Grateful Birthday 46

This Friday, my birthday, was a cold but sunny day, a little break from the snow and ice that hit metro Atlanta on Wednesday and then again this weekend. I took the opportunity Friday to have some “alone time” outdoors, going out to the trails at Pickett’s Mill, a Civil War battlefield in Dallas, Georgia, hiking through the woods and soaking in the deep sense of history and feeling grateful for the many blessings in my life.

Then, when it got colder, I went to a coffeehouse to read Ecclesiastes (good birthday reading for existentialists). Herman Melville called Ecclesiastes “the truest of all books,” and Thomas Wolfe described it as “the highest flower of poetry, eloquence, and truth.”

I read Ecclesiastes in two different Bible versions: The Message, a paraphrase that is used at my new church, and the English Standard Version (ESV), a much more literal translation that I’ve come to appreciate more and more. Even though the ESV was done by conservative scholars, it’s a great translation. There are parts of The Message (which is greatly loved by Bono of U2) that are incredibly beautiful and poetic, and other parts that are simply annoying. The poet in me appreciates The Message, and the theology geek in me loves the ESV, so I’m now using both on a regular basis. I’ve become bi-biblical.

Yesterday (Saturday) the snow fell again – here’s what it looked like outside my apartment:

“God has made everything beautiful in its time

and has planted eternity in the human heart...”

~ Ecclesiastes 3:11