June 12, 2025 (France, Ecclesiastes, and the beauty of endurance)

Ever since visiting Paris for the first time last summer, I’ve become somewhat obsessed with France. I took four years of French back in high school, so I know a tiny bit of the language. I remember ‘more than I thought, but less than I need,’ as I like to say. I know enough to find my way. But, I’m certainly better at reading it than I am at speaking it—French, with its lyrical meter and looseness, is absolutely butchered by my hesitant and impatient tongue. C’est la vieeeee.

I visited the city of lights for a second time this past April-May with my sister and cousin. We had sooo much fun. I know Paris is not an accurate representation of the whole of France, but you can’t help but fall in love with its leisurely pace; its art; its architectural beauty and rich history; and its abundance of fresh baguette and espresso. This trip, I fell really head over heels for the noisette: an adorable espresso drink that is very similar to a macchiato, but better. I’d order one every morning at the little takeaway shop located a stone’s throw away from our Airbnb in Latin Quarter. It was a lovely routine that we cultivated while in Paris—well, that, and also baguette breakfasts (and dinners) smothered with staggering amounts of French butter. Truly living life unto its upper limits.

I am not a city person at alllll, so it’s somewhat ironic to me, the way my heart pulls towards Paris the way it does. I’ve contemplated this for a while. I live down a quiet dirt road in the middle of the woods, flanked by state land on one side and a lake on the other—the furthest thing from city living—and yet I absolutely adore Paris? How can such duality exist??

After giving it some thought, I’ve realized this: it’s not the cities themselves that drain me, it’s their hustle, sharp edges, noise, and pragmatism. It’s the way thoughtfulness gets edged and crowded out by a wilder disregard. There’s an underlying current of haphazardness and chaos. But Paris is not like that. Not entirely, at least. Paris is full of green space and gardens; the people are kind and the pace is slow; and there’s beauty around every turn. The city is laid out carefully. Nearly everything is walkable. And the buildings are crafted with such painstaking precision—the architecture offers a delicateness that we don’t often experience in the West. It’s frivolous beauty, but it makes me feel alive. It grounds me, inspires me, and makes me feel connected to previous generations and humanity as a whole. The beauty of Paris is old and it is enduring.

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Now, back in the States, a group of friends and I have started a Bible Study on the book of Ecclesiastes. I am strangely excited. I’ve never given much time or thought to Ecclesiastes, as it’s always seemed disproportionately dramatic, meandering, self-indulgent, and boring. I pretty much wrote it off as a book of the Bible. I can see now that I was largely blinded to its wisdom by my own youthfulness and naivety. But now that I’m a bit older, Ecclesiastes HITS. It really speaks to the somewhat unnerving and existential dread lodged deep within my soul—the place I go to at 2am, after waking from a dead sleep, swirling in my own circular thoughts and despair: MEANINGLESS, MEANINGLESS! Everything is MEANINGLESS!

I don’t think I was ever in a place to appreciate the book of Ecclesiastes. But now I SO AM.

Life is so fleeting and we truly have such little control over its outcomes and happenings. Ecclesiastes challenges the idea that life is formulaic and predictable: that good will come to those who do good, and that justice will always prevail. We know, by experience, that this is not always the case. Our world and its systems have been shattered by sin. Bad people prosper and righteous people suffer. Evil taints everything, splattering the pristine canvas of the world—ruining and distorting its original, good design. The more we experience of life, the more we realize this. The world is not as it should be, and we would be wise to acknowledge that. It is an inescapable reality that, “with much wisdom comes much sorrow; the more knowledge, the more grief.” —Ecclesiastes 1:18

and,

“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” —Ecclesiastes 1:9

The fact that there is nothing new under the sun is actually profoundly comforting when the world feels like it’s spinning out of control, straight into chaos. Yet, this page of our playbook has already played out a hundred times over. Nothing is new, nothing is a surprise, nothing is entirely original. So, we are not alone or unique in our circumstances. There’s a time for war and a time for peace; a time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them. There is a time for everything, the author writes. And God has made everything beautiful in its time.

The important stuff is promised to endure through it all.

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Just like the brick walls and stone streets of Paris that have silently overcome so much—war, famine, struggle, and strife—the truth of God’s word and the concreteness of his character will last. There is beauty in this process of endurance; there is a sense of calm and finality. Though the earth fades and the oceans roar, God’s ultimate purposes shall never pass away. Christ alone, cornerstone. Somehow, he will work good out of all of our bad, and redeem it in utterly unfathomable and mysterious ways. We don’t understand how, why, or when, and that seems to be an undercurrent of the book of Ecclesiastes. The world will keep spinning in madness, but God’s children will persist to the end. Goodness will come, eventually. Eternally. Surely. In the twinkle of an eye and when we least expect it.

He has set eternity in the human heart…

There are some steady truths nestled inside this shifty world, and I try to remind myself of that.

In the meantime, I’ll also bake a baguette.