SNARED IN AN EVIL TIME
The parts of the Bible that deal with religion hold no great interest to me. Some of this is a reaction to the contentiousness that has marked religious expression during my lifetime. It is hard to get fired up about religion when so many people do and say so many hurtful things in the name of God.
There is more to it than that. I think I was born with my religious gene suppressed. As far back as I can remember I have been a skeptic when it comes to things religious. I do believe in a Creator, but I don't think I will ever understand the creation or the thinking behind our role in it.
Parts of the Bible do rise to the level of literature, passages that speak to the universality of the human condition. Those passages do offer the comfort of at least knowing that I'm not the first one to wonder about the "accidental malice of the universe," to quote Herman Melville.
So here is today's reading from the Bible, Ecclesiastes 9:11-12
I returned, and saw under the sun,
that the race is not to the swift,
nor the battle to the strong,
neither yet bread to the wise,
nor yet riches to men of understanding,
nor yet favor to men of skill;
but time and chance happeneth to them all.
For man also knoweth not his time:
as the fishes that are taken in an evil net,
and as the birds that are caught in the snare;
so are the sons of men snared in an evil time,
when it falleth suddenly upon them.
February 12, 2010
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