This week we will be looking at the verses 1:5-10. We will continue to look at Solomon's presentation of futility. Here he picks up the concept of the rising and setting of the sun. The author stresses that the sun moves or more correctly "hastens" or races to its setting. Only to rise again. Thereis a futile racing of the sun back to its starting point.

Solomon uses the wind next. This is somewhat of a play on words in that vanity or emptiness has to do with the movement of the invisible wind or breath of man and the wind moves relentlessly while it will swirl around it ultimately never stops and will always have patterns--prevailing winds if youre please.

The author uses water as a metaphor next. The streams continually run into the sea and the seas never fill up. Solomon doesn't explain how but knows that there is an inexhaustable source (relatively speaking taking into account droughts) for the streams. Rains and snow come and fill the streams. Solomon has taken into account well the relentless monotony of the physical make up of nature. There certainly is beauty in nature but there is also a savagery. Being caught in a snowstorm or in the desert ill prepared can be life threatening. Solomon says even the observation of the beauty that is there can be futile and empty. "The eye is never satisfied with seeing, nor is the ear ever filled with hearing." (NET).

He also talks about the permanence of the physical universe. The universe has changed very little and the landscape of the world we know changes very little. For those who are urban dwellers the landscape changes because of buildng projects but even there is a futility to that.

Next Solomon introduces the concept of work, toil more appropriately from later contexts. work has a relentlessness to it. Anyone who has worked at all knows there is a monotony to it. He adds the oncept that there is nothing new "under the sun." i.e. on earth. Look at this from a purely phenomonological standpoint standpoint most of the recent discoveries cannot be observed with the naked eye. New planets that are discovered, neew cell processes, and new organic or chemical discoveries all cannot be seen with the naked eye. the effects of some of these discoveries can be seen i.e. the nuclear bomb but the actual discoveries cannot necessarily be seen by casual or natural observation. From that standpoint there is nothing new. No one can point to something that is actually new under the sun in terms of man's life and his existence in relationship to the physical world.

As in the first blog Solomon is setting forth the monotony of life on this earth. Many times people who struggle with addiction do not "see" the world as Solomon has presented it. They see it in terms of hurts, disrespect, slights by others and the "relentless" cycle of compulsivity: acting in, acting out. Appearing to manage life and then having it spin out of control. Solomon wants his readers to face the emptiness of life and accept that this is human kind's place in the world. Until we can accept life as it really is we can't change. I pray that those who struggle with addiction and compulsivity and read this will be able to find themselves in step one. "We are powerless and our lives hae become unmanageable." Our time is up for this week, so until next week: "Keep coming back it works if you wrk it and you're worth it."