A Common Destiny

When you are young you think very little about death and the after-life. As you begin to experience loss, death and aging, so it begins to enter your thought process. Solomon's advice in Ecclesiastes is not just for those of us who are old, but he is trying to impart a message of mortality to the younger generation. I don't believe it is to be morbid, but rather to help the youth discern their decisions with a clear perspective on life in general. We all share a common destiny and none of us can escape it.

"So I reflected on all this and concluded that the righteous and the wise and what they do are in God’s hands, but no one knows whether love or hate awaits them. All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not.

As it is with the good, so with the sinful;
as it is with those who take oaths,
so with those who are afraid to take them.

This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of people, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead." - Ecclesiastes 9:1-3

“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone - we find it with another.”
― Thomas Merton, Love and Living

I am not sure if I agree 100% with Einstein's sentiments in this next quote, but he does make a similar point to Solomon.

“Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect, as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper.” - Albert Einstein

Living in Grace

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