Finding Meaning in Normal Life

I was reading Ecclesiastes again, and the conclusions he reaches are very simple: you can't figure life out, but you can live it with a sense of joy if you learn to appreciate the normal.

"So go eat your bread and drink your wine and enjoy your vain life with the wife you love . . . "

"Eat, drink, and enjoy your daily work."

That doesn't sound a lot different from the Epicureans of Greece: "Eat, drink and be merry, for tommorrow we will die."

Maybe the Epicureans were not as far from widsom as we think.

It may be my bias against Epicurean philosophy or my bias in favor of scripture, but I get the sense that the Epicurean saying comes from a desperate manic mood about life, whereas Ecclesiastes' saying comes from a basic appreciation for the gift of life and a certain sense of peace with being a creature dependent on the Creator. But, maybe I am reading in a lot more than is there in Ecclesiastes.

I have always liked this book, standing as it does, in the middle of the Hebrew Bible. Maybe it wouldn't be so meaningful if it wasn't part of the Holy Scripture, if it just stood on its own.

And, I hear in it a profoundly simple message: "appreciate the normal." The getting up in the morning, the coffee, the sunrise, the fact that you have work to do and can do it, the food, the drink, a couple of people to share it with. And, the chance to figure out a few things today, and have plenty to work on tommorrow.