“And I saw every deed done under the sun, and all of it is just chasing after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 1.14).
Ever have one of those moments when everything seems meaningless? Maybe it’s at the kitchen sink with your hands wet, soap suds on your wrist, and cold tile beneath your feet. Or, perhaps it’s early in the afternoon, hearing the chime of another email arriving in your inbox as you sit through your fourth or fifth meeting.
The Desert Fathers and Mothers had a name for this, acedia. They called it the noonday demon; because, it came upon a person in the midst of the day. Things just felt…well, as if they were just chasing after the wind.
Reading these words from the Teacher of Ecclesiastes, it’s tempting to hear them in light of this affliction. Perhaps our wise older writer, sitting at their desk beside the window and watching the hustle and bustle of the marketplace in the distance found themselves under the influence of acedia. Maybe, like some of us, life suddenly felt drained of any meaning.
The temptation with which acedia ensnares us is discontentment. Rather than pay attention to the here and now, we’re drawn to look at the past and the future and place this present moment in comparison. Instead of being where we are, our hearts and minds are drawn to consider what has been, might be, and, of course, what could have been. We detach from now and begin to drift in the midst of what-if.
We start, I guess you could say, chasing after the wind.
While it seems the Teacher is expressing just this sentiment, we have to step back and remember that this book insists that there is nothing we can do, nowhere we can be but in the present moment. Eat you bread, we’re told, and drink your wine. Enjoy yourselves. These exhortations can sound like giving up, but, in fact, they are what shelters us from the whispers of acedia—living within the now.
Every deed, we read, is just chasing after the wind. Not, as acedia would make us think, because it has no meaning or substance, but because it is so brief in its passing. This time of year, the slightest breeze makes itself known in the rattle leaves on the branches and their rustle upon the ground. But no matter how strong, the wind’s presence is fleeting. In the quiet of night, there is the sound of it…and then the breeze is gone.
Just like every moment of our lives. Whether we’re lying close to the ones we love or putting away the dinner dishes, the seconds come and tick away. And that fact should draw us back to the moment we are in, no matter how routine or mundane it may be; because, it is all we have. Because, in recognizing it, we find gratitude for it. And through the present we find thankfulness for our lives as a whole.
Because they too will soon be gone like a passing breeze.
God, every moment we take in and breathe out the breath you have given us. Each second is a gift from you that I too often fail to notice and acknowledge. Give me the grace to be present in the moments of the day, and thankful for them.