The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. – Ecclesiastes 10:2

Today’s Scripture Reading (November 10, 2019): Ecclesiastes 10

Question; do you know your right and your left? It is actually a serious question because I don’t, at least not automatically. I know that I am right-handed. And so if you ask me about something and tell me it is on my right, if you are watching me, you will most likely see my right hand try to grab an imaginary pen. That is how I still understand right and left. Oh, occasionally I will hold up my index finger and thumb to see which hand makes an L (only your left-hand does that), but that is a lot more obvious than trying to grab an imaginary pen in my right hand. I think I am a reasonably intelligent man, but the difference between right and left always has the ability to trip me up, and I don’t know why.

Left and right are one of the first dichotomies that we learn. Left and right are relative. If we are facing each other, what is on my right is on your left. My family makes fun of me when I am trying to twist a bolt because once again we rely on right and left (righty tighty, lefty loosey), which to me makes no sense because a bolt is traveling in a circle, sometimes left and sometimes right. As far as a bolt is concerned, clockwise and counter-clockwise make more sense to me, but we seem continue to only want to use left and right.

Left and right is also an ancient concept. And because the vast majority of us are right-handed, right is often seen as good; it is a symbol of our strength. And left, on the basis that it is not right, is bad.  Even Jesus uses this terminology.

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left (Matthew 25:31-33).

Which are good? The sheep on his right. Remember the childhood song we sang in children’s church “I want to be a sheep (sic), baa, baa,” and the second verse “Don’t want to be goat, nope.” It is all in the left and the right.

And the teacher includes this line of thought in his teaching. The heart of the wise leans to the right, while the core of fool leans to the left. It is not a literal comment. It is a symbolic one that argues that the wise will always chase after what is right, while the foolish chase after what is evil. Good will always leave us in a position of strength; it is on our right. But evil compromises us, and leaves with problems and regret; it is on our left. And all of this is hidden in our right and our left.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ecclesiastes 11