steve jacobsen – Page 6 – Steve Jacobsen, Ed.D

Where’s Your Axis Mundi?

It’s a word I liked the first time I heard it: axis mundi.

I encountered it in graduate school reading The Sacred and Profane, a study of world religion and mythology by Mircea Eliade. It means the “axis” around which the earth “turns” — not physically, but spiritually and psychologically. It’s a place where people believe heaven and earth meet.

Jerusalem has long been seen as an axis mundi, a city sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims. For traditional Japan, it has been Mt. Fuji. For Catholics it’s Rome.

Some indigenous tribes in Australia are always on the move, and they carry a sacred pole with them which they erect each place they stay – a portable axis mundi.

In 2000, I had a 3-month sabbatical project that focused on how digital technology was beginning to affect everyday life. I visited and conducted interviews in two locations.

Silicon Valley was already becoming the axis mundi of the tech age. In my interviews and observations, one could already sense that digital tech was becoming something close to a religion. In the Tech Museum in San Jose, I purchased a computer mouse pad made to look like a Muslim prayer rug. I visited one of the largest Fry’s stores (in the pre-internet retail era, Fry’s was a “Mecca” for electronic parts and gadgets.) Some were designed to look like Mayan temples:

One month later I went to India, which was becoming part of that revolution. After interviewing tech professionals and academics in Bangalore, I spent time in the ancient city of Varanasi on the banks of the Ganges River. In Hindu belief, there is no place on earth where heaven and earth come closer, and therefore no better place to bathe, die, be cremated and have your ashes scattered.

By 2006, I had realized the most sacred religious site in the Western Hemisphere was the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. Growing up in California, I had seen the Guadalupe image all my life but knew nothing about what it meant. I learned that, in Catholic tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared to an indigenous peasant, Juan Diego, in December,1531. She looked more like a native woman than a European and spoke to him in his own dialect: “Am I not here, I who am your mother?” She gave Juan Diego her robe or tilma. When he took it to a skeptical archbishop and unfurled it, pink roses fell to the floor and her image had become imprinted on the garment. The tilma is preserved in a glass case in the cathedral. I spent a week in the city that summer, making several visits to the Basilica. I watched thousands of faithful pilgrims arrive to worship and celebrate, and was moved by their joy and devotion.

Mt. Shasta is just south of the Oregon border. We’d driven by it many times over the years as we traveled between Washington state and California, but I hadn’t considered it anything more than an impressive volcanic formation. In 2009, we spent a week at a yoga/hiking retreat in the town of McCloud at the base of the mountain. We could see the peak every morning from our window. As we hiked during the week, we saw it from many angles. On the last day of the retreat, our group hiked to Squaw Meadows, an alpine meadow on the side of mountain at an elevation of 7,900 feet. I felt smaller and increasingly insignificant in the presence of the mountain’s mystery and majesty; I began to appreciate why both native people and contemporary spiritual seekers from around the world consider it an axis mundi. We’ve returned to the area every summer for 15 years.

In 1233, St. Francis returned to Italy from the Holy Land where he had visited a cave that was the traditional site of Jesus’ birth. Wanting people to appreciate the setting of the Christmas story, he created the first outdoor nativity scene including live animals. Nativity scenes have become a familiar axis mundi in countless households and sanctuaries ever since. When viewed with reverence, candlelight and song, a nativity scene affirms that divine presence can be sensed not only on mountaintops, but also in the lives of humble people in unexpected places.

Some traditions have steered away from emphasizing any particular physical place where we encounter the divine and instead look within our individual awareness. Quakers affirm that every person has within them an “inward light” or spark of divine energy. By practicing silent introspection, we can access and experience that light and find guidance from it.

I have visited many sacred sites in my life. I always try to understand and appreciate the beliefs and imagination of the faithful who are drawn there.

At the same time, the purpose of visiting such places doesn’t end with the personal encounter. Recent studies have established a powerful connection between experiences of awe and an increased capacity to care for others.[i] Coming into the presence of axis mundi sites can have that effect. The purpose of spiritual life is not to have a specific experience, but to discover within us a deep reverence for life and others and let that form our character. As Huston Smith said, “Spirituality is not about altered states but altered traits.”

[i] https://drjsb.com/2022/09/03/starstruck-the-relationship-between-awe-and-caring/

Pocket Epiphanies #200: A Buffet of Past Posts

On December 17, 2020, I posted my first piece for this “PocketEpiphanies” blog. It’s hard to believe, but this week marks my 200th. I went back and picked out a dozen that may be worth reposting. Think of this as a “blog buffet” — see if any particular one interests you and put it on your plate. And thank you for being part of this project.

Narcissim of Small Differences We prize attention to detail in many areas of life. But we can easily fall prey to the “narcissism of small differences.” We can make choices about things that have little relation to their actual value.

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Silver Keys, Mean Moms and Compassion in the Workplace The right thing to do was not to simply feel compassion for everyone involved, but to find a solution to the problem. That took “art and skill.”

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Starstruck: The Relationship Between Awe and Caring Gazing at the heavens may help us make a better world on earth.”

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Two Questions, Two Art Works, One Life to Live Maybe the best way to find ourselves is to give ourselves away.

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Seeing People Like Trees And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.

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I Hope I’m Wrong Dear friends, I hope I’m wrong about all this. I know there may be some very positive uses for AI, especially in medicine. But I’m worried.

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The Intrinsic Power of Veriditas What I saw was a glimpse of the viriditas that permeates and surrounds us, an inner force we share.

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My Plan for Dementia Care …one of my constant themes is my sense of awe at the miracle of life, and gratitude for all the opportunities and experiences I’ve had. But I don’t want to live “beyond my time,” and I don’t want my family to be emotionally or financially burdened caring for me when I don’t have a life I can appreciate.

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“Mind Proposes, Soul Disposes” “This may be important. I need to be attentive.”

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GRACE: A Focusing Practice We are embodied human beings who have been gifted with this amazing multisensory life-form and a miraculous mind which, when they are working together, can open us to a rich awareness of where we are and what is possible.

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Private Thoughts I can’t believe a light that burned so brightly in my life has disappeared from my sight.

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Letting Your Soul Catch Up With You “Making good time” means you haven’t left your soul behind in the pursuit of speed and efficiency. Your soul has a chance to be present with you as you travel.

Chatbots, Humans, and the Holiday Season

“Generative A.I. took over my life. For one week, it told me what to eat, what to wear and what to do with my kids. It chose my haircut and what color to paint my office. It told my husband that it was OK to go golfing, in a lovey-dovey text that he immediately knew I had not written.” This is the opening of “I Took a ‘Decision Holiday’ and Put A.I. in Charge of My Life,” from a recent article in the “Business” section of the New York Times[i]. The author, Kashmir Hill, is a working mom with a husband and two young daughters. She decided to conduct an experiment by engaging more than 20 different A.I. bots to get advice on more than 100 decisions she faced in a week. Here are some highlights:

After giving one chatbot details about her family, it gave her not only a detailed menu plan for the week but also a shopping list for everything she would need in a matter of seconds. As she prepared meals, she could ask for cooking advice, like how to poach an egg. The bot’s voice was casual, warm, friendly and patient.
She was given a daily schedule for her week that balanced work, personal care, and family time.
She took photos of a room she wanted to paint and color swatches at Lowe’s, then let a bot help her choose the ideal color.
“Halfway through the week, I found myself in a J. Crew dressing room because A.I. hated my clothes. I had uploaded photos of my wardrobe to StyleDNA. Based on a scan of my face, it had determined my style and optimal color palette. Most of what I owned, including some of my favorite items, were not a good match for me, according to the A.I. stylist. The app fixated on two garments — a pair of light denim shorts and a fluorescent orange exercise shirt — encouraging me to incorporate them into almost every outfit. She tried them on and shared the recommendations with some friends. They thought she looked like a boring mannequin.
She wrote a personal greeting and made a video recording reading of it so a bot could use her image and voice to compose new messages to friends and family, as well as social media. But when it digested one of my articles for a TikTok video, the script was wooden and some of my movements were exaggerated in a creepy way. When I used my avatar to send a loving, A.I.-composed message to my mom, she was horrified. “You seemed so phony!!! I thought you were mad at me!!” she replied.’
She also had the bot create an invitation to her mother-in-law that didn’t go over well: “The messages A.I. composed on my behalf were overly effusive. Even when they reflected my own thoughts and desires, they came across as inauthentic to others, such as when I let A.I. craft the message to my mother-in-law letting her know she was welcome to come over to our house. “I was really delighted by your response and I felt so loved,” she told me, “and then it struck me that it might be A.I.”

At the end of the week, she concluded that the bots had been very helpful in organizing tasks, diagnosing a child’s illnesses, showing her how to clean the grout in her shower, and researching possible vacation destinations. “That efficiency allowed me to spend more time with my daughters, whom I found even more charming than usual. Their creativity and spontaneous dance performances stood in sharp contrast to algorithmic systems that, for all their wonder, often offered generic, unsurprising responses.” She said she “was happy to take back control of my life.”

My thoughts…

In recent years, digital devices, the internet and Smartphones have changed the way we live and learn. AI bots are accelerating this process rapidly, charming and amazing us along the way. They are being constantly refined and improved. We will be offered more and more opportunities to get what we want out of life in ways that we cannot now imagine. The author found them useful in many ways.

But if we allow ourselves to become increasing dependent on them, we are setting ourselves up for disillusionment. When the power grid goes out or when our digital systems fail or are hacked, we will be left with just each other and our own wits. Other people, including family members, are not being “improved” by technological advances day after day. They may not always act the way we want. They will make mistakes, show up late, and have ideas we don’t agree with. But they are real beings who have imagination and genuine feelings.

Human effort matters to us, and anything secretly crafted, or decided, by machines feels like a deception. Let’s treasure a handwritten note, a homemade pie, the sound of authentic human voices singing, and hand-made decorations. The coming holidays are not a time to give thanks for AI or to celebrate the birth of a bot. They are about human community and the fleeting moments of life.

[i] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/11/01/technology/generative-ai-decisions-experiment.html

Image: dreamstime.com

The Things We Do Without Thinking Too Much

Are there actions you perform best without thinking about them?

The legendary Dodger pitcher Fernando Valenzuela died last month. He began his career in 1981 as an unknown 20-year-old from Etchohuaquilin, a small village in Mexico. He had developed a unique way to pitch. He’d begin his motion like most pitchers — by leaning forward to get a sign, then standing tall, then lifting his right leg and rotating his body to his left. At this point, most pitchers are staring at the catcher’s mitt as the target. But Fernando did something odd. Balancing on his left leg, he’d look up to the sky and pause for a minute. Then he’d focus on the catcher and throw.

Hitters had never seen anything like it. He won the first eight games he pitched, giving up an average of less than one run per game. That year he won not only the Rookie of the Year Award, but also the award for the best pitcher in the league. He became a sensation, a legend, a folk hero.

When someone asked what he was thinking when he went into his motion, he said wasn’t thinking about it at all; “I can’t do it if I think about it. I would fall down.”

We spend a great deal of energy on planning, training for, and practicing many tasks in life. But sometimes we learn to do something well without thinking too much about it.

My mother was not an accomplished cook. But she could create amazing apple pies. She didn’t use a recipe. She had developed a sense of how much of each ingredient was needed, when the pie dough was ready to be rolled, and how many drops of lemon juice should top the filling beneath the crust. If you asked her how she did it, she would say she simply did what seemed best; if she had thought too much about each step, it would have distracted her, and her better instincts would have been compromised.

It was the same playing piano. She had taken a few lessons, but was mostly self-taught. She could play Gershwin and Broadway tunes beautifully; the music began in her heart and the rest of her found a way to bring what she felt through the keyboard into the room. It was wonderful to hear.

I’ve led, participated in, and attended many memorial services over the last 40 years. The person’s accomplishments are often recited. But the most moving testimonials are people describing how the person lived, endured hardships, and treated other people. My sense is that that behavior was not rehearsed or carefully planned. If you could go back and ask the person, “How do did you do that?” many would say, “I don’t know. It just seemed right.”

I want to celebrate the actions we take and the ways we live well that aren’t a product of formulas and mental concentration but arise from a desire to simply do the right thing.

One of the widespread concerns following this election is the threat to the way we, as a democracy, have gone about the challenges of being an open society. We have always shared an assumption that we will, despite our differences, respect established norms of decency, foster mutual respect, follow due process and assume personal responsibility. If someone from another country would ask us, “How do you do that?” we might answer, “We don’t think about it too much. We have always assumed that’s the right way to do things in a democracy.” I wonder if now what seemed a given is something we are going to have to “think about;” if we don’t recover that attitude, we may very well “fall over.”

30 years after that first game when he was 51, Fernando was asked to throw out the first pitch to open the season at Dodger Stadium. In the Los Angeles Times, Dylan Hernandez wrote:

When he winds up to throw the ball, Valenzuela won’t look skyward the way he used to. “I can’t do it if I think about it. I would fall down, especially if I’m wearing street shoes,” he said, laughing… “I didn’t even know I did that until someone showed me a video…”

He said he didn’t notice more Latinos in the seats at Dodger Stadium. Or that he was helping ease long-standing ethnic and cultural tensions in the city. Or that he was drawing the attention of businesses to the growing Latino market. Or that because of him teams were increasingly looking outside the country for players.”[i]

Fernando didn’t plan all that. He simply found a way to perform a task exceptionally well. And in the process benefited his teammates, his community and the game.

[i] https://www.latimes.com/sports/la-xpm-2011-mar-30-la-sp-0331-fernandomania-20110331-story.html

Facing the Challenges

This has been an historic week in the U.S., and we are facing uncertain times. Like many people, I’ve been trying to understand what happened and what it will mean.

My thoughts have gone back to a piece I wrote several years ago, describing what I learned following the 2018 debris flow in Santa Barbara. We were put into a prolonged period of uncertainty. This is one idea that helped me navigate the situation:

Several years ago, I read a book by a Navy Seal who helped other vets get through PTSD experiences. He believed we have an option when we face hardship. Do we ask, “How will this affect me?” and passively let circumstances determine whom we become? Or do we say, “Facing these challenges, how can I respond in a way that will help me become the person I want to be?”

Past generations have gone through great challenges, and this may be our turn. I want to do what I can, where I am, with what I have to meet whatever lies ahead. In the meantime, I will invest in the relationships, activities and principles that bring out the best in us.

I also want to let beauty renew me. Here is a painting that captured my attention when I saw it in Vienna in September: Dusk, by Carl Moll, painted in 1902. I’m not sure why it calls me to now. Perhaps it’s the presence of light in the shadows.

Watching the Ships on Shelter Island

This past week we visited friends in the Point Loma area of San Diego. This being low tourist season, we got a room with a view on Shelter Island, which forms the northern shore of the harbor. I’ve always been fascinated by the variety of vessels that pass through, so several times I took time to find a seat and enjoy the sights. As I watched, I wondered: Why are they here? What are they for? What do they tell us about our life?

Sailboats — These come in all sizes. I’ve taken sailing classes, but don’t know enough to tell a sloop from a sunfish. When I see the smaller ones, I assume the owner uses it for the simple pleasure shared by humans for millennia: moving across water as skillfully as one can, powered only by the presence of wind. Like a hiker in the wilderness, one can get immersed in the moment-to-moment flow of navigation. Larger sailboats require a crew, which means folks sharing a purpose and a task. I have friends who delight in doing so.

Power Boats — These also come in an endless variety of sizes. Some owners simply enjoy the exhilaration of moving on water. Others use them for water skiing. Many use them for sport fishing. From where I was sitting, I could see the Coronado Islands in the distance; twice I’ve been on boats that went into the Mexican waters for yellowtail and albacore. (I’ve yet to bring home a prize but remain a fan of tuna sandwiches.)

Commercial Fishing Boats: One of our friends grew up in a nearby neighborhood populated by Portuguese immigrants who brought their fishing heritage and Catholic faith with them; the area was known as “Tunaville.” I remember attending mass at St. Agnes parish which had a fishing boat in the lap of the Virgin Mary near the altar. Our friend’s father captained large commercial vessels that went around the world on voyages that could last many months. He was prominent enough to be featured in a Chicken of the Sea commercial at the time. Fishing, like farming, has been part of human life from the dawn of human communities; it’s exciting to see these vessels leaving the harbor wondering what their catch will be.

Yachts: We were near three yacht clubs. Such clubs include a large range of boats, some quite modest and others that are like floating mansions. (Jeff Bezos owns one valued at $500 million.) There is an ancient human desire to display one’s wealth and status; here one can see the different ways people satisfy that desire.

Navy Ships: Sometimes, while watching the private boats, you see something like this approaching:

When it comes closer, it looks like this:

Two days earlier, I’d seen the nuclear carrier USS Ronald Reagan leaving port the same way. It brought back memories of when the Reagan had come to Santa Barbara in 2008, and a parishioner active in the Navy League arranged a tour for me.

The tour was eye-opening. The top deck is over 1,000 feet long. The ship is 20 stories high with a crew of 6,000 sailors. It is powered by two nuclear reactors that can operate for 20 years without refueling. It can carry more than 80 combat aircraft. Toward the end, a young officer escorted me up to the bridge to show me the control room. Then we went back down the stairs to the deck.

“So, what’s it like to be on this ship when it is on the move…say, heading up the Persian Gulf?” I asked.

“We wouldn’t be on our own,” she said. “We’d be part of a battle group…accompanied by a guided missile cruiser, two anti-submarine warships, two destroyers, submarines below us and helicopters and fighter jets above.”

I stood there trying to conceive what it would be like to be a fisherman in the Persian Gulf watching such a formation coming my way. I doubt he could conceive of the sophisticated and destructive firepower ready to be unleashed if called upon.

Warships of this magnitude are entering and leaving San Diego harbor every day, headed to all parts of the world. They pass by the little sailboats and outboards and pleasure craft and yachts – as well as people walking their dogs and vacationers sipping margaritas. I try to make sense of what I’m seeing.

There are some whose spiritual convictions lead them to be pacifists. I have deep respect for those traditions and individuals, but I’m not able to share that perspective.

In September my sister and I visited the “Resistance Museum” in Amsterdam, which chronicles the Nazi occupation and the ways in which the Dutch fought back. Towards the end, an exhibit highlights the days when Allied troops set the country free. My sister and I remembered with gratitude that our father had been a soldier in that liberating army that fought its way through Holland.

We know when there have been times when our armed forces have been used irresponsibly and unnecessarily, creating immense suffering. But in the imperfect world we live in, I believe there are times when the use of military force is necessary.

Now I am back in Santa Barbara where one sees all kinds of pleasure boats and an occasional cruise ship, but nothing like the carriers coming and going off Shelter Island. I earnestly hope that those in command of such power will always act with prudence, care, and sober judgement.

Where Were We?

This past Monday I woke up before sunrise. After coffee, I went into our backyard for my morning quiet time. The days are becoming shorter, and it had been a while since I was outside before daybreak. Ten years ago, I could see most of the night sky from my favorite spot. But our oak tree and our neighbor’s sycamore have flourished in recent years, and now only a small section of the heavens is visible. As I settled in and looked up to see beyond the trees, the sky was dark; the moon was half-full and next to it was a bright star. I was captivated.

Ten minutes later, the sun rose in the east, the sky began to brighten, and the star disappeared. But the fascination with seeing light in darkness remained.

I remembered being in a downtown theater in 2011 watching the opening scenes in Terrance Mallick’s film, The Tree of Life. It begins in darkness. Then there’s sound in the background, almost like what you might hear if you are underwater listening to the ocean. These words appear:

A mysterious image appears – like a flame, but not a flame; it moves and grows:

And then a voice whispers: “Brother, mother…it was they who led me to your door.” The image fades.

We see a young red-haired girl looking out a window on a farm, enchanted by what she sees. We hear her voice: “The nuns taught us there are two ways through life…the way of nature, and the way of grace….” The girl becomes a mother (played by Jessica Chastain), and her life unfolds. Over the next two hours, we witness the innocence, joys, struggles, heartbreaks and spiritual searching of her family; interspersed are dreamlike images of nature, evolution, and the mysteries of life. (Given Mallick’s impressionistic style, there are some sequences which make it hard to follow — but it is always entrancing.) What set the stage for it all is the passage from the book of Job. After Job questions God why life is the way it is, the divine voice speaks out of a whirlwind: “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”

Huston Smith once described an important difference between scientific and spiritual knowledge. Both seek to explain truth in everyday terms we can understand, but sometimes that language is not sufficient. With science, when the focus is the smallest scale of quantum reality or the immense scale of cosmology and ordinary language falls short, it turns to math – often very sophisticated math (which few of us can understand). Spirituality, on the other hand, also offers many insights in everyday terms, but when it needs to speak of the deepest realities, it turns not to math but to story, metaphor and imagination.

Some scientists say the Big Bang began with a “disturbance of the quantum field. ”One spiritual story says that in the beginning a divine force moved like wind over a dark void, and said “Let there be light, and there was light.”

I choose to listen to both. I want to understand the science of life as much as I can (though I’m limited by my knowledge of math.) But I also want to accept the gift of spiritual imagination with its stories and metaphors; they speak to my heart and resonate with the feeling of awe I feel when a star in the night sky shines before fading in the presence of a rising sun.

Where were we when that quantum field was disturbed and the universe emerged out of nothingness, bringing into being all the elements of the periodic table, time and space? Where were we when the foundations of the earth were set, and the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted with joy? I don’t know. But what we are began in those moments. As did our capacity for wonder and our desire to understand.

It was still and quiet when I watched the sky that morning. But in my imagination, I could almost hear the morning stars singing and the first living beings shouting for joy.

If you want to get a sense of the mood of the movie, here’s the official trailer

Falling Leaves

Earlier this week, I was up early and sitting quietly in my backyard. I’d been asked to speak for a group on spirituality and “wilderness,” and was mentally reviewing what I was planning to say. Then, ten feet away, a leaf from our Eastern Redbud tree floated to the ground. It looked like this:

I had noticed this tree had been shedding its foliage, but I don’t remember being present to witness one leaf actually making the transition.

My life isn’t as busy as it used to be, and I’m grateful I have more time to just observe events like this.

As I thought about this moment, I remembered times when people found meaning in fallen leaves.

In my time at Hospice of Santa Barbara, we had an extensive program dedicated to children and families following the death of a parent. I asked one of the counselors what she did with young ones. In addition to drawing pictures, stories and conversation, a common activity was to go outdoors and observe the natural world. – noticing things that were alive and those were alive no longer. Then they’d bring their treasures back to the room and talk about the fact that all things that live someday will die.

At Hospice we had quarterly art shows. We choose the work not solely on artistic merit, but primarily on the meaning of what the artist was focusing on and how that related to our mission; common themes were healing, transformation, and personal insights.

One of our presenters was a local artist name Jan Clouse with a show called “Fallen Beauty.” Here’s a description:

Clouse’s artwork honors the beauty that comes from aging and the natural cycle of loss. By focusing on leaves, twigs, branches and other bits of vegetation that have been shed or fallen to the ground, she concentrates on life cycles present in nature to draw connections to the regenerative cycle of life.

“While most botanical artists capture the beauties of living blooms, I concentrate on detritus, such as pods, seeds and leaves starting to lose living color and taking on a broad range of subtler shades,” said Clouse.

Clouse’s drawing helped her come to terms with the loss of her mother. After her mother’s death, Clouse found a spiritual connection to her mother through her artwork, as it made her focus on the larger picture of life. While visiting her mother, father and grandparents’ graves, Clouse gathered some oak leaves and other bits of vegetation that had fallen nearby. She began to paint these leaves, and found the experience to be meditative while she came to terms with the loss of her loved ones.*

I am grateful that I am still in relatively good health and hope to be part of the Tree of Life for some years to come. But the older I get, the more I realize what I have strived to accomplish in my life is becoming less and less visible to me or anyone else. But I also understand that doesn’t diminish the value of our labors. I like to think of our lives as having the honor of gradually becoming compost; the fruits of our labor still give us meaning, but it’s more and more about what we have contributed to the life that’s coming after us.

My leaf reunited with its companions.

*Press release: https://www.independent.com/2011/01/21/jan-clouse-featured-artist-hospice-santa-barbara/

Lead image: “Buckeye,” Jan Clouse

Lost in Thought: Visiting Rembrandt’s House

Like many houses in the old section of Amsterdam, Rembrandt’s overlooks a canal. Not far from his doorstep, ships from all over the world were coming and going, bringing with them a great diversity of people at all stages of life.

Entering on the first floor and progressing upward on narrow stairways, you see what his life was like – how the food was prepared, where his maid slept, where he received guests and where he worked. Here is the room he lived in and his bed:

As you move through the house you relive the different stages of his career – from his early days making a name for himself to the period of his great success, both as an artist and art dealer. But his last years were difficult. As we came towards the end, this sign intrigued me:

I became fascinated with this description:

A new style is taking shape.

Rembrandt now paints many single figures lost in thought.

Movement gives way to rest.

There is inner tension though.

And he works more loosely, with broad brushstrokes.

I was intrigued by the phrase, “lost in thought.” No matter what age we may be when we experience such a state, it doesn’t mean we aren’t thinking; we may in fact be thinking a great deal. In our everyday, routine experience we direct our thoughts where we want them to go but, in these moments, we just aren’t sure where to go, or how the pieces of our life can fit together; it’s as if our thoughts don’t know where to land. Some might say we are “spaced out” – but in fact we may be “reaching in.”

When I returned home, I read more about this period: Rembrandt’s last years were the most difficult of his life. He was effectively declared bankrupt in 1656; a picture commissioned for Amsterdam’s new Town Hall, the largest he ever painted, was installed and then replaced in 1662; his lover, Hendrickye Stoffels, died in 1663, and his son Titus, at the age of 27, in 1668. At one point he was so hard up that he had to raid his daughter Cornelia’s money box.[i]

A friend told me of a conversation he shared with a man who had been a wise spiritual mentor. This man was in his 80s at the time and had outlived his wife and many others. My friend asked him, “Has anything surprised you as you reach this stage of life?”

“I wasn’t prepared for the amount of loss,” he said.

Over time, we lose people we love. Periods of success in our working life can seem far away. We might remember times when life was going well, following a script we were writing in our imagination at the time. But unexpected events occurred that we couldn’t change, and our script had to be rewritten. How did this all happen? Did it have to go that way?

We can become “single figures lost in thought.”

Rembrandt’s specific spiritual beliefs aren’t known. We do know his personal life didn’t conform to the religious establishment of his time: “The artist’s eccentricities and irregular, unwed lifestyle may have put him beyond the pale of Amsterdam’s stuffier and more conservative circles… but his engagement with biblical themes was lifelong and his last years gave rise to some of his most thoughtful and unusual interpretations of them.”

I’m drawn to two of the paintings from this period.

The first is “Jacob Blessing the Sons of Joseph,” created in the 1656, the year he declared bankruptcy. In the Biblical story, two of Jacob’s grandsons are brought to him for the family blessing with the expectation that he will bless the eldest with his right hand. But instead, he blesses the younger:

Here is a close-up of Jacob’s face:

I don’t think he’s looking at the grandsons – he’s looking both beyond them and within himself. What does it feel like to know your life is almost over, wanting to do what you think is right for your family, but realizing you will never know how it will turn out?

“Simeon in the Temple” is his last painting, unfinished at his death in 1669. It is another story of an old man blessing a child. In Luke’s Gospel, Mary and Joseph bring the 8-day old Jesus to the temple for dedication. Simeon believed he would be able to bless such a child before he dies:

The infant child is looking up at the old man and seems to truly “see him.” Simeon is holding the child with tenderness as he gives the blessing, but where is his attention? Like Jacob, he seems “lost in thought.”

Rembrandt didn’t have life figured out. Most likely he was “not prepared for the amount of loss” he had experienced. But these late portraits convey a reverence for these people in their private moments, a tender love and respect. That, to me, can be more “spiritual” than having simplistic answers to life’s challenges.

When we see someone “lost in thought,” may we summon that same reverence for them as Rembrandt did. And when we are in such moments ourselves, may we know that in some mysterious way we are not alone.

[i] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/04/arts/international/rembrandts-turbulent-final-years.html

Small Moments to Savor

As I was planning our trip to Europe, I explored the possibility of staying in a hostel instead of a hotel. I knew I was too old to sleep in a dorm room but wanted to experience the open and hospitable spirit I had known as a young backpacker. For the stay in Berlin, we booked a place at the “The Circus Hostel.” It’s a five-story building in the “Mitte” (central) section of the city, close to many points of interest. They had a 2-bedroom apartment on the top floor available. My sister agreed we should try it.

In the basement they have their own pub and small brewery. On the ground floor is a café and reception area. Upper floors are for the bunk beds and apartments. As we settled in, I began noticing the posted signs. On the sliding glass door leading to the balcony:

The notice to set out when you want maid service:

On the wall next to the elevator call button:

A similar playful spirit was on display in nearby cafes. French fries are very popular in Belin, and a busy place across the street had this window:

I didn’t go to Berlin expecting to eat Mexican food, but appreciated this sentiment:

Not far from Sigmund Freud’s Vienna home and office where he probed the hidden recesses of the human psyche, we found a brewery/pub that offered more than two dozen pitas with your choice of pizza-like filings (including tuna, camembert, cranberry jam, turkey, olives, sour cream, onions, hardboiled egg, tomato sauce, etc., etc.). On the wall was this timeless question:

I don’t know if Freud pondered that dilemma – for him a bigger question might have been about how many cigars were enough. But after hours contemplating tragic historical events and staring at modern expressionist paintings, these were “welcome signs.” Small moments to savor along with new tastes and friendly places.