A Transliteration in verse of Ecclesiastes 12 in Rhyme Robert Roberts

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Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say I find no pleasure in them i. Before things get tough and old age makes you queasy; Growing old my young friend, is just not that easy; Before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain; i. Your eyes and your ears get all fuzzy and blurred. What you see and you hear seems simply absurd. Depression will comeyour fears will increase, your worries will multiply leaving no peace; a. When the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men stoop, i. Your hands and your feet will shiver and shake. So weak and off balance, you simply will quake. b. When the grinders cease because they are few, i. Your teeth wear down, fall out- you cant chew. With those grinders gone, what can you do? c. And those looking through the windows grow dim; i. Your memory slows; its just not the same. Sometime you even forget your own name. When the traffic to the street are closed; i. Surely the Bible wont talk of right bowels. The kind that hurt bad and cause real loud sounds; it does, right here in a way most discrete. Constipation described as traffic stopped in the street b. And the sounds of the grinding fades; when men rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint; i. Little sounds that you hear in the middle of the night. Keep you awake. Its simply a fright. Those same sounds, when they come in the middle of the day; you cant even hear. What was that? you will say. a. When men are afraid of heights and of dangers in the streets; i. Fear multiplies quickly, it grows day by day. It festers, metastasizes---wont go away.

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b. When the almond tree blossoms; i. Your hair will turn whiteif youre lucky enough. So many have simply lost all of that stuff. c. And the grasshopper, i. You used to pump iron, but not anymore. It seems a big task just to open a door. Little things bug you, they drive you to distraction. Theres nothing to do to change your reaction. d. Drags himself along, i. No testosterone left, your sex drive is gone. So much that excited you brings on a yawn. e. An desire no longer is stirred; i. Amazing it is when a beauty walks by. You look, but just cant remember why. You dont look as good as you did yesterday, yet people keep sayingyou look great today! f. Then man goes to his eternal home and mourners go about the streets; i. Its over so quickly. Where, where did it go? As slowly, the mourners walk home in the snow. Remember him before the silver cord is severed, or the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, or the wheel broken at the well, i. The silver chord severs. The golden bowl dashed. The pitcher is broken. The well casing smashed! And the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the Spirit returns to God who gave it. Meaningless! Meaningless! Says the Teacher, Everything is meaningless! i. Dust to dust, all petty, pomp and silly show, here today, not there tomorrow. ii. Dust to dust, sheer vapid vanity. It means theres no hope for our broken humanity. iii. Life is vexing, vulgar and vain, Without the spirit; all bain, great pain, no gain, iv. But Spirit to Spirit, that changes the story. The Spirit lives on ---To GOD BE THE GLORY. v. So while the body decays beneath the cold sod. The Spirit is soaringALL PRAISE BE TO GOD!

April, 2012