Before the silver cord is snapped and the golden bowl is broken and the dust returns to the earth as it once was,
and the life breath returns to God who gave it. One puzzlement of our current age of unbelief is how people confront our mortality. Ecclesiastes wants us to look death squarely in face and have that determine our behavior. Most of the things we ordinarily pursue in life are “vanity” according to the author. Only by keeping one eye on eternity will we live a life worthy of the gift of human existence that God has bestowed upon us. As one wag put it, you never see a Brinks truck in a funeral procession but only those who loved the departed.