Solomon said: “I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on mankind: God gives some people wealth, possessions and honor, so that they lack nothing their hearts desire, but God does not grant them the ability to enjoy them, and strangers enjoy them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil.”

Isn’t that a strange truth… 

I was at a great 90th birthday party yesterday, so sweet – the birthday girl LOVED IT! Loved seeing her friends! And then I was savoring THAT CAKE, the icing even, because you know you shouldn’t eat too much icing and sugar, but I was feeling the treat-deserving treatment to myself at that moment. But my piece came as a middle piece, no extravagant icing. Hmmm… No, I didn’t need even it, the icing, let alone the cake, but just figured just this one time… Nope, but better a little cake with a little icing than none. Fringe benefit from wisdom is to be happy with your lot in life. (And don’t worry about me, I had a great lunch and ice cream later…)

Solomon said: “Everyone’s toil is for their mouth, yet their appetite is never satisfied.”

I then saw those picture perfect cupcakes, and more cake, but I wasn’t going to get up from my landlocked chair. The gentleman across the table did, he took one, I savored the icing as he peeled the wrapper and the look (however I would have picked a vanilla one not chocolate). Then he instantly did a surprising thing, put the WHOLE #%! thing in his mouth. Eww. Ummm. Munch munch MUNCH. A surprise totally and my brain went racing much crazier than my taste buds had. Kinda like your macho showing off (well I been there done that – over it!). Ewww, and yet he accomplished it well, cleanly in a smooth landing that would have rated 9’s and 10’s by the judges, but yeah it took him MANY munches,  sort of embarrassingly, before he could swallow and speak… SILLY… I’m not sure if he was hungry, doubtful, or showing off, likely, or just playing it to be a surprise, yeah, or what?!!!  I saw the squander of savoring. Yeah. Geez…

Solomon said: “What advantage have the wise over fools? What do the poor gain by knowing how to conduct themselves before others? Better what the eye sees than the roving of the appetite. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.

But if he wasn’t being foolish to be foolish, that’s wise, right? It’s all meaningless anyway. Maybe one is silly to get a laugh from someone, I do that with crazy hats and whatever, but how does one know what I or others would laugh at? We do like be a big kid in our furthering years, well me too, but I think I took the icing of my wisdom cake as a lesson to savor things over stuffing cupcakes or otherwise or squandering wealth…  yeah, but whom am I to speak, I squander, squish, and waste plenty… We all do…

And whose to say what is right? We all go to the same place, as Solomon says: “For who knows what is good for a person in life, during the few and meaningless days they pass through like a shadow? Who can tell them what will happen under the sun after they are gone?”

Well, thinking about such things is good. And saving some savoring for life to come is good too. Don’t eat up life all at once. You know that saying: “You can have everything in life, you just shouldn’t want it all at once.”

I think the fruits of tasty things in Heaven will be so good, that if we savor everything to come, we can live without things now, yeah. Take smaller bites of life more thankfully. That is at least what I hope to do: slow down and well, THINK. Savor thoughts… Savor God’s Wisdom. Have desire yes, but most importantly, ask God for the ability to simply enjoy life now, with GLADNESS of heart. 

Amen

(Solomon’s wisdom is excerpts of Ecclesiastes 6)