied with what they see – we want to see more. Our ears are not satisfied in what we hear – we want to hear something different. And there is nothing truly new under the sun. It feels like grasping smoke just to understand what he’s getting at.
But you feel it. I feel it. It makes us crazy. The poem is lovely; the reality is ugly.
The mundane cycle of living. It’s the laundry that’s never done. The dishes that keep piling up. The inbox that is never empty. The list of phone calls and leads to make. We keep living the same day over and over again. And it may not make you crazy every day but it does make you crazy.
I feel it on my kitchen island. I have a huge kitchen island. It’s one of the reasons we love our house (and I do love my island). But inevitably like a huge purse, it gets filled several times a day with an absurd amount of things. Multiple times in a day the island seems to stare me down, covered in chaos saying “What are you doing to do now?” And multiple times a day I am irritated that it is now the task of my existence to waste my time cleaning it again. And even as I clean it, I know in less than 6 hours it will be covered again.
For you, it may not be a kitchen island. It’s another chore. Or it’s work. Or it’s issues with a person. Or it’s issues in your own head and heart. Whatever happens and you sigh to yourself “This, again” – you’ve found what Solomon is reflecting on in Ecclesiastes 1. He calls it grievous and maddening.
Cyclical life is an inescapable reality. We live in perpetual cycles and are perpetually frustrated by those cycles. Solomon observes the world in nature, and in human experience, all is cycles, and we cannot change it no matter how hard we try and therein lies the maddening tension under the sun.
“Where we are unsatisfied with the rhythmical repetition of our lives; it is because we are pretending that things should not be like this for us as human beings. To want infinite change – in other words, to “gain” something – is to want to escape the confines of ordinary existence and somehow arrive in a world where, on the one hand, repetition does not occur and, on the other hand, permanence for our life does. But neither is possible. We long for change in a world of permanent repetition, and we dream of how to interrupt it. We long for lives of permanence in a world of constant change, and we strive to achieve it.” - David Gibson, Living Life Backward
The cycles of my life are recurringly difficult and mundane. But I sense in myself an expectation that I want my life to be both easy and exciting. This surfaces mostly in my frustrations. When I get cups down for my kids and they all fall out of the cabinet I mutter “Ugh, why does everything have to be so hard!” I get frustrated because I can’t do the things I perceive as exciting or spontaneous because my life demands that I be at home. As I wrestle with the cycle of my life, I want ease and excitement. I want change and permanence. Life guarantees me neither. I am looking for gain under the sun and I am chasing smoke.
My first big shift reading Ecclesiastes was just a change of expectation. I cannot expect life to give me ease or excitement – chasing (and expecting) those things will be like chasing the wind. They will always illude me. If I look to my life to provide me with ease and excitement to fill me, I will be much like Ariel the mermaid combing her hair with a fork. Could she comb her hair with a fork? Sort of. Will it hurt really bad, damage her hair and make eating a hairy mess? Yes. Can I look to my life to get me gain (ease and excitement)? Yes.
Will I be disappointed, hurt, and frustrated in that process. Yes.
The second big shift came when I asked myself “Then what do I do when I feel like the cycle of difficult and mundane living is crushing me?”
Well, step 1, stop expecting something in this life to take away that feeling.
And step 2 – ask God to meet you in the moment. Sounds like a coffee mug but let me build to this.
For 2 years making time to commune with God through the Word and focused prayer has felt like an MMA fight. It is a recurring comedy of errors of waking up early – and a child wakes up early and sick. I stay up later and fall asleep while reading. I try middle of the morning and the car breaks down. I try late afternoon and the baby won’t nap. I have been stuck in a cycle of wanting (needing) real time with God in His Word and fellowship through the Spirit and I cannot make it happen in the way I want. As the cycle repeated, frustration grew to discouragement, discouragement to despair and despair to defeat. Spiritually speaking I felt I was surviving on “quick snacks” rather than feasting.
After many blaming seasons (blaming God, myself, my kids, my season, etc.) I thought to myself – God is aware of this frustrating cycle and surely, He intends for me to commune with Him even in this but I don’t know how.
I want holy time to be with God. I want quiet, I want no interruptions, I want to take in the word, pour out my heart, and have time to listen. But time like that is a bit like spotting a unicorn. So, I’ll tell you about two moments over my kitchen sink.
I stood at the sink to clean dishes and stare down that enormous island again. I said “Jesus, I don’t want to do this again, I will have to do this again later, I am so frustrated.” And clear as a bell I heard, sensed (how do we go about articulating hearing from the Spirit? Too long for this post) “You hate this because you think I’m not in this kitchen and you can’t find me at the bottom of that pile of dishes. But I am here and you can.”
There is a time and place that must be holy, set apart to commune with God without interruption. But I am advocating for what Brother Lawrence called “practicing the presence.” I was not functionally living the truth that Jesus is present with me by His Spirit inside me and therefore present, available and loving me while I did the dishes, again. He can be found at the bottom of the dirty dishes pile.
A second interaction, also at the kitchen sink, this time washing the high chair food tray. I was washing the tray (and dishes) again and told God again “I am frustrated to do this again, but I know you can be found here, help me.” And so I closed my eyes, and I imagined Jesus sitting at my island, elbows on the counter talking to me like a friend. I imagined Him also sitting there content to say nothing like a really good friend, just being with me while I did what I needed to do. And then I cried. And I was filled with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the food my family has, for a food tray to wash, and kiddos that have filled that high chair (because for many years we feared we’d never have children). I was overwhelmingly present in that moment; I can feel the temperature of the water even now in my imagination. It sounds crazy but I washed dishes, sensing the imminence of God and it shifted something.
In my last blog I mentioned having the sensation of hovering over my life – buzzing just above it but not in it. And this experience at the sink, with Jesus sitting at the island has proven to be an axe laid to that root of never feeling present. Daily it seems God has worked in a way that I sense Him more present and simultaneously I am more present in my life.
Life is a cycle that I cannot change. If I look to life to provide ways to alter that cycle or make the cycle give me gain, I am chasing the wind. But if the cycle of my life is opportunity to repeatedly meet with God, well then maybe I’ve found the point. Adam and Eve, it seems walked with God regularly at a repeated time. What a joy to repeatedly walk with God. But time and repetition got disfigured by sin and now repeated things are contemptible things. But what if now, with the Spirit of God in me because of Jesus, I can remember an Edenic blessing and do repeated things with God every day? What if doing the dishes again means I met with Him again? What if the flat tire on a busy morning again means He’s pursuing my attention again? What if the cycle isn’t about monotony but is more like the joy of a 3-year-old saying “Do it again!”
Ecclesiastes changed my expectation – that life is a cycle and it can be maddening. Ecclesiastes also lifted my eyes to see nothing in this life can change that but God can meet with me in this present moment, in the middle of that cycle and it is making all the difference.