A time for everything

Those who have knelt at more than a few funerals will invariably have shed a tear or two to the verse, ‘A Time For Everything’.

Rare are the readings that really resonate with me, but this one, Ecclesiastes 3 1:8, never fails to strike me as absolutely spot on.

Where much of the Bible’s wisdom has been lost to time, these eight lovely lines remain as relevant today as they did when they were first written.

In case death has not visited your door in a while, let me remind you of the text I am talking about.

A time to be born and a time to die/ a time to plant and a time to uproot/ a time to kill and a time to heal/ a time to tear down and a time to build/ a time to weep and a time to laugh/ a time to mourn and a time to dance/ a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them/ a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing/ a time to search and a time to give up/ a time to keep and a time to throw away/ a time to tear and a time to mend/ a time to be silent and a time to speak/ a time to love and a time to hate/ a time for war and a time for peace.

As my English teacher had a habit of saying when he was impressed by the outstanding profundity of a particular paragraph, that is great stuff, isn’t it, lads?

I mean, sure the bit about scattering stones and picking them up was probably slightly more stirring a few thousands years ago than it is today, and maybe some of our more pacifistic readers would contest whether there is ever really a good time to kill, but, by and large, the whole thing has aged surprisingly well.

Unlike a lot of stuff you hear trumpeted from the altar, it is not verbose, patronising or bombastic. Rather, it is clear, incisive and instructive.

For believers, given their faith in the Bible’s otherworldly origins, the enduring relevance of this particular passage probably doesn’t come as a surprise.

“It is the word of God, dictated by the creator and inked by his sacred scribes, of course it’s not going to be eroded into irrelevance,” they might say, perhaps with sanctimonious superiority, or, maybe, a humble but confident calm. Who knows what tone they would take with me?

However, regardless of their manner, I would have to disagree.

To me, anyway, the reason the wisdom of these words has not withered with time has nothing to do with their divine provenance or the author’s omniscience, and everything to do with the fact that the fundamental challenges of our essential earthly predicament are largely the same today as they have always been.

Though our world is in many ways unrecognisable from the one our ancestors would have inhabited, some of our deepest problems still arise from our inability to understand and accept the nature of our existence.

Namely, that people we love get sick, things we cherish don’t last, everything we care about will come to an earthly end, and we will ourselves will someday die.

I am sometimes envious of people with faith, and all the comfort, guidance and certainty it can bring.

However, there are many other things wrapped up religion that I am glad do not cast a shadow on my life.

Anyway, whether you have faith or not, ‘A Time For Everything’ offers something for everyone; eight deeply insightful lines, not hung tenuously from the lofty heavens, but rooted firmly in the real world.

Get to grips with them and, whether you’re as devout as the pope or spiritually bankrupt as the bookies, you’ll have a much better chance of living a good life.

(Aye, I realise I failed to deliver on my promise to bring a bit of craic this week, but I vow there will be a return to lighter, less high-minded musings next week.)