Sow your seed in the morning, and at evening let your hands not be idle, for you do not know which will succeed, whether this or that, or whether both will do equally well. – Ecclesiastes 11:6

Today’s Scripture Reading (October 6, 2016): Ecclesiastes 11

In Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy in the Nunnery Scene of Act III, Shakespeare writes of the afterlife as undiscovered country.

But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered Country, from whose bourn
No Traveller returns, Puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have … (Hamlet, Act III, Scene i)

The undiscovered country, the one that we are waiting for and yet do not know that keeps us working through the misery of our day to day life – in the hope that in that country is something better.

When the Star Trek franchise borrowed from Shakespeare this idea of an Undiscovered Country, they changed the meaning of the Shakespeare’s words. In the Star Trek Universe, it is not just death and the afterlife about which Shakespeare was writing. It was also the future.

I have to admit that either version makes perfect sense to me. We may wonder about the afterlife; even I do not know for sure what heaven is going to be like. It is and will remain undiscovered until the moment that we arrive and then, as Prince Hamlet asserts, by that time there will be no turning or coming back. It is knowledge that is secure for those who have traversed that wall. The rock band “Kansas” exclaims to anyone who will listen that at on that side of the wall, or in that country, we will find that “there is no loss.” What is yet undiscovered, is also good.

But the future is also an undiscovered country. And from it, we will also not return. Once we arrive in the future, whether it is next week or next year or the next decade, we cannot return to remind ourselves how to prepare for what is yet to come. So Solomon’s advice is simple. Try as you can to prepare for whatever you might find in that undiscovered country. Sow seed in many areas. And, maybe, all of it will grow. But at the very least some of it will prosper, and you with it. Don’t place all your eggs in one basket; but rather spread them out so that you will ensure your success. And in the end, you will prosper – even in that undiscovered country.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading:  Ecclesiastes 12