Anne Kennedy: The Courts of The Lord

May 22, 2014

Ever notice how no matter how hard you work you can never get to every task that lies before you or really make things nice? While you are planting a nice garden, the inside of the house is being systematically dismantled. While you are doing laundry the kitchen becomes a sugar encrusted sea of refuse and despair. While you are cleaning the school room, someone is eating a crumbly bun quietly in the car. Of course you do, but you probably aren't struggling through Ecclesiastes and the last tiny little bit of school and the sudden panic that it is nearly June and there is a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be done and look nice–like painting the the parish hall, and coping with that awful cleaning closet with all the vile chemicals, off of which the door fell–all at the same time. Or you are a nice holy person who doesn't descend into rage at the first sign of dirt. You are that clever mature person who can “let it go” and “focus on the people”.... image
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I am profoundly discouraged that someone like Solomon, who never did a day of house work in his life or had to interact with his thousands of children, and who probably walked in a stately way around the walls of Jerusalem, the courts of the temple, watching everyone labor industriously away, and who, in fact, did see its completion, he is the one who most perfectly articulates this never ending spinning and doing the same thing over and over again and never getting anywhere.