15 December 2022 Thursday morning 09.30

www.revelationsofjudithdebeer.co.za

Past the middle mark of fifty, the battle is fought halfway. Tired of battling against your own youth, the middle years come to castigate man further. In the storm and urge of youth-years, paved with difficulty, went through lows but also on the high waves of success.       

But like the old ecclesiast would profess:  Everything was in vain, battled against death. With the middle mark now beyond sixty. While the locust spreads its wings hopefully for the last time. The tide turned, with the urge watered down and gone. The once strong men of yesterday are not seduced so easily anymore.      

So the toddler slipped from his mother’s hands for the last time, to independence, to adulthood. The young wind-swallows spread their wings wide, to go and find their nest in the cycle of life. And just like the old ecclesiast would profess, the silver wire is indeed cut for everyone. Next to the honey-nest, there lies the now useless old bumblebee, deceased and alone.     

With the middle mark now long beyond the age of seventy, there the old maned lion longs to graze peacefully together with the lamb. Age tries to rejoice in the greyness of wisdom, but he sees that all his trouble and sorrow was also just built on weak feet of water and clay.  

The grasshopper then drags itself onward with effort while it just suffers. The tide turned for the last time, while the old ecclesiast keeps on professing. Yes, he calls: The dust will return to earth, while the soul and spirit will rejoice in their Creator. Because everything here on earth was struggled in vain, with troublesome labour.