Ecc Studies 17 & 18

Study Number Seventeen

Reread Ecclesiastes 9-10.

“words from a wise man’s mouth are gracious”

Clare and Keegan and the boys had been visiting Clare’s parents in western Kansas for the past four days. They’d gone swimming at the local pool, biked almost all the town’s bike paths and played Frisbee golf, which Clare had never heard of before and Keegan had only tried one other time. Keegan really enjoyed all the activities. Most of them had been Clare’s father’s ideas but she knew he planned them remembering Keegan’s love for action.
Aaron and Andrew kept their parents and grandparents on their toes, initially considering almost nothing off limits that looked like a toy, especially in Abby’s room, until Clare sternly told them the dress up costumes and dollhouse were strictly untouchables. In fact, Abby’s room in its entirety they were better off leaving alone. Clare was shocked that her mother had originally planned for the boys to stay in the bedroom. Shortly after they arrived late Monday evening, Keegan unloaded their van. He placed Aaron and Andrew’s suitcases on the floor by the bed, as Clare’s mom said to do, without Clare’s being aware of what was going on. When Clare was on her way to the bathroom and saw Aaron in the room, she quickly pulled him out and started to close the door, when she noticed the suitcases by the bed. She pulled them out as well and shut the door, told Aaron to stay out of the room, and went to find her mother.
“Why were the boys’ things in Abby’s room?” Clare asked her mother, who was reading Andrew a storybook she’d recently purchased for him.
“I told Keegan to put them there,” she said complacently, looking up at Clare briefly and then returning her attention to Andrew who was asking questions about a picture in the book.
“I can’t believe you think the boys should stay in that room,” Clare said. “You never have anyone stay in there.”
The older woman finished reading the last page of the book and set it aside. “Just two weeks ago we had a missionary family over and two of the kids stayed in the room. A month before, we had four college kids in a singing group from their school perform at church. We put the two girls up here. I gave them Abby’s room. Another family in the church took the boys. The girls were sweet but stayed up late talking. I heard them in the room at one o’clock in the morning, when I got up to go to the bathroom. For a minute, I thought it was Abby with one of her friends from school. You remember how she used to have friends over all the time?”
“She was very popular,” Clare said. “Homecoming queen, women’s student council president. She was more well-known and liked than any other girl at our high school. Even Kate and I were known as her sisters by quite a few people, though she was younger than the two of us. Annie didn’t have a chance at being her own person.”
“What do you mean?” Clare’s mother said.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I was just so startled that you had Keegan take the boys’ things to Abby’s room,” Clare said. Her voice was deliberately dismissive. She really didn’t want to talk about Abby. Particularly not with her mother.
Andrew slid off Grandma’s lap and went on a quest for Grandpa, who was calling him, promising some ice cream. Clare was surprised the boys had as much energy as they did. She’d thought they’d be ready to drop by the time they arrived. It was, after all, already a half hour past their bed time. Still, there was no putting them to bed now, not with ice cream on the table.
Clare decided to leave the room before her mother had a chance to say anything more. “I’d like some of that ice cream too,” she said.

The boys ended up in Kate and Clare’s old room, which was next door to Abby’s. Clare’s parents had recently converted the room into an office/hobby room and it looked a little like a catastrophe waiting to happen as a bedroom for a six-year-old and a five-year-old, both active boys. Probably no better than Abby’s room as far as being temptingly full of things to get into. But Clare was thankful for the change. She put the boys’ sleeping bags side by side on top of a foam mattress her father pulled out of storage after everyone finished their ice cream. Keegan helped the boys get ready for bed. Then they gave everyone kisses and Keegan and Clare tucked them in for the night.
Clare managed to beg out of the conversation and head to bed herself not too long afterward. She’d gotten up so early that morning and after a long day of driving, she was hardly able to keep her eyes open. Keegan woke her when he joined her a little later. He’d been talking to her father when she went to bed.
She and Keegan were staying in Annie’s old room, her white four-poster still sporting the crazy quilt that had belonged to Grandma Nancy. Annie had found it stored away in Mom’s hope chest and begged to use it on her bed. It was easy to see how the riotous colors might take Annie’s fancy and the quilt was a perfect match for the painting Annie had made that was hung over the bed. It had all the same colors in it, which were pretty much every color there was, Clare thought. At first when Clare had seen Annie working on the painting, she’d thought it was just some abstract sort of thing, until Annie drew a coat on top of the colors, cut it out and mounted it to thick cream colored paper. She framed it close to the coat, so just a little border showed around it. Joseph’s coat of many colors, Clare thought, wondering if Joseph’s family problems were in Annie’s mind, but she never asked her younger sister about the painting. Annie had made it after they’d stopped asking each other questions, after they’d realized how little they really knew about each other after all and how little they felt prepared to face such knowledge.
“What time is it?” Clare said when she heard Keegan climb into bed. The room was so dark she could hardly make out his profile, as he lay next to her.
“Sorry I woke you,” Keegan said, “but since I did—“ He scooted closer toward her and pulled her up against his chest, resting his chin on top of her head. “Mmm, you feel good,” he said.
“I feel worn out,” Clare said. “What time is it?”
“Not that late. Ten thirty, maybe,” he said.
“Aren’t you tired?”
“Not too bad. Your dad and I had an interesting conversation.”
“What about?” Clare suddenly worried that Keegan and her father might have talked about Abby. First her mother and then her father too.
“He wanted to know how things are going with the teens. He’s tried to start a youth group without much success and he doesn’t have anyone else interested in working with the few young people who attend. It’s too much for him to work with them too with everything else he has to do.”
“He still wants us to move here, doesn’t he? He wants you to help him at the church.” Clare couldn’t count the number of her times her father had made some sort of suggestion to them along those lines. Sometimes she thought Mom had put him up to it. She was even more eager to have Clare closer with Aaron and Andrew, of course. Mostly because of Aaron and Andrew, Clare thought. But who could blame her? What grandparent doesn’t want to see more of grandkids who live far away? And Keegan and Clare closer to Clare’s parents than Nick and Kate were
“He didn’t say anything like that this time—exactly—though he might have been hinting at it. Go to sleep,” Keegan said. “Tomorrow will be a busy day. Dad has lots of things planned to do while we’re here.”
Clare was going to ask what but her body suddenly felt so weary she didn’t feel like making the effort to speak. She’d find out soon enough.

Clare woke to clattering sounds in the next room. Abby’s room. She felt sick. Keegan was gone.
Someone was crying. It was Andrew. She got out of bed and hurried next door.
Keegan and Andrew were talking, Keegan with his arms around his little son, who was in tears. They both looked up when Clare entered the room.
“What happened?” Clare asked.
“I found Andrew in here and told him not to play with this dollhouse—there are too many small and fragile pieces. I sent him outside to play while I took a shower, but when I got out, he was in here again. And look, he broke this.” Keegan handed Clare a small wooden dressing table that was in two pieces. “I think I can glue it back together with wood glue,” Keegan said.
“You punished him?” Clare asked.
Keegan nodded. “That’s why he was crying.”
“I’m sorry, Mommy,” Andrew said.
Clare smiled a little shakily. “Don’t let him play in here, please,” she told Keegan.
He nodded. “Too many toys that really aren’t appropriate for him—too fragile,” he said.
Clare had already walked out of the room.

Dad did have a full day of activities planned, and Clare enjoyed every minute of it. Keegan and her boys had managed to make her into more of an outdoors girl than she ever thought she’d be, growing up the prerequisite bookworm destined to turn into an English teacher. She really had fun watching the boys try to keep up with their Daddy and Grandpa, playing Frisbee golf at the park. Although they enjoyed trying to throw the Frisbees into the goals, or just find them after Daddy threw them so far no one could tell where they’d landed, she thought they most enjoyed running through the sprinklers that came on around 11:30 and gave everyone an unexpected dousing. Aaron and Andrew laughed at Clare’s squeals and stayed in the water, while she ran away from it. Soon they were completely drenched.
When they got back to the house, Mom had lunch waiting for them. Hotdogs and macaroni and cheese, the boys’ favorite, as Grandma well knew.

Later, the boys took naps—at least Andrew did; Aaron probably paged through library books Clare had brought with them and reluctantly brought inside the house. He usually looked at books during his “rest time.” Hopefully they wouldn’t lose any, as they’d brought them all the way from home. At any rate, the boys were quiet for a little over an hour and a half.
Clare’s mom obviously wanted to talk. She followed Clare to the bedroom and asked her if she had a few minutes. Clare agreed but said she wanted to lie down for a while herself, as long as the boys were down.
“All right,” she mom said, though Clare sensed she would have liked to talk longer and perhaps would save the subject she had in mind for a later time. Clare hoped she wouldn’t bring it up at all. She was fairly certain that she knew what it was and didn’t want to talk about it. “They do wear you out, don’t they?” her mom said of the boys.
“Yes, they do,” Clare said, smiling slightly. “I don’t know how I keep up with them. Not well, I’m afraid.”

The next day, also shortly after the boys went down for their naps, Clare’s mother again asked Clare if she had time to chat for a while. Clare felt tired and thought about begging out in order to take a nap again, but sensed that her mom would persist until she made time for her, and Clare did want to visit, though not about what she was afraid her mom had in mind. So Clare settled herself in an armchair across from her mother and waited for her to speak. Might as well get it over with, Clare thought. Might as well put in words what went through her mind almost every day. But would talking just make it worse? Clare shuddered slightly. Perhaps there was still some way she could avoid the topic she so dreaded.
What her mother had to say completely took Clare by surprise.
“Annie and I had a long talk recently,” she began. “I would have preferred it to have been in person, but it just wasn’t possible, so we made do with the phone.”
She hesitated before continuing. Clare still thought that her mom intended to talk about Abby and was just working up to it. She tried to think of ways to keep the conversation from dragging on, ways to convince her mother that she didn’t see Abby’s still face so often when she closed her eyes. But how could she possibly lie to her mom? She would know that Clare wasn’t telling the truth, and she’d be disappointed in her.
“Annie told me that she aborted one of my grandchildren,” Clare’s mother said so abruptly that all Clare could do was stare at her in surprise.
When she finally found her voice, Clare said simply, “What did you say?” and her mother repeated herself, adding, “It’s so sad that she didn’t feel she could tell me sooner.”
Clare still wasn’t sure she understood. She remembered suspecting something like that a while back when Annie had been so devastated but yet was so close-mouthed about what had happened between her and the unsaved guy she’d dated shortly after she moved to California, but that had been some time ago. Now it seemed like about the last thing she expected to hear. “Annie was pregnant?” she said stupidly.
“When she was seeing that boy when she first started going to that college,” Clare’s mother said. “My smart stupid girl.”
Clare wondered if her mother had ever used that expression to describe Clare. Clare thought that it would be fitting. And it would work for Abby too. Even Kate, perhaps, though Clare thought Kate’s strength had always been, just that, her strength, accomplishing through physical hard work what no amount of reasoning would ever get done. Still there were times her strength wasn’t enough just as Annie’s creativity and Clare’s constant analyzing didn’t necessarily solve problems. Clare often wondered what it would take for each of them to truly find satisfaction and why they so often chose such unsatisfying and heart-breaking approaches to dealing with life.
“She aborted the child because she thought he would hate her if he found out she was pregnant. But as it turned out, he’d already found someone else before she had the abortion,” Clare’s mom said.
“How awful,” Clare said. “I just can’t believe Annie would do something like that. After the way she was brought up especially.”
Her mother shrugged. “How can you know what you would have done in her shoes? She was all alone, looking for love. She had the hardest time of the three of you with Abby’s death and she really felt her life was so meaningless. She’d always thought of Abby as being some sort of great planet that she was a moon revolving around. And then she really felt she needed someone to take her sister’s place, in a way. Someone who would appreciate her even if only because she did things for him. Someone who would make her life seem more worthwhile. It seems like we’re all willing to—wrongly—sacrifice what we believe in, what we know is truly valuable, from time to time, in order to achieve, or hope to achieve, something we feel is more important at the moment to us.”
Clare knew her mom was right. Knew she had wanted fame so badly she might have done almost anything to achieve it, and then had found it not nearly so sweet to the taste as she’d hoped it would be. Knew she’d thought money would fill the hole in her and had pursued it headlong for a time. Knew she’d dreamed of great love, and done many stupid things along the journey before the Lord had given her Keegan and the boys and even with the joy they’d brought her, her life still disappointed her. Knew she’d despaired so much of the life that she lived at times that she’d been desperate of some way to change it, through pouring herself into something, or out of it.
“I ache for the baby and for my daughter,” Clare’s mom said simply. “I’m tired of aching and of seeing my children ache,” she continued. “We need to give ourselves and our sorrows wholeheartedly to the Lord and not hoard them to ourselves or keep them from each other. It’s far past time that we deal with it. And I’m afraid it’s not something we can do just once, but something we have to do daily. I admit—I don’t just want to talk to you about Annie—though she is on my heart and needs your love shown to her and your prayers held up for her as well as mine. I also want to talk about Abby. I think you need to talk about her. ”
Clare stiffened. “No, Mom, please, not now,” she said.
“If not now, then when?” her mother asked. “We must face the truth, Clare. We can’t keep running from it or it will become even more terrible than it actually is.”
“I’m not strong enough for this right now,” Clare said. “Tomorrow, maybe. The news about Annie is enough for today, don’t you think? Tomorrow.” She closed her eyes but found it worse to deal with her thoughts without her mother’s face in her vision. What her mind saw was worse than what her eyes beheld.
Her mother nodded, though she looked a little sad. “Tomorrow,” she said softly. “I’ll hold you to it.”

Questions to Answer

1. What do these two chapters indicate the wise and the foolish have in common? What do they not have in common?

2. Why doesn’t Clare want to talk to her mother about her sisters?

3. What do you think of Clare’s mother and what she says to her daughter?

4. How do you deal with problems? Do you often try to deny that they exist?


Study Number Eighteen

Read Ecclesiastes 11.

“Cast your bread upon the water.”

Kate paced back and forth the length of her kitchen, which was long and narrow and perfect for pacing. She finally made herself stop and pulled out ingredients for cookies. Jason would be home from school soon and he would be thrilled with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Besides, she needed to do something. There wasn’t enough to do now that Jack and Lauren were gone. Jack hardly ever called. He was too busy at school, and Lauren’s calls weren’t as welcome to Kate now as they had once been. All she wanted to talk about was her wedding and her fiancée, when all Kate wanted to talk about was her little girl.
There were always church responsibilities, though Kate grew weary of them and how little purpose they sometimes seemed to have. After all, did it really matter if she prepared extensively for her Sunday school lesson? She sometimes seemed to do better and get more discussion going when she was less prepared. And more God-dependent, rather than self-confident, she admitted. She knew it was important to be prepared and to do her best, but when she did she found it harder to be aware of her need for God’s help. Perhaps she should be stepping back more and pushing others forward to do some of the things she did. She should take a break from some of her responsibilities and get a fresh perspective.
Maybe she should get a job. Nick probably wouldn’t mind, if it was just part-time and didn’t cut in to her other responsibilities. He’d probably appreciate the extra income. They were trying to help Lauren some with her wedding expenses—not as much as the bride’s family traditionally did, but it just wasn’t feasible for them to pay for the whole wedding, with Nick’s salary, as a pastor of a small, perpetually struggling church. Sometimes Kate felt she was repeating her parents’ life, but then she’d remind herself of all the differences between her family and her parents.’ Why, just the other day, Mom had called to tell her Annie had just admitted to aborting a child when she was in college. Kate could hardly believe it of her sister. But after Abby, she supposed she should be able to believe it. It was only marginally worse. Some might consider what Abby did to be worse, actually. Then again, self-righteous Kate, Kate told herself, who was to say one was worse than the other, or even that either was worse than any other sin? Though the consequences certainly did seem greater.
Kate wondered how old Annie’s child would have been now. Would she be close to the same age as Lauren? What a thought that was, especially as Lauren was now living near Annie, and Annie sometimes was functioning as a mother toward her. Kate suspected Annie had had the same thought herself. How could she help but imagine, ask what if?
Kate also asked “what if?” sometimes. What if Nick had been something other than a pastor of a small church—a smooth-speaking leader of a large congregation, maybe, or even a missionary on a foreign field, enjoying the freshness and excitement of new converts. Not that Nick ever would be the smooth-speaking type. What if Nick hadn’t been in full-time Christian work at all?
Jason burst through the door and dropped his book bag, narrowly missing a figurine sitting on a small table in the entry way. He’d knocked it off before, even broken it once. Kate had glued it back together. She didn’t think it was obvious unless she looked at it really closely. She probably should move it or throw it away, but it was a shepherd with three small lambs and it was meaningful to her. Whenever she saw it, she prayed that the Shepherd would continue to keep her three lambs safe.
“Warm chocolate chip cookies, Mom, wow,” Jason said, surveying the countertop and peering into the oven. “I could eat them all.”
“You’re hungry?” she said, unnecessarily.
He nodded. “Had phys. ed. last hour and we had to run laps practically the whole time. It was awful.”
“In basketball season you do a lot of running at practice and at games—probably more than in one PE class,” Kate said.
“It’s not the same,” Jason mumbled, his mouth full. “I get used to it.” He reached for another cookie and Kate swatted his hand, much as she had when he reached for things he shouldn’t handle as a small child.
“No, more,” she said. “We’ll be having supper early tonight and you won’t eat properly if you fill up on cookies.”
“Can’t spoil my supper, Mom. I’m having steak and no matter how many cookies I eat, I’ll have room for that,” Jason said, but he left the cookies alone and pulled a glass out of the cabinet, then went to the fridge for milk.
“We’re not having steak, Jason,” Kate said. “I don’t know where you got that idea. Your dad, I suppose.”
“I’m not eating here,” Jason said, looking at his mom in surprise. “I’m taking Becca Carter out for dinner. We’re going to that new steak house. I told you about it, remember? You know how long it took me to get up the guts to ask her.”
“That’s tonight?” Kate said. Jason nodded. “I forgot,” said Kate. “We’re having people over and I’m fixing chicken divan.”
“Save me some if you can,” said Jason. “I’ll eat it tomorrow, or maybe tonight if I can’t afford to order enough to fill me up or I’m too nervous to eat it.”
“You really like her, don’t you?” Kate said. At least the Carters lived in town.
“She’s nice and smart and pretty. She’s a real sweet Christian girl.” He reddened slightly. “What’s not to like?” He wiped milk off his mouth with his hand and started to leave the room.
Kate handed him another cookie. “Here, eat it,” she said.
His eyes widened in surprise and he started to say something, but Kate shook her head.

Clare wasn’t sure how she’d managed to avoid talking to her mom about Abby for so long, especially with her recent intensity about the subject and her determination to discuss it with Clare, no matter how unwilling Clare was. But it wasn’t until the day before they left that her mom finally cornered her. Clare had managed to find an excuse or go somewhere every afternoon while the boys napped. She told her mom the day after she told her about Annie that she needed to get away with Keegan for a bit and asked her mother if she’d keep an ear out for the boys until they returned. Keegan himself had figured out what she was up to, and the day before they were to leave, when she tagged along with him outside presumedly to help him work on the van, he raised his eyebrows and asked her if she couldn’t come up with a better excuse for avoiding her mother.
She admitted that’s what she was doing and, feeling a little chagrined, she returned to the house and tapped on her mom’s door. No one answered right away, so she turned to go, feeling very relieved, but then her mom walked out of the room and saw her, “Keegan sent you back in,” she said simply.
Clare nodded and frowned. “Did you say something to him?” she asked.
“I didn’t have to,” her mother said. “You were pretty obvious. I think all of us are aware of what you’ve been up to—have been aware of it for a while. You’ve been avoiding talking about Abby for a long time. It’s just now getting harder, since I’m no longer willing to help you.”
“You’re plotting against me,” Clare said, and then felt a little childish saying it, particularly as her tone of voice was that of a pouting child.
“Yes,” her mother agreed. Clare was surprised to hear her say it. “But not just you, Clare,” she continued. “We all need to talk about it—all three of you girls and me and your father. That’s not possible right now but it will be soon. Soon we’ll all be together for the first time in quite a while.”
“Not—Lauren’s wedding,” Clare said.
“Yes, that’s what I mean,” her mother said. “I know it’s a happy occasion and I don’t want to put a damper on it, but I don’t think this should wait any longer. We’ll talk before the wedding, and then we’ll enjoy it more than we would have otherwise, I hope.”
“You think it’s just as easy as that—just talk about it as a family, and that’s it. After all this time you’re telling me that’s all we need to do, all we ever needed to do?”
Clare was tempted to go back outside, but knew Keegan would just send her in again. She thought about saying she was tired and heading to her room. She would have to face her mother, eventually, though, that was obvious. And maybe it would be worse to talk with her first at Lauren’s wedding, with Kate and Annie present as well.
“No, I don’t think it will be easy,” her mom said. “Not now, not then. And I’m not sure if it would have done any good or even been possible then. But I don’t think we should have waited this long either. Your father and I just went to a seminar about dealing with suffering—“
“Mom, I don’t want to hear about some seminar. This isn’t a theory, it isn’t some church members. It’s Abigail, and I’ve never told anyone what really happened, not all of it. You’ve never told anyone what really happened. I don’t think you ever admitted it to yourself. Maybe you still haven’t. Maybe you don’t—can’t realize the truth. ”
“Of course, I can and I have,” the older woman said. “Abby committed suicide.”
Clare felt suddenly faint. She took several steps back from her mother, who took her elbow and led her to the living room couch. “You’d better sit down,” she said. Then she seated herself in the armchair across from her daughter.
Clare’s head hurt and she felt weary. Surely now she could very legitimately claim she needed to lie down.
She needed to sleep. She was tired of thinking. It had been her life for far too long and only just recently had she also found herself able to take refuge in living, all the business of life. She was now able to identify better with Kate, who had always found activity to be a solace. She didn’t want to go back just yet, not now that her thoughts were becoming almost impossible to control. She’d gone from teaching full-time, to part-time, to not teaching at all, and without the mental requirements of her job, there was less and less to keep her from thinking about the emptiness about Abby.
“You thought I believed Abby just died in a car accident. You thought you needed to shield me from the truth. You were afraid that you were responsible, in some way. All of you felt somewhat responsible, I think, possibly Annie most of all.” Clare’s mother sighed. She leaned back into the armchair and closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. “Annie and Abby were so close, you know. Only Annie knew Abby’s heart.” Clare’s mom sighed again. “Abby was so popular. It seemed impossible to believe that she was unhappy. She certainly never said anything to me—or, I daresay, to you—to make me think that. But—“
“Mom,” Clare said. “Please, don’t go one. My head hurts. I—maybe another time,” she finished lamely.
“Now is the time,” Clare’s mom said. “No more excuses. Hear me out.”
Clare fell silent, but turned her body slightly away from her mother, as if to protect herself.
“Abby ran that car off the road over the embankment, not because the weather was bad. She’d driven in much worse weather before without any problems. She wanted to end her life and she deliberately chose to do so in a way that would be less embarrassing to us. She hoped it would be seen as an accident by others. She didn’t want people at the church talking. But she did want us to know what had really happened. She left me a letter, Clare.”
Now Clare turned back toward her mother in spite of herself. She searched her mother’s face. Was it possible? For so long Clare had thought that she was the only one who knew that Abby had committed suicide. For so long Clare had wondered if Abby had let only Clare know because she somehow held Clare responsible, her know-it-all older sister who was so wise and yet so stupid. Abby had been a reminder that life wasn’t what it seemed. That happiness was deceitful and elusive—earthly happiness anyway.
“She left me a letter too,” Clare said in a whisper.
Clare’s mother nodded, looking only slightly surprised. “I think she may have left each of us a letter,” she said quietly. “It was a full year before Dad and I realized she’d written to each of us. She said not to tell anyone else what she wrote. I don’t think she was trying to divide us, but just keep us from talking about her. She didn’t realize how much we would need to talk about her in order to heal. Keeping a secret is so painful, particularly when that secret is all about pain.” Clare’s mom’s voice lowered with her last few words as though she was talking to herself, and then she said very quietly. “Annie certainly found that out.”

Questions to Answer

1. Ecclesiastes 11:1 advocates being adventurous, living as a seaman for a year, for example. Verse two advocates generosity. How might you connect these two verses?
2. Because there is much in life we can’t understand, we should do what, according to Ecclesiastes 11?

3. What do you think Kate is thinking about in her conversation with her son? Compare their conversation with the one Clare has with her mother.

4. What do you think of Kate and Clare’s methods of coping with their struggles? What about their mother’s?

5. What adventure do you think God might have in store for you—in your relationships with others or in moving past something that has held you back or in embracing some new challenge or worthwhile experience?