I am not snowed in yet because it has not yet started to snow – but it is cold and I do plan to warm up today with a trip to a beautiful greenhouse conservatory around here – just the right warm up that I will appreciate…  Continuing my reading of my distant relative’s memoirs after WW2, when he was a forced laborer – it is tough to read their plight – it was COLD – and they were not taken care of more than slightly elevated slave labor – and yet my relative as a skilled worker was as careful as he could be – one to keep his head down but chin up in survival mode – he did escape after the Dresden bombings – went south on foot and by train/trams occasionally – made it home. He got help from friends, family and strangers.

But the story from the factory? and the people? wow!!! And being in survival mode is different for everyone – but in remembering how we make it though – we are to remember that others are travelling with us…  King Solomon in his Ecclesiastes poetry tells us that we are better together – and even best with God there too – that is the third in the threefold cord between friends.

The Value of a Friend – verses 9-12 Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, For he has no one to help him up. Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; But how can one be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Let us stay warm today and bring warmth to others – bring the strength of the Lord into your situation too. Selfish toil will bring us nothing – as King Solomon states – but “vanity” and “grasping for the wind“… Even striving for popularity is also is vanity and grasping for the wind.

And so it is better to share what we have with a friend – and LOVE each other. 

Let us use COLD temperatures to remember to bring the warmth ourselves to invigorate us to keep moving and keep loving.

Amen

—

And remembering his “friends”, my relative in the labor camp learned of their fates after the war. May we continue to remember others…

Here are some snippets: 

“Back to the factory… The factory produced vices from the smallest to the largest and mainly dividing devices for various uses. I worked on a lathe, a circular grinder and I was also on the transport – a two-wheeled cart for transporting material from workshop to workshop.

“How it was there… Monday to Friday we worked 10 – 11 hours a day, on Saturday until 2 pm. Twenty of us lived and slept in one room in the camp. Our food was cooked from one pot, without meat, very poor. The pay for the work was very low. Bread was sent to us from home.

“…apart from me, there was “Mr. N.” , the oldest in the camp, he was almost fifty years old, then “K”, a house painter, a tanner “T”, who didn’t stay there long, injured his hand and couldn’t work and probably bought himself out of there – lard, meat for the Germans and was released. “M” – over forty years old, could sing songs beautifully, was blind in one eye, in his youth he used to go to the priest for pears. He was unlucky, after an air raid he found a suitcase full of fine women’s underwear on the street – he took it and, as a typical Ausländer [foreigner], was accused of looting, imprisoned and only in May did he reach home completely exhausted and died. “D” was also imprisoned – for Christmas he wanted to meet his wife at the border, he violated some regulation and was imprisoned in Litvínov, where there were already chemical plants at that time. There they tormented him with cold, etc., he returned after two months alive, but completely exhausted.”

——–

Here is the wisdom and start reality realization from King Solomon:

Ecclesiastes 4 – New King James Version
The Uselessness of Selfish Toil
Then I returned and considered all the oppression that is done under the sun:

And look! The tears of the oppressed,
But they have no comforter—
On the side of their oppressors there is power,
But they have no comforter.
Therefore I praised the dead who were already dead,
More than the living who are still alive.
Yet, better than both is he who has never existed,
Who has not seen the evil work that is done under the sun.

The Vanity of Selfish Toil
Again, I saw that for all toil and every skillful work a man is envied by his neighbor. This also is vanity and grasping for the wind. 

The fool folds his hands
And consumes his own flesh.
Better a handful with quietness
Than both hands full, together with toil and grasping for the wind.

Then I returned, and I saw vanity under the sun:

There is one alone, without companion:
He has neither son nor brother.
Yet there is no end to all his labors,
Nor is his eye satisfied with riches.
But he never asks,
“For whom do I toil and deprive myself of good?”
This also is vanity and a grave misfortune.

The Value of a Friend
Two are better than one,
Because they have a good reward for their labor.
For if they fall, one will lift up his companion.
But woe to him who is alone when he falls,
For he has no one to help him up.
Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm;
But how can one be warm alone?
Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.
And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.

Popularity Passes Away
Better a poor and wise youth
Than an old and foolish king who will be admonished no more.
For he comes out of prison to be king,
Although he was born poor in his kingdom.
I saw all the living who walk under the sun;
They were with the second youth who stands in his place.
There was no end of all the people over whom he was made king;
Yet those who come afterward will not rejoice in him.
Surely this also is vanity and grasping for the wind.