Vapor (A Meditation)

דִּבְרֵי קֹהֶלֶת בֶּן-דָּוִד, מֶלֶךְ בִּירוּשָׁלִָם.
הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים אָמַר קֹהֶלֶת, הֲבֵל הֲבָלִים הַכֹּל הָבֶל.
Meaningless, Meaningless, Everything is Meaningless
Most scientists estimate that the universe is 13.77 billion years old, and that
the earth is 4.54 billions years old, while human beings have only been on earth for
less than 200, 000 years. To put those numbers in perspective, if you stretched out
your arms and your entire wingspan was representative of earth's geological history,
and then you took a nail file and took just a little bit off of the edge of your fingernail,
you would have just wiped out all human history.
There's this Carl Sagan quote about a photo of earth taken from Voyager on its way
out to deep space that echoes the sentiments of the Kohelet, the Teacher, in the ancient
wisdom book called Ecclesiastes. Here's the quote:
"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you
love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was,
lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident
religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero
and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every
young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer,
every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme
leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote
of dust suspended in a sunbeam."
So here we are, on this pale blue dot. Tiny specs of dust coming into existence
for a moment. Hurling through space and time, only to flicker back out after a few
moments. These moments, these are all we have in this life. We work, we laugh, we
cry, we make love, we write books, we build empires, we wage wars. We often try to
ignore the fact that these moments are temporary. That all our empires and the gross
national product, our art and our literature, our $300 designer jeans, all of our
knowledge and technology, creativity and legacy is erased. It's all going to flicker
out at some point with everything else.
Vapor, Hevel, Meaningless. Everything and everyone is a vapor. Here for a few moments,
and then gone. This sobering thought can be depressing, Or it can be absolutely freeing.
We can either go the way of many around us and ignore this fact, medicating and numbing
ourselves in avoidance of the truth of our humanity; or maybe there's another way:
we can embrace it. We can recognize our humble place in this universe. We can recognize
the silliness of human arrogance and empire. And perhaps as a result, we can learn
to appreciate and fully experience the moments that we have as the gifts that they
are.
Think about when you were young, do you remember getting worried and stressed about
things that seemed so important at the time? Now how do you feel about those things?
The issues that felt like life and death, like how the kids didn't give you a fair
turn on the playground that day? How do you feel about that now? Do you laugh about
it? Does it seem silly? So what are you worried about today? Do you really think it
is any less silly than what you were worried about as a child? Your job- Vapor; your
apartment- Vapor; your school loans- Vapor. Everything and everyone you love and worry
about- it's all Vapor.
Are you worried about being unique or important? In our society we worship our individuality,
we love to talk about our fingerprints and snowflakes and how every individual is
unique. But, have you ever looked at a snowflake? I mean, they're all kind of the
same. Back the camera up a little bit, and you are nothing but a human being, a spec
of dust in time and space, not all that distinguishable from the 7 billion other specs
of dust swirling around you. How many of our moments on the pale blue dot do we waste
worrying and stressing about the Vapor? The Kohelet, the Teacher in Ecclesiastes,
shows us the vanity of human toil and worry. Another Teacher came and taught about
the Vapor like this- "Come to me all you who are weary, and I will give you rest.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
So what are you so worried about? What causes you stress? Because it's going through
the dirt like everything and everyone else. It is Vapor, mist, smoke, Hevel.
This doesn't have to be depressing, in fact, it might even be liberating. Finitude,
after all, is actually what makes life sweet. Christmas time can be such a wonderful
and magical time of year because it only happens once a year- not in spite of it.
Parents treasure their moments with their young children at home precisely because
they know those moments won't last forever- not in spite of that truth.
So take a breath. Recognize your frailty. Recognize that the things that feel so
weighty and wearisome in the back of your mind right now, are nothing but Vapor. Feel
your breath. Recognize your lungs keeping you alive without your ability to make them
work or not. Your heart is beating. Your cells are working together to keep you alive.
And it's all magical and mysterious and beautiful. Life on planet earth is a gift,
and you only get it for as long as you get it. And then the match gets blown out.
So set your hearts, not on things of earth, not on the vapor, but let go. Fully open
your heart to both the Gift and the Giver. The Mystery. The Beauty. That in which
we live and move and have our being. That in which we call God- The Oneness who holds
the Vapor together- who somehow bring meaning into the meaningless.