It’s Christmas, and what I really enjoy about Christmas are the surprises that come. It is really so great to open a gift that happens to be totally unexpected. There’s a rush of joy. I can think back on things that were given to me, things I had no idea...

Ecclesiastes presents itself in our Bibles between Proverbs and Song of Solomon, right in the Wisdom literature neighborhood, set near the Psalms. Its language arrests us because it is so stark. Vanity, all is vanity; so goes the writer’s initial conclusions. This is the “way” of life, to live in...