the preacher
I've been wanting to write blogs about Stan Rogers, newspaper flyers and the book of Ecclesiastes.... Though I don't think I'll be able to hang them altogether in one typing. So, I'll deal with Ecclesiastes, here... well, actually, that favourite biblical book of mine is not too far disconnected from the blessed son of Nova Scotia.
It could have been written in the time of Stan Rogers, maybe by his brother, it's a story about the bones of the cosmos ... when there's nothing else to hang life on but the cold, hard and polished bones of the world. While I don't doubt that the book could have been written on the east coast of Nova Scotia in the 1970's it has always seemed more suited to the depresion era midwest.
At times it reads to me as if it was written by some wandering dust bowl preacher kicking the dried out dirt up in the air with the soles of his feet and wondering what sense he's gonna make of this big mess to all the folks who come to him looking for the answers, and he knows they'll come... No, but it wasn't written in the days of Stan or in early 20th century America, it was written more than two thousand years ago by some Israelite, the self proclaimed son of the good king David a son of Moses and alleged forefather of Jesus Christ.
History looks pretty much the same regardless of the particularities or the cast of characters. As the preacher says, "...and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind"
It could have been written in the time of Stan Rogers, maybe by his brother, it's a story about the bones of the cosmos ... when there's nothing else to hang life on but the cold, hard and polished bones of the world. While I don't doubt that the book could have been written on the east coast of Nova Scotia in the 1970's it has always seemed more suited to the depresion era midwest.
At times it reads to me as if it was written by some wandering dust bowl preacher kicking the dried out dirt up in the air with the soles of his feet and wondering what sense he's gonna make of this big mess to all the folks who come to him looking for the answers, and he knows they'll come... No, but it wasn't written in the days of Stan or in early 20th century America, it was written more than two thousand years ago by some Israelite, the self proclaimed son of the good king David a son of Moses and alleged forefather of Jesus Christ.
History looks pretty much the same regardless of the particularities or the cast of characters. As the preacher says, "...and behold, all was vanity and a striving after wind"
posted by j/r at 5:28 p.m.
3 Comments:
I, too, have an affinity for Qoheleth and its varied translations, my friend. I love how it screams of the Epicurean and Stoic enriched context when it was written. I love its melancholia. What ever happened to being melancholy? Now if you aren’t happy, you are depressed, sad, or in need of psychological help. Why are we not allowed to have a melancholic personality any longer? Perhaps, you think I have strayed from the message of verse 4:4, but I beg to differ. The kingdom of the happy is a regime of vanity. I, my friend, shall cling to my melancholia, rather than fight towards an unrealistic social expectation. Counterfeit happiness is “striving after the wind”.
baswa,
i think in some societies you are still permitted to express states of melancholy, but not here in the good natured new world...this place and its people haven't been around long enough to understand the world as it is...
Church,
Once again your words strike to the heart of the matter. We in the new world have yet to mature into a fine state of disillusion. We lack a sense of solidity in our reality. Spoon fed false hopes and pipedreams by the powers that be, we fail to appreciate what we have and laugh at the absurdity of life.
Post a Comment
<< Home