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Morning Meditation
August 8, 2025
Dominic, Preacher, Friar, and Missionary (1221)
Reading: Ecclesiastes 12:1-7
Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, ‘I have no pleasure in them’; before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return with the rain; on the day when the guards of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the women who grind cease working because they are few, and those who look through the windows see dimly; when the doors on the street are shut, and the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low; when one is afraid of heights, and terrors are in the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along and desire fails; because all must go to their eternal home, and the mourners will go about the streets; before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.
Meditation by Jeremy O’Neill
You may have noticed the unique English grammar of this passage; it is seven verses before we get a period. That is because this section is often considered to be a poem, and it falls in the portion of the Hebrew Bible referred to in English as Wisdom Literature.
While it may be tempting to read a Christology into this passage, I believe it is best read on its own and used as an invitation to question what we believe is temporal and what we believe is everlasting. There is an apocalyptic tone to these words, although it may take a different form than visions of the end times discussed in the Book of Revelation, science fiction works, or concerns regarding Nuclear war. The vision in Ecclesiastes is less about “the end of the world” and more about “the end of the world as we know it.” While this clarification may or may not make us comfortable, it falls in line with similar themes of great changes forecast throughout the Bible.
Passages like these remind us of the reality that the world is changing. This comes both in the social sense as well as in the physical sense. But in that change we are given the responsibility to asses not only what we value, and not only what we owe one another, but also what we owe creation and our Creator.
Capitalism provides us with seemingly infinite opportunities to express some of our values through the things we produce and the things we consume. But this vision in Ecclesiastes asks us to consider more than what we produce and what we consume. It asks us to consider our legacy and how we will contribute to a changing world. Will we invest our time, talents, and treasures in things that will last or will we focus on things which are susceptible to moths, rust, and other forms of decay.
This passage reminds us that our relationship with our creator, and indeed our relationships with each other and with creation will not decay. In fact, these relationships matter for making a world that is better for those that come after us, even as the world changes.
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