NOTES for Ecc 3:22
So is there meaning in human life? In ordinary earthly life? Ecclesiastes finds meaning: to find joy in one's works. In the Hebrew text the issue is joy, not pleasure, the joy with which others rejoiced in God's presence. But where is God's presence here? Perhaps in the cosmic dance of which the whole chapter speaks?
Everything has its place and its time, and the world turns in circles, showing to the one contemplating its dance first one side, then another. A time to be born, a time to die; a time to love, a time to hate; a time for war, a time for peace... But around what does the world revolve? And who watches its sacred dance? God? Yes, of course, He not only sees His creation dance, He also directs this dance. Yet Ecclesiastes is not a mystic, not a prophet. He is simply a contemplative. He is able to see what he sees in wholeness and fullness. And therefore the familiar world suddenly opened to him differently, in a way it had not opened before.
Behind the endless movement he sensed rest. Not the rest of death, but the rest of eternity. Of the Eternal Present. The place where God abides. The Present that always remains itself, motionless and unchanging. And, remaining such, it embraces every movement, making any change possible. This is not yet God's eternity, but it is already the border: the border separating God's eternity from created spaces and times in the bad infinity of their variety.
Starting from the endless movement of endless spaces and times, one can find oneself at the border of God's eternity. It passes not only through the mysterious infinity of creation, but also through the no less mysterious depth of the human heart. There, on this border, one can find rest. Inner peace. As the prophets found it, remaining inwardly completely calm during their elusively swift ecstatic round dances.
Rapid movement outside, and complete stillness inside, peace in the heart where God's 'breath of life' opens the door into heaven, into God's eternity. And Ecclesiastes, who was not a prophet, suddenly discovered the same rest for himself while contemplating the endless dance of the cosmos. Then it turned out that it revolved by no means around emptiness. Behind emptiness fullness appeared. Fullness of existence. Fullness of meaning. And however fleeting the revelation was, it became clear: this is no longer 'vanity of vanities.'