I received news that a dearly loved family member was in the emergency room, showing signs of some form of brain trauma that is, as of now, not yet fully diagnosed. I received this news as I was driving in to Saint Mary’s.

My morning routine is, after dropping off two of my kids at their respective schools, to sit in the nave of Saint Mary’s and say Morning Prayer. My practice is consistent: I say the confession, then the absolution (in the plural, praying for absolution on us all—you’re welcome), followed by the Venite (an abbreviated part of Psalm 95), then the selection of the Psalm that’s appointed, followed by the chapter of Proverbs that corresponds to the date (this is a practice that predates my days as an Episcopalian that I have recently revisited), followed by one lesson appointed for the day from the Daily Office Lectionary (currently I’m reading the gospel lessons), then Canticle 18 (“The Song to the Lamb” from the book of Revelation—if I’m ever without a Bible or Prayer Book, I will say this and the Venite as my morning devotion), followed by silence, intercessions, the Lord’s Prayer, and then the closing Collect from the daily devotions for individuals and families).

Today I wasn’t really feeling it. My heart was heavy and so I was going through the motions. I tried to find some wisdom in the dichotomy of saying jubilant words like the Venite or Canticle 18, but I wasn’t quite there.

I kept feeling a pull, perhaps a whisper of the Holy Spirit, to read Ecclesiastes. So, after finishing my usual routine, I opened up Ecclesiastes and, as I felt the Lord prompt me, read the entire thing.

***

Years back I had the chance to see Rob Bell in Orlando. He was touring his Introduction to Joy ...thing. Not exactly a lecture, but not simply performance art. It was like stand-up comedy, but about more than jokes. Anyway, Introduction to Joy is about the book of Ecclesiastes. Rob* refers to Ecclesiastes as a book that represents “deep wisdom” or “the wisdom that applies when conventional wisdom doesn’t pan out.” Books like Proverbs represent conventional wisdom in the sense that they are largely about “do this or that and things will generally work out well.” Ecclesiastes is a book that wades into the waters of what happens when you’ve done the things that Proverbs teaches, but things are not working out well.

Ecclesiastes is the most goth book of the Bible (Revelation is the most metal, if you must know). The refrain of the book is that everything is “vanity and chasing after the wind.” It’s a long checklist of how nothing really matters, everything is empty and destined for the same universal end: to die and wind up forgotten. There’s almost an echo of the life of the Buddha in the book. The “Preacher” (koholeth in Hebrew, which is also the name of the book in that language and is a name that goes hard) is the author and is traditionally held to be Solomon, the wise king and son of David. He talks about how he pursued wealth, and also madness, and folly, and pleasure, and poverty, eventually coming to the conclusion that “vanity” characterizes every pursuit of humanity. Rich, poor, righteous, wicked, wise, fool, human, beast—all will wind up in the grave, all share the same ending. So what’s the point? “Eat, drink, and be merry,” he says. Enjoy the time you have, because all will come to naught.

This word “vanity” is a word that, in Hebrew, refers to a puff of vapor. In a masterful stroke, in Introduction to Joy Rob pulls out a spray bottle and spritzes little clouds of mist instead of saying “vanity.” Everything is [sprays bottle].

Basically, the Preacher states that everything is temporary and pretty hollow. The pursuits of life are a vapor hanging in the air, like chasing after the wind.

What I’ve come to realize about Ecclesiastes is that it represents a sort of bell-curve (if I’m understanding them correctly). The book opens with “vanity, vanity, all is vanity” and ends with the same, but the journey between turns “all is vanity” from a lament into good news.

Not sure if I’m doing this meme format correctly...

***

Understanding that “all is vanity” is pretty liberating.

This is not nihilism, by the way. Nihilism proclaims that nothing matters. Ecclesiastes acknowledges that life and existence, that our time on the earth, is something. It’s just a fragile and temporary something, destined to end. What Ecclesiastes, in my reading, is doing is asking us to consider our existence in the terms of its vaporous nature. Which, in some ways, underscores the preciousness of our time on this earth.

I’m a fan of Eucharistic Prayer C. I’ve mentioned this before, and I’ve mentioned how I’ve suffered degrees of ridicule for this. One of the things I’ve been told is objectionable in Prayer C is the line “this fragile earth, our island home.” One of my colleagues in seminary felt that calling the earth “fragile” is an affront to God, as though God did not make a quality product. My retort to this has always been that fragility can sometimes be a mark of artistry and skill. A Faberge egg, for instance, is a thing of near priceless beauty but is also quite fragile. Indeed, its fragility underscores its preciousness. This is all to say that the “vanity” of it all need not automatically be a bad thing.

The “vanity” of life puts things into perspective. It is an antidote to much of what ails us.

Consider this passage:

So I became far greater than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. Moreover, my wisdom stood by me. I refrained from nothing that my eyes desired. I refused my heart no pleasure. Indeed, my heart found pleasure from the results of my hard work; that was the reward from all my hard work. But when I surveyed all that my hands had done, and what I had worked so hard to achieve, I realized that it was [vanity]—a chasing after wind. Nothing is to be gained under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:9-11, Common English Bible, see note below)

Imagine if, say, Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos or Donald Trump were to accept this? That no pursuit of wealth or power is going to actually satisfy them? That they could be liberated from the pursuit of wealth?

I also observed that people work hard and become good at what they do only out of mutual envy. This too is [vanity], just wind chasing. (Ecclesiastes 4:4 CEB)

In other words, don’t take things too seriously.

***

While in my meditative prayers for my family member, various things from Ecclesiastes kept popping into my mind. I was actually using “all is vanity” as a kind of mantra to see how I might be able to grasp that such a thing is good news.

That’s when I thought of my toddler and my young daughter playing with bubbles yesterday afternoon.

Bubbles are a kind of vapor hanging on the air. They are hollow, temporary, and ride the wind. They illustrate every point that the Preacher seeks to make.

And kids go nuts over them.

My toddler begs to play with bubbles. He and my daughter squeal with delight in trying to chase them and catch them. My daughter figured out that if her hands are a bit soapy she actually can catch a bubble, if only for a few moments. My older kids will also go outside and play with bubbles. We all love bubbles.

We love the swirling rainbow patterns on them. We love their fragile beauty. We also probably use them as a catalyst to think about our existence. “Maybe our universe is just a bubble floating around in the sky of a much larger universe,” says my philosopher-in-the-making second-oldest.

Bubbles are vanity. Everything is bubbles. We can waste our time getting overly serious about the bubbles. We can expend time and energy in trying to keep the bubble forever. But, no matter what, that bubble will one day pop. Trying to prevent that pop is to misunderstand the bubble, to fail to see it for what it is.

Everything is vanity. It’s all chasing after bubbles. My God, how much fun that is!

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The Rev. Charles Browning II is the rector of Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church in Honolulu, Hawai’i. He is a husband, father, surfer, and frequent over-thinker. Follow him on Mastodon and Pixelfed.

NOTES:

• I’ve had Rob Bell as a guest back when I had a podcast, so I get to call him Rob. This also means that I have a one-degree separation from Oprah, but I won’t let it get to my head.

• The CEB tends to translate the word for “vanity” as “pointless” but I’ve amended the translation here and elsewhere because “vanity” is a better word for the concept in that [spritzes bottle] is not exactly “pointless.”

#theology #spirituality #faith #bible #Christianity #Anglican #Episcopal

“And he’ll get into heaven. He’s a miracle.”

This is a quote from Jane Fonda, from CNN’s obituary of Ted Turner, who died today at the age of 87. I’m struck by the hope in those words, uttered by a woman deeply hated by conservative “Christians” about a man equally loathed.

But Jane Fonda became a Christian. And Ted Turner did more good than probably any of the pastors occupying pulpits in the megachurches of Atlanta, of which there is no shortage of supply.

On the subject of heaven, my mom—while in the depths of our Southern Baptist days, when she was the employee of our church and during one of those swings where the fundamentalists held sway—once said, “I think we’ll be surprised who’s there and who’s not.”

I’ve long held that bit of wisdom dear to my heart.

***

I actually don’t know much about Ted Turner. The Turner name is ubiquitous in the Atlanta area (seen on the bottom of nearly every billboard you pass when driving on the interstate, in addition to all the television networks). I remember when I first went to Atlanta, sometime in 1994. It was the first time I’d ever seen a “real” city (Orlando’s skyline is low due to its proximity to the airports, and more people visit the theme parks many miles away than the actual city center—at least in those days) and I remember the high tech billboards advertising all the Turner networks. Other than this, I knew Turner was the founder of CNN, married to Jane Fonda, and an outspoken atheist. I also knew that he’d claimed to read the Bible many times and that it didn’t make him into a believer—a fact that pastors and teachers in my youth would use in reference to Satan quoting the Bible to Jesus when He was tempted in the wilderness.

But as a result of the hatred certain members of my childhood church directed at him, I came to suspect that he was a person worth learning more about, since it seemed clear that if it was someone my church didn’t like then they were probably a good person, by virtue of the fact my church didn’t like them. From this I learned that Ted Turner was a committed philanthropist, largely dedicated to animal conservation and environmental causes, most notably the reintroduction of bison to the American West.

***

Ted Turner was indirectly responsible for the fostering of my sense of humor.

I remember when Cartoon Network first aired and I watched it nearly all the time. There was a day where I had stayed home with my grandparents. In those days Cartoon Network was just an endless cycle of obscure Hannah Barbera shows. And on this particular day a single episode of Top Cat aired in a constant loop. I kept it on. I remember text eventually scrolling on the bottom of the screen saying that there was a technical issue. I became convinced that it was intentional.

Years later I would read that the staff at Cartoon Network in the early days were bored as hell. They thought they would be able to create new shows. I can easily see these guys looping a single episode of Top Cat for several hours during the middle of the day when practically no one was watching as either a joke or as a means to slack off.

Anyway, the story goes that these Cartoon Network guys approach Ted Turner, begging him to let them make new stuff. Ted’s reply was “we just bought the entire Hannah Barbera catalog, do something with that.” They were given practically zero money, but at least the green light to develop new programming. For creatives, this is grounds for the opportunity for something truly magical and what resulted was maybe the single most subversive television show on cable TV at the time: Space Ghost: Coast to Coast.

I knew Space Ghost. And Birdman. I knew them because my mom insisted on going to the earliest Sunday morning church service and so I would be awakened before the sun on the Lord’s day. I’d put on the TV and, of course, there was nothing on. Except, for some reason, Ted Turner stuck random installments of Space Ghost/Birdman on TBS at that hour. So I’d watch those while my mom attempted to usher me into a shirt and tie for church.

The moment I saw Space Ghost: Coast to Coast I knew I was watching something made by people like me. Yeah, they were older (I was in like eighth grade when it came out), but we were on a similar wavelength. I’ve heard people like Hal Sparks talk about how seeing Monty Python’s Flying Circus made them feel less weird and less alone. That was what Space Ghost did for me.

That show, of course, gave birth to the entire “Adult Swim” aesthetic and ethos—fifteen minute shows with extremely offbeat humor and janky animation.

Cartoon Network would also play a key role in my love of anime through the Toonami block in the afternoons (where I would fall in love with Robotech), which would put anime alongside American shows like Thundercats and allow me to see the connections (those old shows were made in Japanese animation studios).

So, thanks Ted for being a penny-pincher and giving ground to some truly incredible GenX art.

***

Is Ted Turner in heaven? Well, I don’t think too many people are in heaven (aside from the Lord God, Christ Jesus, and the glorified saints and angels). I also tend to think that we all get to heaven, eventually, since heaven is destined to come to earth and the New Jerusalem features gates that never close.

Is Ted Turner experiencing rest? That’s the real question. I’d like to think so. I’d like to believe that his questions are being answered. That he finally understands why his sister suffered, why his dad was such an asshole and that they are finding reconciliation. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can read about it in his many obituaries.

What I find most interesting about Ted Turner’s death is how we have a rare billionaire, one who’s death is the grounds for lauds and accolades. A man who is remembered for all the good he tried to do.

At a time where we decry the billionaire class, where we lament with the psalmist about our having to put up with the “indolent rich,” we have Ted Turner. An atheist who ended his speeches with “God bless.” A driven workaholic who lived in his office for 20 years (by his own estimation), who was the second largest landowner in the United States at one point, owning 28 properties. He owned yachts. He fits the description of so many lamented billionaires, yet defies being held in their peer. He was a man who could have done much evil and instead tried to do much good. Even if his media empire and the 24-hour news cycle he created have been co-opted by capitalist greed to foster much harm, it didn’t seem to be Ted’s intent (and from many accounts he was deeply saddened by losing influence over his companies).

Saint Paul writes in Romans:

Gentiles don’t have the Law. But when they instinctively do what the Law requires they are a Law in themselves, though they don’t have the Law. They show the proof of the Law written on their hearts, and their consciences affirm it. Their conflicting thoughts will accuse them, or even make a defense for them, on the day when, according to my gospel, God will judge the hidden truth about human beings through Christ Jesus. (Romans 2:14-16 CEB)

I think about Ted Turner. Here was a man that did good, even as a non-believer, out of a sense of obligation to the wider world. Saint Paul prefaces this section by noting that it is the ones who do the works of the Law that are justified, not those who simply hear it. So Ted read the Bible and it didn’t lead him to become a practicing Christian. But he was raised in an environment that fostered in him a sense of decency and obligation to his neighbors, to be empathetic to others. That’s got to count for something, yeah? Especially when we contrast it with the selfish wealth-hoarding of so many prominent pastors.

Ted Turner is the rare billionaire that inspires at least one prominent Christian to publicly hope that he is heaven-bound. I share in that hope too.

Rest in peace Ted.

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The Rev. Charles Browning II is the rector of Saint Mary’s Episcopal Church in Honolulu, Hawai’i. He is a husband, father, surfer, and frequent over-thinker. Follow him on Mastodon and Pixelfed.

#TedTurner #Faith #Christianity #CartoonNetwork #Theology #death