Are You In or Out? (or Katy Perry, Ecclesiastes and How Heaven and Hell are Really the Same Place)

Ecclesiastes 1:2
"Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!"

When I was a kid all I wanted was to be a grown up. When I was single all I wanted was to be in a relationship. In high school, the concept of college seemed awesome (and pretty much was). When I was in college we talked about life after college as "the real world," as if we were living in some place that only existed in our collective imagination (and we pretty much were). After college I married Jenna and took a job as a carpenter. The "real world" was a harsh reality and my Dad lied: a hard day of work really can kill you (just ask all the ER docs that put me back together on a semi-regular basis). Waking up to a daily back ache and realizing my meager paycheck was never going to get much bigger started me thinking about a career change. Now I'm in nursing school, soon to graduate with a second bachelor's and looking forward to grad school and another career. Where does it end?

How many kids are enough (or too many)? How much money is enough (or again, too much)? What makes you happy...I mean really happy? What will sustain you? There is some comfort in knowing I'm not alone. People everywhere, and I really do mean everywhere are striving for the next thing. Fat people want to be skinny...skinny people want to be tan...poor want to be rich...rich want to be richer...people in other countries are dying to be U.S. citizens, people here dream of escaping to a foreign locale with a more layed back lifestyle....

This is what we call the "rat race," right? The answer to our dilema is that achievement doesn't satisfy. When we get the thing that we were going after, we realize that it isn't what will make us happy and we begin to look for the next conquest....that next great pursuit that will fulfill us.

So the obvious answer is to just stop, right? Sit back for a minute and realize that the thing you are after won't make you happy, then learn to appreciate what you have and that is all you need to achieve true peace, joy, happiness, fulfillment, shalom....whatever word you like.

But wait a minute. What about the concept of using your talents? Remember that parable about the master, the servants, and the talents? Wouldn't exiting the rat race be the biblical equivalent of burying your talents and waiting for the master to return?

Today in church the speaker explored this concept and loosely tied it all together with the book of Ecclesiastes. The analogy he used was comical but poignant: What would happen if Wile E. Coyote caught the Road Runner? He discussed an internet video of the coyotee's life after the catch...not pretty (just a warning here...I would have posted the video, but it's pretty profane-Google at your own risk). Okay, back to Ecclesiastes: "Meaningless! Meaningless!" The wisest, richest man to ever live used all his resources and this is what he came up with?! Wow, uplifting.

Of course it isn't all meaningless is it? Quite the opposite really...it all has meaning. We just need to  understand that without God there is no meaning. Without love, God isn't in it. Heaven and Hell may or may not be places, but they certainly are states of being....And as if to drive the point home even more, we are on our way home from church and Katy Perry comes on the radio: "You change your mind, like a girl changes clothes....." I just smiled and took in the February sunshine.