The Catalogue of Times - A message screams to us from ancient writings: an emphasis on ‘one right view’ and ‘the other wrong view’ is unhealthy – personally and socially; “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”

The Catalogue of Times, Ecclesiastes 3:1-15

For every time there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven;
a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
a time to throw away stones; and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away;
a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.
What gain have the workers from their toil? I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they can live; moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in their toil. I know that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken away from it: God has done his, so that all should stand in awe before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.

At first read, the poem seems like a series of mutually necessitating binary oppositions – clichés really: destruction breeds creation; death breeds life; laughing, weeping; hushing speaking – you name it, it’s there. In order to understand the depth of its wisdom, however, we must know two things: firstly, the fact that the Hebrew word for “everything” is, in its primitive form, nearly identical to the word for “nothingness”, “breath”, “futility” or “transience”: “In the twinkling of an eye, with a deft sleight of hand, ‘everything’ has been changed into ‘nothing’.” This is quite literally encapsulated in the statement, “What is crooked cannot be made straight, and what is lacking cannot be counted” (Ecclesiastes 1:15) as the changing of kaph to beth is the difference between a curved letter and a jagged, crooked edge. Literally the writer was breaking ‘everything’ to create ‘nothing’. Dr John Jarick, an expert on Wisdom Literature, also argued that using the yin and yang principles from the Chinese Book of Changes known as Ching I, it is revealed that these binary oppositions represent a lot more as a synecdoche of the whole structure than their seeming duplets do as platitudes. I find it most powerful that these are principles developed in an entirely different culture, with vastly differing social structures, religious beliefs, philosophical thoughtworlds. Yet it remains the case that a conglomeration of human minds separate on one side of the world can inform another set of human minds on the other side of the world via a few human minds in the here and now – especially when it comes to the mind’s antipodes and the polarities of thought! His point of departure is to assign each pair or binaries a yin or yang: “Each pair of contrary times consists of what may be regarded as a ‘positive’, ‘creative’, or ‘bright’ pole on the one hand and a ‘negative’, ‘yielding’, or ‘dark’ polar opposite, beginning with the classic yang-and-yin pair of ‘birth’ and ‘death’.” To start with, he looks at the introduction to the poem: “For everything there is a season, a time for every matter under heaven.” Here, we have two reversed ideas of being and becoming – everything, changing, changing, everything.

The negatives here are represented with a split bar and the positives with a whole bar. After the counter-activity couplets, Jarick considers the quatrains and argues that these are a form of analogous activity which is also changed in an instant. Everything is changing, just as change is everything. Birthing is to planting as dying is to plucking, killing is to wrecking as healing is to building, etc.

The “scattering of stones” and the “gathering of stones together” is a deeply ambiguous couplet. Could it be to do with the Hebrew death penalty? Jarick hypothesises that it is a sexual metaphore – in line with the English expression ‘sowing the wild oats’. This would make sense within its own quatrain: sexual relations involve embracing, celibacy involves refraining. However, I would like to propose an alternative interpretation, given the historical context of the day. The scattering of stones could mean the destruction and rubble of war; gathering them together could mean rebuilding. Whilst this makes less sense within its own quatrain, these two meanings need not be mutually exclusive – Wisdom literature is poetic and can work on many levels – and furthermore, the creation of a township or a house through the “gathering” of stones would result in embracing; the destruction of the same would result in refraining. Whilst this could seem like clutching at straws – please bear this in mind as I will bring this up later.

Jarick continues his structural analysis of the poem by looking at the duplets of quatrains: “That is to say, the birthing dying-planting-plucking quatrain (of v. 2) is turned around in the killing-healing-wrecking-building set (of v. 3), weeping-laughing-mourning-dancing (v. 4) comes back upon itself in the form of scattering-gathering-cmbracing-rcfraining (v. 3)” This all works out – seeking requires speaking, losing generally means hushing, keeping, sewing, discarding, tearing etc.

And finally, the apparently true beauty of the reflection is seen in the overall picture. Birth is related to speech, death to hush. Planting to sowing, plucking to tearing. Hating and fighting change, loving and pacifying are everything.

Jarick goes on to conclude that what centres all of this is the principle of everything and nothing: this binary opposition can be seen on the macro, intermediate and micro scale. Dancing and scattering at the very centre have no obvious connection; nor do building and weeping, or refraining and seeking; nor do the very couplets themselves at the end of it all – they are by definition polar opposites, binary oppositions.

Seeing this emptiness at the centre everything does seem to chime with the pessimism of Ecclesiastes to the whole idea of wisdom: wisdom didn’t save Israel from oppression by Babylon – wisdom is just words, useless and meaningless in the face of the cruelty of humanity and the world. However, this does not seem a hopeful basis for a new society. There seems to be an underlying optimism in the almost mathematic structure of this absurdly beautiful and beautifully absurd piece of writing. More of this later.

I have come to the conclusion so far at university of a paradoxical fact of life: it seems to me that the consideration paradox lies at the very limits of the mind’s capacity to conceive – it is the closest that the spunge of neurons flying around above our neck can get to the very limits of thought, indeed, in many ways it crosses that boundary; and yet, at the same time, it is also one of the healthiest, most psychologically fulfilling things we can do. It balances the mind.

Indeed, the unique contribution of monotheism to religion was to say, God must logically be the progenitor of all that is evil as well as all that is good. So, whether you believe in God or not, understanding the polarities of language and reality will help you get closer to this thing, be it the philosophic absolute, or panentheistic or pantheistic world-spirit, or the Trinity, or Allah, or the Buddha-Mind. I think society must learn to see paradox as wholesome and healthy, or it risks promoting closed-mindedness. Of course, there will be many who will say – paradox is meaningless, pointless, open-mindedness is one thing, but you can’t let your mind fall out now can ya! Let me disagree with you for every reason on earth, please. Intellectually, there are intelligent people who argue that there can be two directly contradicting statements which are simultaneously true and untrue; consider absence, consider the fact that you are noticing absence, is it not therefore present absence? Or absent presence? Consider the idea that we are alone, isolated within our heads, or souls, isolated. Then consider how we know everything; through the ‘doors of perception’ which filters through this. All we know is us, and we are therefore not only us but everything. If you sit in a forest, room, cave, or anywhere – but by yourself, quietly, alone for a very long time, as no doubt the great writers of the scriptures did, you’ll realise that “Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth.” You can’t do it. Yes, there will always be this little “eenie weenie” thing screaming “I am me!”, but it’s a selfish illusion. Logicians faithful to Wittgenstein will say paradox is just that, a contradiction. But intellectuals well rehearsed in logic are now considering the possibility for dialetheic paradox. For it equips humanity with exploring realms – to quote Graham Priest – “Beyond the Limits of Thought”, or to quote Huxley, “the mind’s antipodes…the ultimate polarities of thought.” In Western logic, there are two options – either A or not A; in Indian logic, there are four options – either A or not A, or both, or neither! For example, there’s the age-old question, can the God of natural theology ever be logically reconciled with the God of revelation – can the world spirit weep? Is it not surely a contradiction for God to be angry, to tell a man to kill his son, to become a man, to become his own Son? Can an eternal, and therefore logically static God act in a moving, vital world? Can the God so often so petty and childish be what natural theologian’s term “omnipotent”, “omnibenevolent”, “omniscient”?

Whilst this specific question goes beyond the scope of this article, I think the answer to this question comes when we consider how we can know ‘God’. Think about that. Forgive me if I'm limiting the options, but two things can be said for certain. Ultimately, we know God through ourselves, our consciousness, and through other people – other consciousnesses. It is a key aim of the human condition to try and project what is in our isolated skulls into those of other people; and to ingest the same from others. Of course, this innate striving away from loneliness toward togetherness has the ultimate aim – in faith – of a collective consciousness of some kind. And to an extent this is what is happening when we interpret a Hebrew Poem with the principles of Tao/Confucian cum Buddhist China. But there’s a reason that all scripture is oft referred to as “teaching”. The Bible, the Baghavad-gita, the Pāli Tipitaka, the Qur’an were all written by humans. Yet, they all discuss things which transcend humans. They all proclaim the didactic aim of living a good life, and justify it with paradoxes beyond human understanding. With this in mind, let us return to our second reading today.

There is another layer to this picture. So far we have divided and subdivided. We have looked at the duplets, the quatrains, the duplets of quatrains, and the bigger picture. But what about the other symmetry: look at the reflection in the centre of the middle three pairs? Three is a significant number in Hebrew theology – it being half the time that creation was made. Dividing the creation up in this way, one sees that in those six days – where birth, life, healing – were also created, were also their polar opposites – remember it!

This symmetry (seen in my snapchat edit of the pictures - the only thing I use the app for!) seems to be didactic, it seems to want to teach you something: after birth – dance; after death – mourn; after planting – be merry; after plucking – weep, your food has become temporary. Refrain from killing; embrace healing; gather the wreckage – and scatter the buildings anew! Discard weeping; keep laughter; lose mourning – seek dancing! Scatter words by speaking; gather words by hushing; embrace sewing and mending things; refraining from breaking things.

Mend things. Refrain from breaking things. People say that scripture is dated, old and cannot speak to us in the here and now. And in so many cases I would tend to agree; but when we look at the beauty of such wisdom, it is impossible to reject its authority. In this changing world we must look back at what our ancestors intended for us to see, at what God was saying through them. If it is true that all scripture and religion base their teachings on paradox, it becomes clear that the core message of religion is diversity; but what about the crusades, the inquisition, the thirty years war, I hear some cry? It would be crude to respond, what about free health-care, free education, the Dalai Lama, as the scales are impossible to weigh. But I would say that there will always be exclusive strands of any thought system which will always say, I am right and you are wrong. We see this with Wahhabism and Jihadism in Islam; we see this in closed-minded strands of Christianity; in Hindu nationalism; in the Nazi’s national socialism; in Russian Communism. Diverse opinions are not welcomed unless we consider that people can come to the same conclusions through differing routes. How do we work out this message, then, in the practical sphere? Take Britain; it’s changing. Its religious dimensions and attitudes are changing. That is a fact. How do we deal with this? For every time there is a season. But the key is to mend things. Refrain from breaking things.

As Alan Watts wisdomously said, “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” This message is magnificent; and how ignorant modern society is of it! In the religion debate at the Oxford Union in Trinity 2015, people voted in favour of the idea that “This House Would End The State’s Preferential Treatment of Religion.” In my view, the question was wrongly framed. If the house agreed that “This World Would End All States’ Preferential Treatments of One Religion”, it is my view that most of the abhorrent, disgusting and dark sides of what religion can induce in the modern world would be largely eradicated. We can mend things. We can refrain from breaking things. I’m not only speaking of the problem on our shores – that the twelve “Lords Spiritual” can only be Anglican Christian bishops (until recently male-exclusive!), instead of proportionally representing the manifold Imams, and Hindu and Buddhist monks and secular ethicists. But all over the world, states promote narrow brands of religions; British Imperialism and pushy Christian evangelism in India had the effect of radically reducing the diversity in Hinduism; American Imperialism and oil-greed resulted in them directly sanctioning puritan Islam in Saudi-Arabia, a Wahhabism allied to the oligarchical monarchy which directly fuelled the ideology of Al-Quaida, and continues to fuel Islamic State, thus fuelling the greed of the weapons industry to fight something which their ally, oil, helped create! Were all religions treated equally, with an understanding of the mind’s antipodes, and an understanding that they all are driven by a human striving to understand one another and to reach the limits of thought to become a better person, truly the world would be a mended place. If we scatter words by speaking; then we must learn to gather words by hushing; embrace sewing and mending things; refraining from breaking things…then, what this will result in is a refrain from killing; embrace healing; gather the wreckage – and scatter the buildings anew! Discard weeping; keep laughter; lose mourning – seek dancing! For every time there is a season, and a reason, and a lesson. “The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”