What Friends Are For

Ecclesiastes 4:9-11

⁹Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. ¹⁰For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up!

As I was reading through this week’s reading in Ecclesiastes, I read over the verse above, probably over and over. Here I am reminded by God that I am not able to things by myself. God did not create me to be myself but to have other people to be a part of my life. This weekend some of the Hmong girls had a get together to provide encouragement and have fellowship. Sometimes we get so involved in our busy lives and that we forget to see each other’s struggle. This weekend’s gathering was a reminder that we are not alone. There are sister’s on campus and at home who wishes to help each other in our times of struggle.

Everything is Beautiful

I think in song. Almost everything reminds me of a song, which I will break out into more often than not. So when I first read Ecclesiastes 3:11, "He has made everything beautiful in it's time...", I immediately thought of the Ray Stevens song Everything is Beautiful. The versions I've heard do not contain the first verse, so I was not aware until I looked it up that it also contained the song Jesus Loves The Little Children. I have included the lyrics below:

Jesus loves the little children,
All the little children of the world.
Red and yellow, black and white,
They are precious in his sight.
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

Everything is beautiful in its own way.
Like the starry summer night, or a snow-covered winter's day.
And everybody's beautiful in their own way.
Under God's heaven, the world's gonna find a way.

There is none so blind as he who will not see.
We must not close our minds; we must let our thoughts be free.
For every hour that passes by, we know the world gets a little bit older.
It's time to realize that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.

And everything is beautiful in its own way.
Like the starry summer night, or a snow-covered winter's day.
Oh, sing it children!
Everybody's beautiful in their own way.
Under God's heaven, the world's gonna find a way.

We shouldn't care about the length of his hair, or the color of his skin.
Don't worry about what shows from without, but the love that lives within.
And we're gonna get it all together now; everything gonna work out fine.
Just take a little time to look on the good side my friend
And straighten it out in your mind.

And everything is beautiful in its own way.
Like the starry summer night, or a snow-covered winter's day.
Ah, sing it children!
Everybody's beautiful in their own way,
Under God's heaven the world's gonna find a way.
One more time!
Everything is beautiful in its own way.
Like the starry summer night, or a snow-covered winter's day...

I found it somewhat amusing that the misty optimism of the rest of the song is in such direct contrast to the rest of the book of Ecclesiastes.

"And we're gonna get it all together now; everything gonna work out fine.
Just take a little time to look on the good side my friend
And straighten it out in your mind."
Qoheleth never seems to "look on the good side", rather he focuses on the meaninglessness of everything on the earth, as he states in the second verse of Ecclesiastes.
Still, considering one would certainly not make any connection with this song and the book of Ecclesiastes, I'm glad that my mind allowed me to make such a seemingly random connection, if for no other purpose than to be able to fill the requirements of this assignment.
God HAS made everything beautiful!

Clueless as a modern idea of Ecclesiastes

Clueless
:
Synopsis
PG13,1hr 45min
Genres:
Comedy,Romance
Released:
July 21, 1995
Director:
Amy Heckerling
Distributor:
Paramount
Starring:
Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy ...more
Synopsis
Jane Austen might never have imagined that her 1816 novel Emma could be turned into a fresh and satirical look at ultra-rich teenagers in a Beverly Hills high school. Cher (Alicia Silverstone) and Dionne (Stacey Dash), both named after "great singers of the past that now do infomercials," are pampered upper-class girls who care less about getting good grades than wearing the right clothes and being as popular as possible. But Cher, who lives with her tough yet warm-hearted lawyer dad (Dan Hedaya) and hunky, sensitive stepbrother (Paul Rudd), also has an innate urge to help those less fortunate -- like the two introverted teachers she brings together ("negotiating" herself improved grades in the process) and new friend Tai (Brittany Murphy), who starts out a geek and ends up a Cher prodigy. Cher also possesses her own sensitive side, and she is looking for the perfect boyfriend, whom she ends up finding where she least expected. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide






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The movie is more than ditzy girls who like to shop and are totally clueless. Cher is a highschool teenager who has everything (material wise) and while she is in search for the perfect love, she realizes that her perfect world is crashing down before her - her popularity, her influence and her perfect guys. She realizes that her money, popularity and influence are not used wisely and are not truly making her happy. So she decides, "to make over her soul" by using her luxuries to help those less fortunate. She realizes that chasing after all the material wealth is pointless. She realizes that her own wisdom, which has helped others is not working for her own life, but through all of her hilarious misconceptions, assumptions and highclass mistakes she finds meaning and love in her life.

Two are better than one

"Two are better than one"
(Ecclesiastes 4:9)

...that is unless you have
two broken legs

or two left feet...

or two stubbed toes...

or two speeding tickets...

or two atomic explosions...

or two flat tires...

or two maxed out credit cards...

or two crashed cars...

Two might not always be better than one but at least when it comes to friends, "Two are better than one because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion"
(Ecclesiastes 3:9-10)

Bonfire of the Vanities

Bonfire of the Vanities

Tom Wolfe's 1987 novel Bonfire of the Vanities clearly shows Ecclesiastes influence. The title is taken from the 15th century European practice of gathering together objects of vice, lewd literature, cosmetics, and other objects of temporal pleasure and burning them in a big fire in the center of town. In accordance with the theology of Ecclesiastes, the pleasures of life are to be enjoyed as gifts of God but are not to be sought after as one seeks after a prize, and once received are not to be tightly held. Life is fleeting and one's position and possessions do not make one's life. Christ also expressed this idea when he said that one's life does not consist in the abundance of one's possessions.

Wolfe's famous novel is a pastiche of characters from New York in the 1980's, from the excessively self-seeking Wall Street bond trader ('Master of the Universe') Sherman McCoy, about whom the novel revolves, to his Russian mistress, his anorexic and aging wife, and the self-seeking civil rights activist Rev. Bacon, and the druken British journalist who writes and expose about McCoy. Each character seeks his own vanities, his own temporal happiness of position, fame, sex, or money, and each character's story weaves together to a growing personal catastrophe for McCoy and a revelation of hypocrisy for the others.

The style of the novel evokes the Vanity Fair literature of nineteenth century British society and appears again in a new novel about the go-go years of Chinese industrialization, Yu Hua's critically-acclaimed Brothers to which Bonfire of the Vanities has been compared: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100423108. The literary device of exposing the hollowness of one's objects of adoration has been used by others as well, including Charles Dickens, by whom Wolfe as well as Hua were influenced.

Clock of Ecclesiastes

Undo me
Undo me
Tear away every part that I have built on my own
Undo me

Come strip me
Come strip me
Pull away all the years I've spent constructing all I am
Come strip me

Speak to me
Speak to me
My lips will silence every thought that comes parading forth
Speak to me

Blow on me
Blow on me
Whisper in the wind that brushes up against my face
Blow on me

You're the Tree that never bends or breaks, you never sway
Standing Tall with Branches reaching out to touch my pain
You alone blow forth the wind of breath and air I breathe
Abba Father, You are all I see and all I need

So I pray that You would break me down and tear me up
And I pray that it would never end and never stop
Let me start anew, and grow with you, abide in You
Tree of Life restore me to the days when it was only You

Ecclesiastes 3:7
"A time to tear apart and a time to sew together; A time to be silent and a time to speak."

This verse kind of came to me at the beginning of a journey that God was (and still is) bringing me through. I wrote this song in response to my desire to actually experience what Ecclesiastes 3:7 promotes. It is a beautiful thing when God tears down; for, in this process (I believe) destruction is not His goal - His hope is to build one up in truth. I love how 3:7 says that there is a time for this and a time for that - it allows for these seasons to be temporary. However, though these seasons are temporary, there are permanent and eternal truths that are learned and thus lived out.

Dust in the Wind- Kansas

Dust in the Wind- Kansas
I close my eyes, only for a moment, and the moment's gone

All my dreams, pass before my eyes, a curiosity- Eccl. 2:16

Dust in the wind, all they are is dust in the wind.

Same old song, just a drop of water in an endless sea- Eccl. 1:11

All we do, crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see- Eccl. 3:22

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind- Eccl. 3:20

[Now] Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky- Eccl. 1:4

It slips away, and all your money won't another minute buy.

Dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind

Dust in the wind, everything is dust in the wind.

I found the theme of this song to be related to the one in Ecclesiastes. As amazing as life "can" be, it doesn’t last forever and will end. It doesn’t wait on your dreams to become reality (Eccl. 2:16). Like a drop of water in an endless sea reminds me of one mans life compared to the lives of every other man to live. We will be forgotten as the sea continues to grow (Eccl. 1:11). Everything we work for will eventually crumble and we will not be able to see what happens after we are gone (Eccl. 3:22). “All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return” (Eccl. 3:20). “Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever” (Eccl. 1:4).

Essay on Man- Alexander Pope

"...
In Human works, tho' labour'd on with pain,
A thousand movements scarce on purpose gain;
In God's, one single can its end produce;
Yet serves to second too some other use.
So man, who here seems principal alone,
Perhaps acts second too some other sphere unknown,
Touches some wheel, or verges some goal;
'Tis but a part we see, and not a whole.
..."
-Alexander Pope in Essay on Man

Alexander Pope was a late 17th-early 18th century poet. Pope never made it clear whether or not he was a Christian and even today scholars debate about his true religious views. Whatever his views may have been, his Essay on Man, which ,ironically, isn't even an essay, contains many "Ecclesiastic" ideas. In the excerpt above, Pope observes the "vanity" of man's labor, in which he finds no purpose- an observation that is mentioned numerous times in Ecclesiastes. He proposes that man is not the center and that man may be part of something bigger and unknown to him. Much like the sinner in Eccl. 2:26, Pope suggests that man is simply a vehicle in which His plan is fulfilled. And so man's purpose becomes to further God's purpose. Like Qoheleth, Pope reminds man, or me at least, that we are a part and not the whole.

-Amos Lee