Today is the last day of my vacation. (I’ve learned over the years to take two weeks off at one time, otherwise my mind stays at work.)
Yesterday afternoon, we flew home. We were able to visit seven states during our eight-day stay in New England.
My favorite moment of all? It’s hard to pick. A day spent in Portsmouth, N.H., was idyllic and at the top of the list. I loved the scenery throughout the fourteen hundred miles we put on our rented Terrain. I hadn’t realized just how gorgeous the rolling hills of Connecticut and Massachusetts are. Stopping to visit the grave of Emily Dickinson was like a pilgrimage. We ended up having the entire cemetery to ourselves with the exception of a brief, but interesting, conversation with a Boston native. He had driven his aged mother to Amherst; she was a big fan of the poet herself. (For some reason, she stayed in the car)
Later, not only did we see the grave of Robert Frost, I was even able to walk in his backyard. A couple from Maryland took our picture in front of the modest dwelling. The background of trees, mountains, and clouds were so gorgeous that a friend thought it could be a painting. Touring Mark Twain’s residence in Hartford was another real treat; doubly so because we had a fabulous living history tour guide.
We left Minnesota at just the right time. A heat dome centered over the state; temperatures reached triple digits. Meanwhile, the girls dipped their toes in the Atlantic for the very first time.
As we kept an eye on the weather back home, we did the same with the local news. I saw a headline of a shooting at the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis. To be honest, I didn’t think much of it and quickly moved on. (Sadly, such crimes are a frequent occurrence. In the sixteen years we lived in the parsonage, there have been at least a dozen murders within a mile radius of our home.)
Then, this changed. A fellow Lutheran pastor mentioned online that his best friend had been critically injured in a shooting. I quickly responded, asking if it took place at the bridge? Jason replied that it had.
I wanted to dig deeper. Here's an account from a local news outlet, Bring Me the News.
NASHVILLE MAN LEAVING WEDDING SHOT IN THE FACE IN MINNEAPOLIS
When four people were shot when gunfire erupted near the Stone Arch Bridge in Minneapolis Saturday night, one of the victims was a Nashville man who was walking his sister-in-law to her car following a wedding.
Tyler King, an innocent bystander, was shot in the face, apparently struck by a stray bullet. He remains hospitalized in critical condition, according to a GoFundMe campaign.
Friends and family say there was "no one sight on a relatively quiet street" when the gunshots ran out around 11 p.m.
Police believe the shooting happened when a "crowd of people and vehicles" gathered near the intersection of Main St. and 6th Ave. on the east side of the Stone Arch Bridge. King was shot in the head and three other victims, ages 17, 18 and 19, suffered non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.
According to his CaringBridge page, King underwent a procedure to reduce swelling in his brain on Monday, and the surgery was a success.
"Tyler still has a long ways to go, and we are believing and praying the swelling will completely go down in the coming weeks," the journal entry says. "We are in need of continuous prayers, specifically for the swelling in his brain and movement on his right side."
In addition to the swelling of his brain, King has suffered a stroke and a brain bleed since being shot. His long-term prognosis remains unknown.
King is married and has two children, the GoFundMe notes. The online fundraiser has raised around $37,000 for the King family.
I pray that King will pull through, but his prognosis seems iffy at best. If Tyler does survive, what kind of long-term damage will he have to live with? What about his wife and the rest of the family? I can only begin to imagine what they’re going through these days.
The out-of-the-blue violence Tyler King suffered Saturday night could just as easily have happened to me or to you. And what about the timing of this awful crime? King was leaving a wedding. A sickening black cloud now hangs over the bride and the groom. It will linger for the rest of their marriage.
As I thought about the shooting of Tyler King, I couldn’t help but think of Ecclesiastes. The old preacher reminds me just how quickly our lives can change.
When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider this: God has made the one as well as the other. Therefore, no one can discover anything about their future.
In this meaningless life of mine I have seen both of these: The righteous perishing in their righteousness, and the wicked living long in their wickedness.
Do not be overrighteous, neither be overwise—why destroy yourself?
Do not be overwicked, and do not be a fool—why die before your time?
It is good to grasp the one and not let go of the other. Whoever fears God will avoid all extremes.
Such is life in our east of Eden world.
Ecclesiastes took off his rose-colored glasses. He dared to stand toe-to-toe with the cold, harsh reality that confronts us.
When the sentence for a crime is not quickly carried out, people’s hearts are filled with schemes to do wrong. Although a wicked person who commits a hundred crimes may live a long time, I know that it will go better with those who fear God, who are reverent before him. Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow.
There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve. This too, I say, is meaningless. So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.
When I applied my mind to know wisdom and to observe the labor that is done on earth—people getting no sleep day or night— then I saw all that God has done. No one can comprehend what goes on under the sun. Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it.
We live in a violent, chaotic world. Senseless acts are a routine occurrence. They have no rhyme or reason. Stray bullets can strike bystanders blocks away.
Ecclesiastes refused to bury his head in the sand, trying to ignore the facts. A realist was he. One lives, one dies. It’s just the way it goes until we take our final breath.
I have seen something else under the sun:
The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.
Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come:
As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.
What Ecclesiastes observed all those years ago is the way that history plays out. It’s more of the same; there’s nothing new under the sun.
Luke notes the same about his day:
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”
Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree growing in his vineyard, and he went to look for fruit on it but did not find any. So he said to the man who took care of the vineyard, ‘For three years now I’ve been coming to look for fruit on this fig tree and haven’t found any. Cut it down! Why should it use up the soil?’
“‘Sir,’ the man replied, ‘leave it alone for one more year, and I’ll dig around it and fertilize it. If it bears fruit next year, fine! If not, then cut it down.’”
Jesus’ call to repentance echoes down through the ages. Centuries later, in the first of his Ninety-Five Theses, Martin Luther noted: When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ``Repent'' (Mt 4:17), he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.
As Ecclesiastes continues to whisper in my ear, I hear another voice as well. Moses speaks up: Teach us to number our days aright, they we may gain a heart of wisdom.
There is no guarantee that tomorrow will come. There is only today. We’re all walking in the valley of the shadow of death.
For the believer, there is the hope of eternity on the other side. Only then will what happens here and now begin to make sense.
Ecclesiastes provides no solid answers. Instead, he does something just as valuable. The old teacher asks the right kind of questions. And, in so doing, he drives me straight to the absolute necessity of 1 Corinthians 15.
its funny how random things seem.
chance favors the one who is prepared.
In the world of impermanance
Thanks for casting some light.