What is crooked cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted. – Ecclesiastes 1:15

Today's Scripture Reading (December 10, 2022): Ecclesiastes 1

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall;
All the King's horses
And all the King's men,
Couldn't put Humpty together again.

It might be the best-known nursery rhyme in the world. Most of us have had the familiar words memorized since our childhood, and a picture of Humpty Dumpty, an anthropomorphized egg, has decorated the books and toys of our youth. Interestingly, the poem makes no mention that Humpty Dumpty was an egg. Some have argued that the four-line poem was originally intended as a riddle, and the answer to the puzzle was that Humpty Dumpty was an egg, giving rise to the idea of the egg with eyes, arms, and legs that commonly portrays poor Humpty. Everyone knows that dropping an egg from almost any height causes the fragile shell to shatter into so many pieces that "all the king's horses and all the king's men" could never repair it.

Some have suggested that the poem was written about the end of the reign of Richard III of England. Richard died at the Battle of Bosworth Field, the final battle of the War of the Roses, England's civil war, which lasted from 1455-1487. With Richard's death, the House of York ended its rule in England, and the Tudors, the victors of the Battle of Bosworth Field, began their time on the throne. And what was lost at the Battle of Bosworth Field could never be put back together again.

But that is the truth about most things in life. Once broken, they are never quite the same again. We can cover up the damage so that it is almost unnoticeable, but it is never what it had been before we broke it.

Qoheleth writes the truth in Ecclesiastes. All of our many Humpty Dumptys can never be put back together again. What has been bent can never be straightened and what is absent cannot be found or counted. Michael A. Eaton writes, "The third conclusion explains why the 'under the sun' thinker is so frustrated. It is because there are twists (what is crooked) and gaps (what is lacking) in all thinking. No matter how the thinker ponders, he cannot straighten out life's anomalies, nor reduce all he sees to a neat system" (Michael A. Eaton).

Tomorrow's Scripture Reading: Ecclesiastes 2