Our lives are tormented by a Chechen warlord whose spirit could not be settled, because a Russian Czar could not rule with justice and righteousness and sent wave after wave of slaughter across a land of those who would not yield to anyone. What happened on the streets of Boston last week, or any other scene of mindless raw terror has its origins among peoples and tongues far beyond what we can know, imagine or care about. Seeds of hate and evil sprout where bitter winds of war and terror blow them. And no one today can give a clear understanding of why.

When two bombs exploded near the finish line of the Boston Marathon three lives were ended and more than a hundred were wounded. Four days later the cowardly men who did the act killed another, one of them was killed and the second was taken alive while cowering in a boat parked in a suburban back yard. Subtract all the details of this drama and you shall begin to see that what ended in Boston on a bright spring day began in the darkest mountains of the Caucasus more than four hundred years ago.

Each of these moments of horrible tragedy is the fruit of thousands of years of a world based on good and evil and as Thomas Wolfe wrote with great insight, "…every moment is a window on all time."

I have had a different reaction to this latest terrorist act–unlike how I have felt about any other previous attack. My paraphrase above of Thomas Wolfe's opening lines from his novel Look Homeward Angel sum up how I feel, and I think it comes a little closer to a Biblical understanding that gives more satisfaction than anything else I have read–or likely will ever read. Today's journalists, pundits and observers frankly miss the mark in trying to give coherent analysis of why such insane acts continually mutate in our modern world. Indiscriminate killing in the name of religion or political ideology has, and always will, be with us. And always people will ask "how can such unspeakable evil exist in the world" and "why do innocent people suffer at the hands of such vile people". 

The Boston victims included a restaurant manager, a graduate student, a police officer and an 8 year old boy who was standing at the finish line of race on cheer on his dad. They did not know each other and likely never would have crossed paths in this life. They were attending a world class event and oblivious to the idea that the air around them would be shattered by the force of a crude handmade weapon assembled in someone's kitchen–without any conscience remorse or shame for what would be produced. They were innocent victims forever linked in time by this one moment of evil.

So if this moment is "window on all time" then what are we to learn? How are we to understand this. As much as the pundits and "experts" can contribute to the discussion even they, in the middle of the cold dark night admit they have no real answers. 

I once read the conclusions of a criminal psychiatrist who, after hundreds of prison interviews with cold blooded killers of all stripes, admitted he had to to go against the "wisdom" of his profession and admit evil existed in this world and is the only way to explain the horror committed by one human upon another. Another writer who has witnessed first hand the human effect of such violence seems to admit the questions are endless and almost unknowable.

That is why for this event I had to turn myself to another writer who faced the same issues and questions in a long ago time and place. He saw the futility of life when tranquility was shattered by random acts of human nature or even nature itself. He concluded "one thing happens to all", that evil and madness occur and then all go to the grave. The righteous and the evil all must face the same end of life and before it occurs much of what takes place is subject to events beyond ones control.

Solomon is this writer and his magnum opus is called The Book of Ecclesiastes. Much about this book is misunderstood. I prefer to read it as the journal of a king who spent his life searching for the same answers as you and I have today. He looked around and he saw evil and suffering, righteousness and pleasure. He participated in all of it just to find out what worked best for him. He had enough money to buy and build whatever he desired. He searched for the wisdom of his day, compiled and studied it and was considered by all his peers to be the wisest of all. Listen to what he said. "Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart rejoiced in all my labor; and this was my reward from all my labor. Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind. There was no profit under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11).

This may sound pessimistic but hold off for a minute. It is one of the most profound bits of wisdom you and can learn and we will see how it fits into a workable, realistic and hopeful assessment of what this world and human life is all about.  

Solomon writes of a life that wove in and out just about every religion, philosophy and lifestyle available. He says he sampled everything–"whatever my eye desired I did not keep from them". As he recorded his observations his prose is laced with observations on how others lived and learned. His view of God is neither atheist nor agnostic but that of a man who knew the divine reason for life but had to go out to test and try everything and "see for himself". 

I think that Solomon even witnessed in his day actions of violence and unexplainable natural catastrophe which took countless lives. No one had answers, not even he the king. Why evil? Why suffering? They are the questions of the ages. "Live joyfully with the wife of your youth" he observed. "Eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart…for the living know that they will die; but the dead know nothing" he drily commented. 

And in one cold but clear admission he concluded: "The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to men of understanding, nor favor to men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all. For man also does not know his time; like fish taken in a cruel net, like birds caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared in an evil time, when it falls suddenly upon them." (Ecclesiastes 9:5-12)

Accept it or reject it, believe it or scoff - this statement is real and it gives understanding beyond the headlines and events of this life. Time and chance, events of life beyond our control and completely unrelated to our moment occur and we are all at times caught in a net and in that moment are like the fish or the birds–life snuffed out and seemingly without meaning.

And yet, there is meaning. There is hope in Solomon's conclusion about the affairs of all life on this realm called earth. "Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man's all. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil". (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)

There is a God and His judgment is a fact of life. Judgment is part of the hope of this life for without it there is no hope of justice. It is when life is darkest and despair the sharpest that the hope of God's justice offers a glimmer light to pierce the gloom. That is what Solomon concluded after a lifetime of reflection.