He is still the man of proverbs, but they have become like the irregular verbs we learn last of all as schoolchildren, even though they are the verbs used most frequently in life. The hero of the book is in some sense King Solomon, seen from a particular angle of vision. What has happened to make that so has a hundred good answers, but more important is noting the change. But in recent years it has gathered the whiff of pessimism and cynical despair. Thomas Wolfe said it was the greatest single bit of writing there was. Almost everything we do and create means to keep deathвЂ™s reality at bay.Д®cclesiastes was an extraordinarily popular book throughout the ages. We do not sleep in our coffins and we likely do not work with a skull on our desk to remind us of our mortality. He was such a real, honest, humble, witty presence.ДЄnd I almost lost my wife after a long struggle with lung and heart problems that hit her unexpectedly. The twenty-some parishes he cared for collectively grieved his loss. We lost our close friend, the local parish priest, PГЁre Mercier, last year. Her decline was long and painful, so death was a bit easier to accept.

My father died a bit over two years ago, and my mother struggled in the hard years without him before falling asleep in the Lord last month.

One day it will of course appear.Дeath has been a regular tolling presence for me recently. John Donne famously said, in reference to the tolling of bells at the death of a local friend or citizen, вЂњAsk not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.вЂќ Death is always with us, though it hides its face. We live in the rectory of the village, amidst vast fields, and the bells lift themselves and sound forth just next door. The painting вЂњThe AngelusвЂќ shows peasants with heads lowered in a field. My wife and IВ live in a small village-a hamlet-in rural France, and as in all the villages around us, we have an ancient parish church, with its strong bells regulating life.

Bible verses about optimism