Day 4

(Blog written from Cincinnati/Kentucky airport hotel. All other inns in town full: standing room only at the manger.)

Me, King Solomon, and Tiger Woods. We’ve got a lot in common. Not, of course, that I’m Jewish. Or black. Or suggested cutting a baby in half to settle a maternity dispute. Or shot 4 under par at Augusta. Nor (to the best of my recollection) have had a publicized affair with a porn star or attempted to please a bevy of foreign wives by building High Places to Moloch and Ashtoreth. No. What we have in common goes deeper. We have been through the furnace. Our souls have been tried. And we are, in consequence, sadder, wiser and (possibly) better men.

If you don’t believe me, just compare the Solomon who wrote Ecclesiastes with the Solomon who wrote The Song of Solomon. One minute it’s all hair like flocks of goats and teeth like flocks of sheep, and the next it’s What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun? Or just compare the Tiger who shot 2 eagles at Augusta today with the Tiger who shot…or, on second thoughts, forget about Tiger.

Anyhow, my point is this. Tonight, as I sat in the hotel bar (after a white-knuckle drive in the rental cargo van from the Convention Center to arrive 2 minutes and 20 seconds before they stopped serving food) I watched Tiger on TV, reflected on my day, and thought of Ecclesiastes. And this is what I thought: Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity…What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?

And I thought something else. And what I thought was this: if you’re looking for Thursday morning Eucharist in Wilmington, OH; or if you’re looking for Thursday evening Eucharist anywhere vaguely close to the Convention Center in Cincinnati, OH; or if you’re even prepared to pretend to be a Lutheran or RC looking, in either place, or anywhere practicable between either place, for either…FORGET IT!

In the immortal words of Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre: “Reader, I blew it!” No Eucharist today.

I have seen all the works under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit. I’m right there with Solomon and Tiger.

Maybe God will give me a mulligan.

Day 4: 3 out of 4.