wisdom – Steve Jacobsen, Ed.D

What Are Your “Takeaways” In Life?

Life is complicated. Every hour all kinds of information comes to us from inside and out — way too much for us to take it all in and use. So we simplify. We choose what to remember and value. We navigate as best we can.

Last month I attended a two-day conference that involved 14 hours of presentations. If someone were to ask me to convey everything I heard, it would be impossible (and boring) to do so. But if someone asks, “So what were your takeaways?” I understand that means: what were the highlights, the points and stories most relevant and useful?

It’s a similar process when we create memorial services. Someone has lived a life – often many years full of life experiences. When they’re gone, we try to make sense of it all. As I meet with families to prepare, I often ask who they want to have speak. When asked, a good speaker draws on a vast amount of information they know about the person and instinctively distill it all, choosing a few themes or stories that illustrate the person’s character. It’s always meaningful to hear what people value.

Simplifying our life experiences into key “takeaways” helps us navigate our direction.

But we need to be careful. We need to guard against oversimplification — the temptation to assume we know more than we really do. It’s wise to keep a humble spirit and open mind as we create our “takeaways.”

I recently was reminded of a passage from Wendell Berry’s novel, Jayber Crow.. Jayber comes from a small town in Kentucky. As a young man, he felt a spiritual calling and enrolled in seminary. He asks a lot of tough questions, sometimes to the frustration of his professors. He mistrusts people who are convinced they have all the questions of faith answered, and who assume whoever doesn’t agree with them is simply wrong. He ends up leaving seminary, returns to his hometown, and becomes a barber. In his day-to-day life, he carefully observes and listens to ordinary people. And though he left seminary, he never loses his reverence for the Biblical stories. At one point he says:

“As I have read the Gospels over the years, the belief has grown in me that Christ did not come to found an organized religion but came instead to found an unorganized one. He seems to have come to carry religion out of the temples into the fields and sheep pastures, onto the roadsides and the banks of the rivers, into the houses of sinners and publicans, into the town and the wilderness, toward the membership of all that is here. Well, you can read and see what you think.”

Unlike Jayber, I finished seminary and got my degree. I became one of those people in “the temple” of an “organized religion” whose duty it is to thoughtfully pass on the “takeaways” the tradition offers. It has been a privilege to do so.

Like Jayber, I never tire of contemplating the Biblical stories. After many years, they still often surprise and amaze me. In the early Gospels for example, Jesus creates not just inspiration among his followers but also a great deal of bewilderment. Whenever they try to put him in a box, he evades them. Faith becomes more about following as best we can rather than having every question answered. And I never tire of listening to people wrestle with life’s challenges, often in response to these timeless stories.

The French writer Paul Ricoeur believed there is a basic process we go through as we seek to understand life. We begin with what he calls a “first naiveté” – we accept some simple beliefs we’ve been taught and we follow them. But then we start experiencing life in all its complexity and disappointments; we can become disillusioned with those original beliefs. We may feel like giving up. But the process doesn’t have to end there. As we mature, we can accept life’s complexities and mysteries and discover a “second naiveté” — some new basic “takeaways” to help us go on. These don’t ignore life’s problems but help us deal with them.

Over the years, people have asked me, “Who are you favorite theologians?” I have often said, “Rembrandt, Bach, Wendell Berry, and the older people I have known in my congregations.” What a painter, a composer, a writer and those “ordinary people” have taught me is we don’t have to have all the answers to live a meaningful life. We find satisfaction in work done well and responsibilities fulfilled. We savor life’s simple pleasures when they come our way. We love the best we can. We care for other people as much as possible. In that process, a quiet kind of light emerges. And that light doesn’t stop with us; we sense it extends “…toward the membership of all that is here.” And that is enough.

Art Work: ”Family,” Kathe Kollwitz, 1931

Moments When I Knew Why I Love My Country

There are many wonderful countries in the world — one only has to watch the World Cup to see the pride and passion people have for their homeland and culture. I can think of many reasons why I love my country. As our 250^th anniversary arrives, some specific moments came to me.

August 1975, JFK Airport: After spending six months in Europe, I landed at JFK airport. As I came down the stairs, three baggage handlers were having a heated discussion on the tarmac. They were from three different ethnic groups, and I wondered what they were so passionate about. As I got closer, I discovered they were arguing about the Mets. At that moment, I said to myself, “I’m home.” (Note: while I loved being back, I had gotten used to German beer, Swiss chocolate, and French cheese; having to settle for Schlitz, Hershey’s and Kraft “American” was a challenge.)

July 4, 1991, Yakima, Washington: During our seven years living in rural Washington, we were blessed to have our lives intertwined with three generations of Filipino families. On this 4^th of July, we were guests at their family barbecue. Several family members took turns standing and saying what it meant to be able to immigrate to America – what challenges they faced, and how grateful they were to become American citizens.

May 1999, Ellis Island, New York City: We were back East for the college graduation of our eldest daughter. I took our two youngest girls to sightsee in New York City. We took the ferry to Ellis Island. I remembered my grandmother, who died before I was born, and was 21 years old when she arrived from Sweden in 1912. In the room where new arrivals were processed, there was a bench with a sign noting it had been in use at that time. We sat on that bench looking out at the Statue of Liberty. My grandmother did not have an easy life. But I thought what a rich life she had made possible for her descendants.

November 4, 2008, Santa Barbara: I was driving home after work listening to NPR. It was announced that Barack Obama was going to win the Presidential election. I had grown up in an era when racism and bigotry were pervasive in my neighborhood, town and country. To think that a Black man was going to serve as president seemed like a miracle.

December 17, 2013, Goleta City Council Chambers: After 9/11, I became involved with the Jewish and Muslim congregations in my community. We got to know each other as friends and neighbors. The Muslim congregation had been working for many years to build a small mosque. A vote for final approval was scheduled on this date. There was tension prior to the meeting as we wondered what people opposed to the project might say. But everyone who spoke supported it. A common theme was an affirmation that the freedom to practice religion is a fundamental principle of the American vision. The Council approved the permit unanimously and we rejoiced.

September 2024, Dutch Resistance Museum, Amsterdam: My sister and I had spent two weeks in Europe focusing on the cities of Berlin, Vienna, and Amsterdam. Along the way we visited many sites associated with the Nazi period. In Amsterdam we visited the Dutch Resistance Museum. We were moved by stories and exhibits highlighting the courage and resourcefulness of the Dutch during the Nazi occupation. The last room focused on the experience of liberation, with tributes to the role the American armed forces had played. Our father and his 30^th Infantry Division had been part of that effort. I felt great pride in remembering the role America played in the liberation of Europe.

At our best we are a land of opportunity representing the noblest aspirations of the human family. We have refined that vision over two and a half centuries to affirm that all people are created equal, and they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. In these trying times I am grateful for those moments when I was reminded of the power and beauty of that vision, and resolve to remember, defend, and advance it.

Remembering Father Vincent

In 1982, I was beginning to explore contemplative practices: spending time in silence, journaling, paying attention to dreams, and reading classic works on prayer and meditation. I decided to make a private retreat at a monastery. I was living in Santa Paula at the time and heard about St. Andrew’s Priory, a Benedictine center in the desert north of Los Angeles. As I was making my reservation, I was told they were receiving a new monk into their community that evening and I was welcome to attend.

As I drove through the desert, I wondered what to expect. Do monks chant in low voices all the time? Are the guest room mattresses hard? What do they eat – gruel with weak tea?

I arrived as the service was ending in the chapel. Approximately 60 people began heading toward the dining room, a blend of monks in brown robes and lay people.

When I entered the dining room, I saw prime rib and roast turkeys being carved and a long buffet with colorful side dishes. At each dining table were bottles of wine, six-packs of Dos Equis, and jars with cigars.

I said to one of the monks, “This is not what I was expecting.”

“We don’t always eat like this,” he said. “One of the brothers used to be an executive chef for the Hyatt. When we have special occasions, he takes over.”

I filled my plate and walked to place at a table across from a monk who was already eating.

He motioned me to join him and said, “Welcome. I’m Father Vincent.” As we ate, I asked him how long he’d been at the Abbey. He told me he first came in the 1950s. I asked him where he had been before that. He said he’d been in China from the 1930s until 1948.

“You were in China in the 1930s?” I asked. “Did you ever meet Teilhard de Chardin?” (Chardin was a famous theologian and archaeologist I admired who had been on digs in China and whose writings integrated evolution and spirituality).

“I met with Teilhard Tuesday afternoons when I was in China,” Father Vincent said. “He was a brilliant man, but did not know the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob.”* I was fascinated and we continued our conversation.

That evening marked the beginning of a personal friendship I developed with Father Vincent. I returned several times during the next three years to spend time with him. I would bring spiritual questions to explore. We would sit on a bench or take long walks. He was always patient and gracious, speaking quietly and thoughtfully with his French accent.

Gradually I learned more about his life.

He was Belgian by birth and grew up speaking French. After entering the Benedictine order, he was sent in 1936 to China to establish a mission. He became fluent in Chinese. When the Japanese invaded, he joined the Chinese army to serve as a chaplain. He was captured, spent time in a Japanese POW camp and narrowly escaped being executed.

After the end of the war in 1945, he resumed his work in China until foreigners were expelled in 1948. He came to the US to attend Harvard, where he earned a PhD in sociology.

He once told me, “You know, I think in French, speak in English, and dream in Chinese.”

After Harvard, his order sent him to Los Angeles with $50,000 to find a location for a monastery. He told me he read the LA Times real estate section every Sunday. One day he saw an ad for a 720-acre turkey ranch near Pearblossom. He represented his order in the purchase and oversaw the construction.

After St. Andrew’s got established, he spent 10 years in Jerusalem studying Judaism and Hebrew. After he returned to California, he would often attend Jewish services in Los Angeles, putting on a prayer shawl and yarmulke and reciting the prayers in Hebrew. He was the first Catholic Chaplain at Cedars-Sinai hospital. Year after year he worked to strengthen the bond between Judaism and Christianity.

Father Vincent died in 1999 at age 87. I regret I did not spend more time with him.

I will always treasure the time I was in his presence. He was a brilliant man who sought to understand and appreciate the rich variety of human experience and for whom spirituality was an endless exploration.

After retiring in 2018, I felt a desire to go back to St. Andrew’s to reflect on my transition. I booked a three-night stay.

When I arrived, the grounds and buildings were familiar, but I felt Father Vincent’s absence.

On my last morning, I decided to visit his grave on the hillside overlooking the Abbey. I walked up the dirt road to the cemetery. I was alone. When I found his tombstone, I saw several bouquets of flowers scattered around it – clearly, after two decades, I was not the only one who wanted to honor him. I kneeled, closed my eyes, and began to offer a silent prayer of gratitude. I did not get very far into my prayer before I stopped. An awareness had arisen within me — or was given to me. I sensed I didn’t need to venerate him. Instead, I felt an abiding kinship. It was as if I was being told, “You, too, have lived a meaningful life.”

The Cemetery at the Abbey

*In regards to Father Vincent’s comment about Teilhard, I have wondered about it ever since. I think he meant was Teilhard was seeking to create a rational comprehensive system of understanding God in light of modern science. But Vincent and others have often pointed out that the God who appears from Genesis often defies human comprehension.

Lead Image: St. Andrew’s Priory, Valyermo, CA

The Gift of Longing

Last June I took my two grandsons to Glendale for a Mookie Betts baseball camp. We drove down the night before and spent the night at a motel. The next morning, we joined 200 young people and their families at a sports complex for a half-day of skill-building.

As the morning went on, some of the younger siblings got restless.

I was sitting in the stands when I heard some loud lamentations. I saw a little girl – I’m guessing she was three — two rows in front of me. Her mother was holding a Smartphone in front of her while conversing with another adult, but the little girl desperately wanted full control of it. “No, No, I have to hold it!!!” the little girl kept pleading with tears coming down her cheeks. Finally, the mother relented, let go and allowed her daughter to take control of the phone. The little girl’s breathing steadied and the tears stopped; a gentle smile came to her face.

What the little girl was expressing so effectively was a basic human desire – we see something we want and we strive to possess it. No doubt that’s a key to our survival as a species. It is a great feeling to obtain what we want; I can remember how excited I was as a teenager to get a new stereo system or later as an adult reaching some professional goal. Our current culture thrives on our desires, offering us many visions of what we need.

But if life is only about getting what we want, why do we find beauty in experiences of loss and longing?

This is the question behind a book I’m currently reading: Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make us Whole. I bought it recently after hearing the author, Susan Cain, speak at a leadership conference.[i] Bittersweet explores the experience of being drawn to such things as old photographs, songs that speak of loss, rainy days, seeking quiet beauty in art, and being willing to listen to others talk about past or current troubles. She notes there is great pressure in our society to be happy all the time — to be “melancholy” means there is something wrong with us. But she disagrees. She sets out to demonstrate that “bittersweet” experiences are vital to being human.

Cain has a life-long appreciation for the songs of Leonard Cohen, and she cites him often. As I was reading, I became vividly aware of my own attraction to music that creates poignant feelings – slow adagio movements in classical music and songs of lament in opera. Thinking of popular music, I could hear Paul McCartney singing…

Yesterday

All my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday

Suddenly
I’m not half the man I used to be
There’s a shadow hanging over me
Oh, yesterday came suddenly

Why she had to go I don’t know
She wouldn’t say
I said, something wrong
Now I long for yesterday

Yesterday
Love was such an easy game to play
Now I need a place to hide away
Oh, I believe in yesterday

“My troubles are here to stay…there’s a shadow hanging over me…I long for yesterday…I need a place to hide away…” Who wants to hear someone sing about what’s making them sad? Turns out millions of us do.

Cain searches for reasons why we can be drawn to experiences of bittersweetness and melancholy. Along the way she integrates current psychological research with insights from the world’s philosophical and spiritual traditions. She discovers that such experiences help us acknowledge the ways in which life doesn’t always give us what we want. At the same time, we can sense within us a deep longing for some ideal state in which we can imagine all our wishes coming true. As we dwell in that gap, our hearts open. We feel the mystery and poignancy of life more deeply. That in turn awakens empathy and compassion in us, allowing us to feel a kinship with others. Sometimes this includes an awareness of the transience of life — that all we are experiencing will pass away:

“In fact, you could say what orients a person to the bittersweet is the heightened awareness of finality. Children splashing joyfully in puddles brings tears to grandparents’ eyes because they know that one day the children will grow up and grow old (and they won’t be there to see it). But those aren’t tears of sorrow, exactly; at heart, they are tears of love.” [ii]

Bittersweet experiences encourage creativity as we find new ways to express what we feel. They also grant us humility. If we think we are superior to everyone, we won’t really care about others. When our hearts open, we start caring.

I think of that little girl desperately wanting to hold the Smartphone and recognize something deep within me and all of us. I hear Paul McCartney singing “Yesterday” and I want to bow in appreciation, remembering my own regrets and losses. Desire is built deep within us and gives us purpose. Bittersweet experiences open us to the richness of life and bond us to each another. We benefit from both.

Lead Image: Van Gogh, “Portrait of Dr Paul Gachet”

[i] Her prior book was the best-seller: Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking.

[ii] Bittersweet, xxxiii

What Tom Taught Me

My goal after college in March 1974 was to make enough money to go backpacking in Europe.

I began working for a title insurance company in Santa Ana that spring. A fellow employee was Tom, an “older” Englishman (probably in his sixties). Tom wore short-sleeved white shirts and a dark tie every day; his hair and mustache were gray, and he was always calm and helpful with everyone. I discovered he had been a research assistant for Will and Ariel Durant, authors of the 10-volume series The Story of Civilization, which my family had proudly owned. I sought Tom out at coffee and lunch breaks to listen to his stories and discuss my dream of traveling.

After a few months, I realized I wasn’t making enough money. I moved back home to San Bernardino and made better money painting houses. By the next spring, I had saved $1,500. I was beginning to question whether I should spend that on travel or buy a VW Squareback. But I felt I needed to ask Tom for advice. I called to arrange a visit in Santa Ana.

When we met, I told him I was thinking of delaying my trip to buy the car. He smiled and shook his head. “You need to go now when you are free from responsibilities,” he said. “You never know at what age you might get married and have kids and never have this opportunity again.”

I told him I was planning to travel through Western Europe from late April into early summer, ending with time in Greece. Then I was going to meet a friend in Germany who said she could help me get a job.

He gave me three suggestions.

“If you are in Spain, you need to cross over to Morocco.”

“But I have no interest in Morocco.”

“Trust me,” he said.

“Be sure to go to Venice. It’s sinking and may be gone in the future.”

Then he told me that there may come a time when I would be stuck someplace and not know what to do. “When that happens, just find a place to sit down. Someone will appear.”

While I was in Spain, I debated going to Morocco. But based on Tom’s advice, I made the ferry crossing and took a bus to the ancient city of Fez.

When I arrived in Fez I felt like I was stepping back in time into the Arabian Nights. I got a hotel with a balcony open to the city. At first, I was put off by the Arabic calls to prayer that were broadcast across the city five times a day. But as I listened more carefully, I sensed a great spiritual yearning in what was being sung. The city itself turned out to be fascinating.

I crossed back to Spain, made my way to Italy and spent two days in Venice.

Then I went to Rome, and after a few days took a ferry to Greece.

In Athens, I contacted a girl whom I had befriended when she was an exchange student at my high school. She invited me to share a memorable meal with her family at a local restaurant. I told her I wanted to visit a Greek island, and she recommended Ios – Homer’s birthplace and a quieter place than the more popular tourist destinations.

My money was beginning to run low, so I sent a telegram home asking my father to forward my next allotted funds to the post office in Ios.

I got to the island and discovered I could sleep on the beach for free and eat cheaply. For three days, I showed up at the post office after the ferry delivered the daily mail, but the money did not come. Finally, I realized I was broke.

I wasn’t sure what to do. Then I remembered Tom’s advice. I went to the village square and sat on a bench near a fountain. I waited to see what would happen.

Two German girls passed by with their backpacks. They stopped and greeted me, asking for advice on where to stay. I told them I was sleeping for free on a local beach and that they were welcome to try it. They asked what I was doing. I told them I had just run out of money. They said they’d be glad to lend me some until my funds came.

We ended up sharing the beach spot and becoming friends. Two days later, the money came. I paid them back. They gave me their address in Stuttgart and encouraged me to visit.

I left Greece and made my way to Germany, where I met my friend. I was offered a job at a local cheese factory, but my application for a work permit was denied a week later. Before going home, I made a brief stop in Stuttgart to visit my friends from Ios.

I flew home in August and resumed my American life.

A year later I fell in love, and a year after that got married; soon we had our first child.

I lost contact with Tom long ago. But over the years, I’ve often thought about his advice to me that day.

He was right about making the trip while I had no responsibilities. My trip will always be one of the great adventures of my life – more valuable than any car.

He was right about Morocco. Going there gave me my first appreciation for Arabic culture, which has grown over time.

Venice? It’s still there, but I’m glad I saw it.

And being stuck and not knowing what to do? Sometimes just sitting down and waiting invites surprising things to happen. I’m still not sure how that works.

I will always appreciate the wisdom and encouragement Tom gave me.

Let us be grateful for the relationships and conversations we’ve had with some of those “older” people that turned out to be lasting gifts on our journeys.

Lead Image: Fez, Morocco

Shaped By Life

Last week we took the Amtrak Coast Starlight for a 32-hour journey to Washington State. Our goal was to visit friends we’d made when we lived in the farming community of Wapato in central Washington from 1985-1992.

Once we got settled on the train, I downloaded Pope Leo’s new encyclical on AI to my iPad. While some of it was dry, other parts were compelling. One section impressed me. I pasted this paragraph to my Notepad:

… we must avoid the misconception of equating this type of “intelligence” with that of human beings. These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence. In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields. Yet this power remains entirely tied to data processing. So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate language, behavior and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. Even when these tools are described as capable of “learning,” their way of doing so is different from that of a human person. It is not the experience of those who allow themselves to be shaped by life and grow over time through choices, mistakes, forgiveness and fidelity. Rather, it is a form of statistical adaptation based on data and feedback, which can be very effective, but does not imply inner growth…[i]

We arrived in Seattle at 10 PM. The next day we visited a friend who lives north of the city, then drove our rental car over Snoqualmie Pass to the Yakima Valley.

The first night a group of friends gathered at a winery to celebrate our memories and relationships.

The next morning, we drove eight miles south to Wapato, which has 3,000 residents and an 85% poverty rate.

We began with a visit to the apple farm and retreat center where we lived the first year. We took photos, including one of the 10 x 50-foot trailer we lived in that is now abandoned. We drove into town and saw the church I served for six years; the congregation I knew dispersed years ago, and the building is now owned by a Spanish-speaking Pentecostal congregation.

We drove two blocks past the Dairy Queen to the church-owned house we lived in for six years. Later we visited a Filipino couple who are dear friends and godparents to our younger daughters. We spent two more days in the area before driving west over the mountains. We spent one last night in a downtown hotel in Seattle and boarded the train back home.

On the way south, I began to sort out my feelings and thoughts.

I value all my life experiences. Living in a small town few people have heard of amid the poverty was not easy. But we did it. We endured because we were embraced by the people in my congregation and those we met through the schools, community, and the local swim team. We grew to love our new life, the people, the land, and what we were learning.

Becoming aware of that on the way home, I took my iPad out and looked again at the excerpt from the encyclical. I was drawn to two sentences:

So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean.

…and…

It is not the experience of those who allow themselves to be shaped by life and grow over time through choices, mistakes, forgiveness and fidelity.

I enjoy using Claude, my AI tool. I appreciate Anthropic, the company that created Claude, which has from the beginning established strong ethical guidelines and whose co-founder was invited to speak at the encyclical’s presentation.

Speed, clarity, ease, amazement: AI gives us these experiences.

But life can’t always go quickly. Sometimes it takes a long time to find clarity. Sometimes the easy way is not the best way. And sometimes the most lasting sense of appreciation comes not from a device, but from personally experiencing and living through joy and pain and discovering from within the value of “love, work, friendship, and responsibility.”

Living seven years in the Wapato community taught us in a lasting way what love, work, friendship and responsibility mean. Our life there shaped us for the good. We will always be grateful for what we learned and the people whose lives became intertwined with our own. And I am grateful to Pope Leo for reminding us what really matters as we live into the future.

[i] Magnifica Humanitas, paragraph 99

Lead Image: Farm in the hills near Wapato, Washington

Vinny’s View

This week I was with a friend in LA for some music concerts. We were free during the day on Tuesday, and I booked a tour of Dodger Stadium. It turned out we were the only two people on the 90-minute tour.

We came to the broadcaster’s booth and the guide said I could sit in an announcer’s chair, which I did. I looked out at the empty field and quiet stadium. I began thinking of Vin Scully, the Dodger broadcaster who had seen so much from this perspective. It wasn’t any particular moment that came to mind, but more a sense of his spirit — how he saw the world.

Vin Scully began his broadcasting career in Brooklyn in 1950. By the time the team came to Los Angeles in 1958, transistor radios were common and his voice was heard everywhere. I began listening to him when I was 6 years old and followed him faithfully for 58 years.

If I could add up all the hours in my life I heard his voice, I’m sure it would be a greater sum than the hours I’ve listened to any other person outside my family. But it wasn’t the information he conveyed that was so compelling.

In all those years I never heard him say a disparaging word about anyone. What I did hear was an endless stream of stories about each player’s background — one guy growing up in a Mississippi mill town and what inspired him, or how another guy had made it to the big leagues because his mother always believed in him. It didn’t matter whether the person he was describing was a Dodger or on the other team — everyone has a story to their life, and when we know their story, we want to see them do well.

He gained that knowledge not by doing internet searches, but by showing up early for the games. He would mingle with the players, listening carefully to them, and getting to know those he had not yet met. They learned to respect and trust him. That took time. He made the time.

These days most games involve a team of broadcasters who discuss and debate what is going on between themselves while we listen in. Vin Scully preferred to work alone. He wanted to have a genuine conversation between himself and each one of us listening and that’s what it felt like.

Vin never talked about his private life. But his first wife had died suddenly when she was 35, leaving him a single dad. He remarried three years later and took on the hard work of raising a blended family. Later, one of his sons died in a helicopter crash. He later said it was his strong Catholic faith and his willingness to stop asking “Why?” that got him through it all. He didn’t have all the answers, but he didn’t have to.

Scully was honored in a pre-game ceremony by the Dodgers on September 23, 2017. My youngest daughter, her boyfriend, and I attended that game. Speakers included Sandy Koufax, Clayton Kershaw, and Kevin Costner. I remember him paying tribute to his wife, then leaning out of the broadcast booth, opening his arms wide, and serenading us with “You Are The Wind Beneath My Wings.” He was 88.

In our current culture, much attention is given to quick and simplistic judgments about other people. Vin Scully was the great counterexample to that. I believe Vinny’s life was about reverence. Reverence for the game, to be sure. But also reverence for all those whom the game brings together. It was all about loving and honoring one another in the midst of our ups and downs, our successes and failures. He showed us how to practice respect for everyone. Sitting quietly in that broadcaster’s chair this week, I was reminded once again of who Vin Scully was, what he represented, and why we need to always remember his example.

Magic, Miracles, and Machines

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”

— Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey

In 1877, Thomas Edison designed the first machine that could record and play back sound —

He experimented with a diaphragm which had an embossing point and was held against rapidly-moving paraffin paper. The speaking vibrations made indentations in the paper. Edison later changed the paper to a metal cylinder with tin foil wrapped around it. The machine had two diaphragm-and-needle units, one for recording, and one for playback. When one would speak into a mouthpiece, the sound vibrations would be indented onto the cylinder by the recording needle in a vertical (or hill and dale) groove pattern. Edison gave a sketch of the machine to his mechanic, John Kruesi, to build, which Kruesi supposedly did within 30 hours. Edison immediately tested the machine by speaking the nursery rhyme into the mouthpiece, “Mary had a little lamb.” To his amazement, the machine played his words back to him. [i] When his mechanic heard the recorded words he famously exclaimed, “Gott in Himmel!” (“God in heaven!”)

Edison took his new invention to the offices of Scientific American in New York City and showed it to staff there. As the December 22, 1877, issue reported, “Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came into this office, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was very well, and bid us a cordial good night.” Interest was great, and the invention was reported in several New York newspapers, and later in other American newspapers and magazines.[ii]

After the phonograph came radio. Then television. Then cassette players, VHS, CDs and DVDs.

The iPod arrived in 2001. It was the size of a deck of cards and could retain 1,000 songs. The first time a friend showed me his, he said, “It feels like the music is coming from God.”

Today, the latest source of technological amazement is AI.

I had read Anthropic’s Claude was developed with a strong focus on safety and ethics, so I began using it. Every week when I think my blog post is finished, I ask Claude to proofread it. Within seconds, it comes back with notes about clerical errors, misspellings, phrasing, occasional questions about facts and often an encouraging word.

Last week my post included spiritual reflections I had after walking a labyrinth. I asked Claude to proofread it, and it responded with some corrections. But the more I thought about it, I wondered if this kind of personal knowing was something AI could ever experience. I took the last paragraph:

“Yearning, Sorrow, Sweetness. Moving On, Holding On, Opening. People complete the journey and disappear, as I will someday. In such moments of awareness, there is wonder.”

…and added one sentence…

“Yearning, Sorrow, Sweetness. Moving On, Holding On, Opening. People complete the journey and disappear, as I will someday. I don’t think AI chatbots will experience such feelings and think such thoughts, but we human beings can. In such moments of awareness, there is wonder.”

I asked Claude for an opinion about the added sentence. A few seconds after hitting the Enter key, I got this response:

“It’s a thought worth sitting with, because it cuts both ways.

The case for including it: It does sharpen the specifically human quality of the experience — the mortality, the longing, the bittersweet awareness. And given how much conversation there is right now about AI, it might resonate with some readers.

The case against: The piece is so beautifully self-contained and timeless in its imagery — labyrinths, oak trees, a cello on a hillside, the ancient themes of loss and love. The AI reference pulls the reader abruptly into 2026, and into a somewhat defensive or comparative posture, just at the moment when you’ve brought them to a place of quiet wonder. It risks deflating exactly the feeling you’ve just built.

There’s also a subtle irony worth considering: you’d be addressing the question of AI to me, an AI — and I’d gently push back on the certainty of the claim. Whether or not I “experience” anything is genuinely unresolved, philosophically speaking. So the sentence might inadvertently invite that debate into a piece that isn’t about that at all.

My honest suggestion: Leave it out. The final line — In such moments of awareness, there is wonder — is exactly the right landing. It’s earned, it’s still, and it’s universal. The AI sentence adds a claim but subtracts resonance.

That said, if the piece is specifically written for an audience you’ve been discussing AI with, or if that contrast is a theme in a larger body of writing, it could fit. Context matters.”

Reading this eloquent response gave me an eerie feeling. I could have whispered “Gott in Himmel!” but I don’t think Gott had anything to do with it. I could have said, “This feels like magic” but I know it’s not magic. It did evoke awe. With a continuously evolving “intelligence” like this available to us, where are we headed? I agreed with Claude’s recommendation and omitted the sentence.

I have gained great respect for Claude and will continue to use it . It can certainly express thoughts that seem fully human. But they are not. They don’t come out of the flesh and blood experience of a human life lived in all its complexity – they are a product of computational power. We human beings labor to make sense of our lives using our thoughts, feelings, intuitions, dreams, conversations, imagination and personal memories. It’s hard work; what we gain is hard-earned. It is through this labor we form our character.

[i] “History of the Cylinder Phonograph,” Library of Congress

[ii] Ibid.

Lead image: Edison’s first phonograph

Reflections From a Labyrinth Walk

Last Saturday we joined a group of fifteen people who gathered to walk an outdoor labyrinth at Windermere Ranch on the hills above Santa Barbara. It was “World Labyrinth Day,” an annual occasion in which people around the globe gather at 1 PM to share in this ancient practice. I’m guessing some of you are familiar with labyrinths and others are not. For those who are not, I’ll offer a simple explanation before sharing what came to me this time.

Labyrinths are geometric designs that people “walk” as a spiritual practice. While they may have originated centuries before, they became well-known in the Middle Ages, and many cathedrals in Europe were designed to include them. Here’s a common design that is inlaid in the floor at Chartres Cathedral in France:

At first glance, you may think it’s a maze. But a maze is a design that forces you to make choices as you walk; some may lead you forward and others to a dead end. Labyrinths have no wrong turns or dead ends. You enter at the gateway (the open space at the bottom of the diagram) and keep within the lines marked on the ground until you get to the center and pause. Then you retrace your steps until you exit. As you are walking, you simply focus on the way that is open in front of you. Labyrinths vary in size – the one at Chartres measures 40 feet in diameter. Making the journey typically takes 15 to 20 minutes.

Like many meditative activities (such as some forms of manual labor, creating art and music, etc.), keeping your practical mind busy with a simple task allows your inner self an opportunity to offer you words, images or feelings that may be meaningful.

One thing I’ve learned is the importance of beginning with the right intention. It is tempting to say to myself, “As I walk this labyrinth today, I sure hope I get some great spiritual insight! If I do, it will be a prize to take home and show to others!” But that is Dear Ego speaking. I find it better to say to myself, “I’m going to make this walk and be open to whatever might come to me. If nothing significant appears, that’s OK. And if something does, I’ll hold it lightly.”

I have “walked” various labyrinths in the last 20 years. Sometimes I’ve been by myself, other times with my wife. Sometimes it’s been part of a class or retreat. Sometimes live music is played while people walk and other times there is silence. This day we were led by a friend and colleague who is also a certified labyrinth facilitator and gifted cellist, Rob Hodges.

As it approached 1 PM, we lined up in silence. Rob began playing while his assistant stood at the entry point, nodding when it was time for each person to begin. (This ensures there will be space between each person to minimize distractions.)

As I waited, I focused on Rob playing. He was improvising the tune; there is something extraordinary about hearing the deep, rich tones of a cello singing on a hillside among oak trees. What he played seemed to me like a mystical blend of Indian kirtan chanting and ancient Celtic tunes of longing; it captured my attention and drew me inward.

Soon it was my turn to enter. As I walked some impressions came to me. When I completed my time, I found a quiet place and wrote these notes:

Tuning into the music while walking, three words emerged: “Yearning,” “Sorrow,” and “Sweetness.” As these settled within me and I continued, I was reflecting on my ongoing journey in life and three phrases appeared: “Moving On,” “Holding On,” and “Opening.” Towards the end of my walk, I noticed I could see people ahead of me as they exited and disappeared from the circle; I also was aware that I could not see those behind me who were continuing.

Reading over these impressions, I wondered what it all might mean.

It seems to me “Yearning-Sorrow-Sweetness” is what we feel as we savor the passing experiences of being alive. We yearn for our life to go a certain way, and when it doesn’t, we feel sorrow. But such sorrow arises because we love and care, and in that feeling a certain sweetness is present.

Every morning we enter a new day and are faced with the fact that the world is Moving On. We don’t want to lose what is important to us, and so we instinctively keep Holding On to what we love and cherish as best we can. Yet we also need to be Opening to new experiences and realities as they emerge, constantly seeking the best ways to incorporate them into our life.

And as I was completing my walk, the awareness of people disappearing ahead of me is what it feels like when people I care about die; I think to myself, “Where did they go?” And the non-awareness of who is “behind” me is the sense that I don’t know who will continue living when I pass.

Yearning, Sorrow, Sweetness. Moving On, Holding On, Opening. People complete the journey and disappear, as I will someday. In such moments of awareness, there is wonder.

Labyrinth overlooking the Pacific, UCSB campus.

Lead image: Labyrinth at Windermere Ranch, Santa Barbara

“London Calling, Part 3: Handel and Hendrix Under One Roof”

Last year I read “Every Valley: The Desperate Lives and Troubled Times That Made Handel’s Messiah.” It’s a fascinating account of Handel’s life in London –-the scandals, fundraising challenges, political tensions and personal drama that surrounded him while he composed “The Messiah.” When I began planning my recent trip to London, I wanted to visit the house where Handel lived. When I Googled it, I discovered that Handel’s house adjoins an apartment Jimi Hendrix rented between 1968 and 1969. The two residences recently became one museum: The “Handel Hendrix House.”

I was fascinated to consider that two legendary musicians – separated by time and culture – had literally lived under the same roof. Both had been important touchstones in my personal musical experience, and it became a priority to visit. I want to share the thoughts I had after visiting the site. But I’ll begin with some reflections on what each artist has meant to me.

When I think of Hendrix, I hear the opening chords of “Purple Haze,” which came out in 1967. I was 15 years old, and whenever it came on my car radio, I always turned the volume up. Like so many of my generation, music had become central to the feeling that a new and exciting era was being born. It had begun with the Beatles and the Beach Boys. Then the Rolling Stones and so many other groups emerged. Then came Jimi Hendrix. What he offered was much more than “I Want to Hold Your Hand” or “I Get Around.” He was taking rock music into highly imaginative and psychedelic realms…

” Purple haze all in my brain
Lately things just don’t seem the same
Actin’ funny but I don’t know why
‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky…”

There were the three studio albums: “Are You Experienced?” “Axis Bold as Love,” and “Electric Ladyland.” In 1969 he closed Woodstock with “The Star-Spangled Banner.” He became a global sensation. A year later, he died of an overdose.

Jimi Hendrix was a visionary creator, a brilliant musician, and one of those human comets that rise high into the sky before burning out. When I was 19 and living in my first apartment in Isla Vista, we had a large poster of Hendrix on our living room wall. Listening to his music and seeing him perform evoked awe.

In my early 20s, my youthful abandon was calming down and I began to buy fewer rock albums. For the first time, I learned to “hear” classical music. Before then, I thought it was meant to be just pleasant and pretty. But I discovered human spirits from the past were sharing with me passionate, sublime and profound truths they had experienced. I latched on to Beethoven first, then other composers. When I finally began listening to Handel’s “Messiah,” I learned why it has been treasured by millions of people for more than 250 years. The most well-known selection is, of course, the “Hallelujah Chorus.” When we hear it sung well, it feels as if the heavens have opened and we join all humanity celebrating something gloriously greater than our self.

Like Hendrix, Handel created experiences that evoke awe. Both artists have their place in my life. I couldn’t wait to visit the place they both lived.

My sister and I followed the Google maps on our phones. We got to 23 and 25 Brook Street. It looks like this:

You enter the red door of the gray building on the right and you are in Handel’s house. You go upstairs and come to a drawing room where Handel composed and rehearsed for many years. It was in this room that he famously composed the complete “Messiah” in 24 days. There is a replica of his keyboard:

Some days they have guest musicians playing. We heard a cellist performing pieces from Handel’s era:

You next pass into his bedroom.

A sign says: “Here Handel could find privacy and tranquility in his sometimes busy home…It is here that Handel slept, dreamt, recovered from illnesses and wrapped up warm amidst some of the coldest winters on record…He never married and we know nothing about his romantic liaisons while he lived here…In this bedroom, his sanctuary, he may have drawn his last breath.”

You go to the top floor and pass through a door into the Hendrix apartment. There’s a spare room where people such as George Harrison and Billy Preston gathered late into the night…

Then there is Hendrix’ s bedroom…

…and a room where you can view his stereo and collection of LPs…

…nearby is this display, noting that Hendrix apparently was inspired by listening repeatedly to a recording of “The Messiah:”

In one of the rooms, a guitarist was playing blues:

And then you’re done.

Completing the tour and heading outside, I was left to wonder what it meant.

The two men could not have been from more different backgrounds. Handel was nurtured in the courts of 18th Century Europe; Hendrix had to make his way through the “chitlin” circuit of segregated night clubs in the turbulent 1960s. Handel lived to be 74, Hendrix died tragically at 27. But both found great success and fame. Both entertained friends and musicians late at night in their Brook Street residence. Both are gone. But both have given us the great gift of their artistry and music which continues to inspire feelings of awe.

In the movie “Sinners,” the character Annie says: “There are legends of people with the gift of making music so true, it conjures spirits from the past and the future.” Handel and Hendrix seem to have that power. And for that we can be grateful.