“Seize life! Eat bread with gusto,
Drink wine with a robust heart.
Oh yes – God takes pleasure in your pleasure!
Dress festively every morning.
Don’t skimp on colors or scarves.
Relish life with the spouse you love
Each and every day of your precarious life.
Each day is God’s gift. It’s all you get in exchange
For the hard work of  staying alive.
Make the most of each one!
Whatever turns up, grab it and do it. And heartily!
This is your last and only chance at it,
For there’s neither work to do nor thought to think
In the company of the dead, where you’re most certainly headed.”
~Ecclesiastes 9:7-10

This was the scripture one of my colleagues read for devotions at our staff meeting yesterday. In the course of all I did during the hours that followed that meeting I kept thinking back to these words, this interpretation in Eugene Peterson’s The Message. What a ‘carpe diem’, seize the day, message! It made me question the little things that wanted to nag at my spirit, to let them go in favor of embracing the last and only chance at this gift of a day.

While most people are somewhat familiar with the words of Ecclesiastes 3, ‘for everything there is a season’, most don’t read through much of the rest of the book. They know this text, not so much from Sunday School, as from the lyrics of the Byrd’s song ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ and subsequent remakes of that recording through different generations. Ecclesiastes is a part of the Wisdom literature in the Bible, words meant to provide wisdom and guidance for life in the real world. And Ecclesiastes 9 does this as good as any self-help book you might pull off the shelf at Barnes & Noble: “Seize life! Eat and drink heartily. Put on your best and brightest clothes. Today is God’s gift, never to be relived. Take what the day brings and find a place of gratitude in it.” In  my opinion, it doesn’t get much better, or wiser, than that.

Of course, like any good piece of wisdom, it does point out the obvious. This day is our ours to create and live and what we make of it is the currency we use in exchange for the hard work that goes into it. I recognize that I read these words from a place of privilege and that there are those who do not have much say in what their day will hold, may not have the chance to eat or drink with gusto if at all, have no choice in what clothes they wear. This understanding makes this scripture even more urgent to me. And of course, there is that bit about being in the ‘company of the dead’. Sobering, huh?

So, today is already on its way, this gift from God is already unfolding before us. I’ve yet to decide what I’ll wear today but I promise it will be colorful and may even be completed with a scarf. And as I eat my lunch, I plan to savor each bite as if it were my last. I plan to pay attention to the relationships in my life that bring me joy and offer love in return. At day’s end I hope to be able to hand over the hard work of this day as payment for staying alive.

It simply seems like the wise way to live.