Chasing Mists in the Jungle

As I am nearing the end of my senior year, I have started reading this book entitled The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.  Now I haven't finished it, but it is one of the most depressing and darkest books that I have ever read.  Sinclair initially wrote it to open the mind of the reader to the advantages of socialism and the evils of capitalism.  (Sinclair would be proud of Sanders.  He would definitely be throwing around the FeeltheBern hastag... If that kind of thing existed in 1906.)  But he even admitted that he failed somewhat in that, instead of turning the hearts of his readers, he churned their stomachs.

But we catch him in the trap that all modernists fall into.  Throughout this year of Omnibus VI, we have discussed the theme in the solutions that are written by unbelieving authors.  And that is that man is the solution.  For example, Upton Sinclair is offering an alternative to capitalism.  But we see how flawed it is when we reach the center of the solution.  No form of government is exempt from this.  If we build a nation, an economy, or a government on the principles of mankind alone, it will fade and be vanquished.  (Capitalism included.)

If all we have is man, then it is all a vanity.  Or a chasing after vapor.

In Ecclesiastes, we find not a message of pessimism.  But one of hope.  When we read the text through the lenses of modernity, we only see King Solomon preaching a message of despair.  It seems like he is saying that everything that we do is vanity, that it is all hopeless.

It is all vanity... without God.

"There is nothing better for a person than that he should eat and drink and find enjoyment in his toil.  This also, I saw, is from the hand of God, for apart from him who can eat or who can have enjoyment?" - Ecclesiastes 2: 24-25

King Solomon writes that without the Lord, all is a chasing and grasping at the wind.  It is useless to try to solve our problems without God.  This is not a pessimistic view point.  Instead, it is a message filled with hope and joy.  In God, we move and have our being.

Stop chasing the mists we find in the jungle.  Rather, find life in the Way.  For it is the only Way to life.