wisdom – Page 13 – Steve Jacobsen, Ed.D

Waking Up on A Train

“At some point we look out the train window and realize we are in another country.” — David Brooks, commenting on his spiritual journey, “Lead Where You Stand Conference,” June 2022

If you take the Coast Starlight Amtrak from Santa Barbara to Seattle, you’ll board at noon and arrive 30 hours later. You never know what you’ll see.

Traveling by train is much less stressful than traveling by air. Seatbelts are not required. You don’t watch an instructional video telling you what to do if the plane begins falling into the ocean. You can walk up and down the aisles. You can bring your own food or purchase some onboard. You can choose where to be — the dining car, the café, the observation car – and, if you book a sleeping compartment, you can be in your own private room.

When night comes, the conductor makes your bed. You get a real pillow and stretch out. Sleeping on a moving train is far easier than having to become a pretzel on a plane.

Unlike driving, you don’t have to stay alert, deal with traffic, or stop for gas.

The scenery on the Coast Starlight route is always changing. You pass along ocean cliffs, in and out of small towns, by farms and vineyards, and through forests and mountain ranges.

If there are delays, instead of being bound to your seat on the tarmac, you are free to roam; you don’t have to plead for special dispensation to use the facility.

The conductor periodically reminds you where you are and what’s coming next: “Portland. Next stop, 10 minutes. Portland.”

But sometimes you suddenly realize you don’t know where you are.

Maybe it’s in the middle of the night and you wake up because you sense the train is not moving. You pull the curtain aside and wonder, “Where am I?”

During the day you might fall asleep, daydream, or become immersed in a good book or conversation; you find you’re looking at unexpected scenery.

Moving through life can be like being a passenger on a train. Sometimes you arrive on time at a planned destination. Other times, you are surprised.

I remember the first day I drove my 1963 Plymouth Valiant to high school by myself. I was short and my father had to install a wooden platform under the drivers’ seat so I could see over the wheel. But I was licensed and independent. I pulled out of our driveway, turned on the AM radio, and headed to school. “I’m really doing this,” I thought.

In my twenties, I found myself on an unexpected spiritual journey. The faith tradition I had discounted most of my life was now calling to me, drawing me, along with my doubts and questions, like a force of gravity. My girlfriend (who became my wife) asked if I wanted to help chaperone the church’s youth group that was going caroling. We got onto the back of a flatbed truck and were handed mimeographed song sheets with “Joy to the World,” “Angels We Have Heard On High,” and all the rest. As the group started singing, the lyrics that had been routine and familiar to me all my life now seemed vivid, amazing, and inspiring. In that moment I realized I had crossed from skeptic to “believer.” “When did that happen?” I wondered.

A few years ago, I made an appointment at the Social Security office to submit my Medicare paperwork. I gave it to the clerk who reviewed and approved it. I walked out wondering, “When did I get to this stage of life?”

How many times have you looked in the mirror, or at changes in society, or what’s happening to friends and loved ones, and think, “When did I arrive here?”

Maybe what’s going on “outside” is always going to be changing. In one sense, that’s a bit scary. But in another sense, what a mystery and privilege to be alive and watching it unfold.

And I wonder: Will we all, at some point, suddenly find ourselves thinking “I am no longer in my body?” Will we look out our window and realize we’re headed someplace we’ve never been before?

Top image credit: philly.com

Two Questions, Two Art Works, One Life to Live

What’s going on inside you?

What’s going on because of you?

Last spring, I attended a leadership conference at Westmont College. The president said he often asks students these two questions. They struck me as excellent questions to ask ourselves from time to time.

Reflecting on them this week brought to mind two art works I saw in Europe in January 2020. In Leipzig it was “The Kneeling King,” a wooden sculpture from 1500. In Vienna, it was “The Large Path” from 1962 by Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Different eras, different artists, different media, different themes. But somehow, they help me reflect on how we can view our life through these two questions. I’m inviting you to look at them with me with the questions in mind.

Let’s start with the older one, “The Kneeling King.”

*Knieender Konig*, Michel Erhart, c. 1500, Zentrum Museuem, Leipzig

This is piece of religious art, and the “King” with his opened treasure box is one of the Magi. He has been on a long journey, led by signs and prophecies to a distant land. He’s come to pay homage to a newborn child who promises to bring peace to the world. He’s arrived and is kneeling in humility and hope. But as I look at his facial expression, I sense an inner weariness. Grateful he got to this point, but not assured his longings will be fulfilled. In my imagination it seems likely he will return home and eventually die without knowing if his hopes will be realized. But he’s done his best. He’s made the journey and offered something of his own that could be valuable to benefit others.

What’s going on inside of him? I sense a desire to help the world become a place of greater compassion and justice. At this late stage in his life, he wants to offer something of personal significance to benefit humanity.

What is happening because of him? A poor family is being given a gift to help them raise their child. His inner journey leads to an outward journey — a giving away rather than just a gathering in.

Let’s turn to the contemporary piece, “The Large Path” by Hundertwasser.

*Der Grosse Weg*, Friedensreich Hundterwasser, 1962, Belvedere Palace, Vienna.

I don’t know anything about theories of color and design, but this piece made me pause and study it with fascination and curiosity.

I read the descriptive plaque next to it: Hundertwasser’s art combines Far Eastern philosophy and abstract art, the unconscious and the rational, nature and culture. He discovered Zen Buddhism in the 1950s and traveled subsequently to Japan. He sought to put an end to the lust for money and power and to find inner peace. The spiral represents the long road towards this goal. The center of the picture promises tranquility.

Our current culture is often described as one in which we are searching for our “authentic self.” For some, Western spirituality has become dry and dogmatic. Eastern paths offer an opportunity for finding inner peace. Popular psychology and self-help also reflect this hunger. Will I ever know who I really am? Will I ever be able to find peace and tranquility? Like the subject in “The Kneeling King,” the artist went on a long journey. Looking back, he felt his search had been like a long spiral coming closer and closer to a meaningful center, which he represents as a patch of blue — like a warm and welcoming window to deep inner space.

What’s going on inside of this him? It seems the answer could be a long search for inner peace. And the painting suggests he found something at one point.

What’s going because of him? I did not know until I read more about him.

It turns out Hundertwasser became an early pioneer in environmental activism. He bought land in rural New Zealand and lived self-sufficiently using solar panels, a water wheel, and a biological water purification plant. He made a trip to Washington, DC, to oppose the growth of nuclear weapons. It seems his inner search didn’t end with him finding a state of personal illumination but became a path turning outward to make a difference in the world.

There may have been times in my life when I hoped I’d find some permanent place of inner tranquility within myself. But the older I get, the less I feel a need to find such a place. I am more curious about what I can offer to the world beyond myself, even if I don’t know how it will turn out. Maybe the best way to find ourselves is to give ourselves away.

What’s going on inside you?

What’s going on because of you?

What do you see in these works of art?

The Invisible People

I will always remember what it’s like to be invisible.

In 1985 we began serving a year as volunteers at The Campbell Farm, a 40-acre apple farm and retreat center in Central Washington. The property had been left to the Presbyterian Church with the intent that it be used for educational purposes. It became a self-sustaining, working farm and a place where people could learn about agriculture and land stewardship. Early guest speakers included the poet and writer Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson (a soil scientist focusing on the recovery of the prairie ecosystem), and theologians who were laying the foundation of the eco-spirituality movement.

A clergy couple who had become friends of ours in seminary were Directors and invited us to join them. Our duties included working in the small kitchen during mealtimes, helping with housekeeping, assisting in the fall harvest and winter pruning, irrigating the alfalfa field, and tending the livestock. In exchange, we lived rent-free in a mobile home and had a $200/month stipend.

I was just four years out of seminary. We were young, idealistic, and excited about this new adventure.

One weekend, we had a group of 15 retreatants and my job was to help serve the meals and do the dishes on Saturday. Naturally a friendly and inquisitive person, I delight in starting conversations and getting to know people. But I decided I would not speak to any guests about anything other than the meal unless they initiated it.

I set the table, brought the food, cleared the table, and did the dishes — all the time overhearing their conversations. It was a church group, so I was familiar with many of the issues they were discussing. Several times I wanted to break into the conversation, introduce myself, and begin interacting. But I resisted the temptation. In this situation, my “place” was to simply serve them. Eventually, they finished their conversations and went on to their next activity. I dried the dishes and pans and put everything away.

At some point during the meal, I had a vivid experience of being invisible. I was physically present, of course, but it was the sense of not being “seen” socially. I wasn’t offended – I was doing my job and they were the guests – but it was a curious feeling.

Maybe the experience was new to me because I was a young, white male. In our culture, I unconsciously had always assumed I was a “somebody” worthy of other people’s attention. I’m guessing many people in service jobs, particularly people of color, are accustomed to not being seen. Any of you who have worked in food service and hospitality probably know the feeling well.

This experience often comes back to me at restaurants, hotels, and other public places. Amid all the guests and customers, there are invisible people taking care of everything. Sometimes they may be thanked as they perform a task, but often they are not.

The major spiritual traditions affirm that no human being is invisible.

The Jewish Torah reminds the people of Israel that they were once slaves in Egypt with no worth beyond their physical labor –an experience of being invisible. But having been liberated, they should not make the same mistake: “The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the Lord your God.” (Leviticus 19:34)

Jesus taught “… the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves.” (Luke 22: 26-27)

In the early 1960s, Malcolm X made his first pilgrimage as a Muslim to Mecca. He described how all the pilgrims arrived at the airport dressed according to their culture, but as they headed for the holy site, everyone put on the same two-piece white garment. “You could be a king or a peasant and no one would know,” he wrote.[i] What was true for social status was also true for race. For the first time in his life, he felt like an equal member of the human family.

When I was at Hospice of Santa Barbara, twice a year we’d welcome a group of City College students completing their Certified Nursing Assistant program. In my welcome, I’d say that in my years visiting people in nursing homes and health care facilities, it was the CNAs who were doing most of the care of the patients, and many times I had seen how their compassion was affirming each patient’s dignity.

And I remember going to the dedication of the new wing of Cottage Hospital here in Santa Barbara. There were four ribbons cut that day. The first was to be expected – Lady Ridley-Tree, the biggest donor. Another ribbon was cut by a staff doctor who had been born there, and another by the longest-serving volunteer. But the moment that meant the most to me was when they introduced their longest-serving employee. She was a woman who had worked in the basement laundry for more than 50 years. All that time she would have been invisible. But at this moment, as she stepped forward to cut the ribbon, she was being seen.

[i] “The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley,” 1965

Photo: The Pho Hung Restaraunt, Toronto

The Weeds and Wheat Within

Years ago, I was driving downtown to take my turn as a volunteer at the local soup kitchen. On the way, I noticed the following thought appearing in my awareness: “You know, volunteering at the soup kitchen shows to you and everyone that you are a really good person. People will notice and think highly of you.”

Another voice spoke up, “What a tacky thing to think! You’re not going there today to show off. You are going because you know in your heart this is simply the right thing to do.”

Next thought: “What an amusing dialogue you are having, Steve. Sounds like you got one voice that is selfish and another voice that might be decent.”

I was tempted to think the second voice is the “real me” and the first is “not me.” But, you know, I seem to have both voices within me all the time. The first is always performing to impress my self with my self and hoping other people notice what a good guy I am. The second wants to just do the right thing for the right reason without any fanfare.

41 years after being awarded a “Master of Divinity” degree, I am far from mastering the relentless and petty voice within.

I take heart from reading a recent “Daily Meditation” posting by Fr. Richard Rohr.[i] He writes about the Gospel parable in which the field workers are concerned that weeds are growing in the same field as good grain. The owner tells them not to worry – in the final harvest the weeds will be separated out, and the good grain will remain. Rohr says that, growing up, he felt the parable told him to be relentlessly looking for the “weeds” in his life and root them out. But, over time, he sensed that was impossible and gave up. Then, as he matured, he saw the parable in a new way:

…Jesus shows us an absolute realism. He says something that was never said to me when I was a young person: “Let the weeds and the wheat both grow together.” Wow! That’s risky. I can’t pretend to logically understand it, although I know it allows me to be compassionate with myself. After all, I’m also a field of weeds and wheat, just like you are, and just like everything is. Everything is a mixed bag, a combination of good and bad. We are not all weeds, but we are not all wheat, either. We have to learn, even now, to accept and forgive this mixed bag of reality in ourselves and in everybody else. If we don’t, we normally become very angry people. Our world is filled with a lot of angry people because they cannot accept their own weeds.

To accept this teaching doesn’t mean we can say, “It’s okay to be selfish, violent, and evil.” It simply means that we have some realism about ourselves and each other. We have to name the weed as a weed. We can’t just pretend it’s all wheat, all good, because it isn’t. We’re not perfect. Our countries are not perfect…. The project of learning how to love—which is our only life project—is quite simply learning to accept this. If you really love anybody, and I hope you all do, then you have learned to accept a person despite, and sometimes even because of, their faults.

This has strong parallels with Buddhism, in which we avoid the folly of thinking we can block thoughts we don’t want to have. Instead, we learn to let them come into the open, and to observe and assess them. In that freedom, we become more compassionate with ourselves as “complicated” creatures, as well as more compassionate with our fellow human beings who live the same inner complexity.

This perspective doesn’t mean we passively accept disappointing behavior in ourselves or others. But it does invite us to be realistic that to be human is to be a mixture of wheat and weeds. Constantly sorting out the inner voices is hard work and, like the peasants in the Brueghel painting, sometimes it’s OK to take a break. But it’s vital work, and I’m grateful to Father Richard for this liberating insight.

Image: The Harvesters, Brueghel, 1656

[i] https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-weeds-and-the-wheat-2022-08-28/

Starstruck: The Relationship Between Awe and Caring

When we get away from city lights and look up to behold the fullness of the night sky, it’s hard not to feel a sense of awe. Awe reminds us how “small” we really are, yet, paradoxically, it’s exhilarating. We feel better having been reminded that there is such an amazing world beyond us. But I did not know there is a connection between experiences of awe and how we act towards other people.

In a recent column, Cal Berkeley psychology professor Alison Gopnik cites several studies that explore this connection[i]:

One study found this: “When people gaze up at an awesome sight like an eclipse… they become more humble and caring when they look down at their Twitter feed.”

Here’s another: “…people were shown videos of earthbound awe-inspiring sights like a towering tree, a sublime landscape or an erupting volcano. Afterwards they felt less significant themselves and more caring toward others.”

And she cites another that includes spilled pens: “… researchers placed students in front of either the majestic Berkeley Eucalyptus Grove or a tall but boring campus building. A confederate then came by and dropped a bunch of pens on the ground, apparently by accident. The awe-struck students in the grove put more effort into helpfully collecting the dropped pens than did the students by the mundane building.”

Here’s more: “But what about in real life outside the lab and university? In the new study, the researchers cleverly took advantage of a natural experiment—the total solar eclipse of 2017 and the millions of people who tweeted about it. First, they analyzed over eight million tweets and compared people who were in the path of the total eclipse to those who were not. Unsurprisingly, people who experienced the eclipse expressed more awe than those who didn’t, using more words like “amazing” and “transcendent.

But they also used more words expressing social connection, like “care” “love” and “thanks,” and they expressed more humility and tentativeness, saying “maybe” or “perhaps.” They even said “I” less and “we” more than people outside the path. A further analysis showed that how social and humble people were depended on how much awe they expressed.

Isn’t that fascinating? Yet, somehow, it makes sense.

I regret I have not spent more time at high elevations where the sky is at its most dazzling. I remember being on a hike a few years ago in the Sierras, and before going into the tent late at night, looking up and being overwhelmed by the sight of the sky. I long to go back to that spot and simply lie on my back, being absorbed by wonder. It “humanizes” us – or, perhaps, “spiritualizes us. Or perhaps they are the same thing.

On the terrestrial plane I have felt something surprisingly similar during worship services. I’ve led and attended many in my life, and some are certainly forgettable. But some are transformative. It happens often at a simple memorial service: you hear about some small act of kindnesses the person did, or how a challenge they faced gave someone courage to face their own hardships, or you hear their favorite song sung with care and love. What’s remembered are moments when the person’s soul seemed to quietly connect with another. It reminds me of how extraordinary life is. And as I mingle with others at the reception, we’ve been reminded of mortality as well as what endures, and it’s as if I’m seeing each person with more clarity and reverence than I did before the service.

Gopnik comments: These results might help to explain a rather puzzling fact about spiritual experiences in general, whether they are the result of organized religious practice, secular meditation or even psychedelic rituals. On the one hand, these experiences often involve a very personal and private experience of awe, a sense of transcendence. But at the same time, they seem to lead to very real and down-to-earth actions to help other people.

And she concludes: “The mystic’s ecstasy might seem far removed from the homeless shelter or soup kitchen, and marveling at a grove, cathedral or eclipse might seem to have little to do with saying ‘we’ or helping someone pick up their spilled pens. But our minds do link the two. The awesome natural world makes our petty egos seem smaller in comparison and makes our connection to other people loom larger. Gazing at the heavens may help us make a better world on earth.”

Our hard-working ego always wants to be front and center. When that is going on, we see everything, including night skies and other people, as only important insofar as they serve us. But whenever the ego gets dethroned by something amazing beyond us – beholding the Milky Way, or watching a newborn child sleep, or holding the hand of someone about to take their last breath – the ego’s power dissipates. Out comes our spiritual self, which is always aware of our fundamental connection with nature and others. Experiencing that connection is one of the greatest gifts we can receive.

Artwork: Cantique des oiseaux comète

[i] Humbled-by-looking-up-at-the-heavens, WSJ, August 28, 2022

Old Haunts, New Rivers

In late July, my wife and I traveled north to Sacramento to visit cousins, then on to the Oregon Coast to visit friends. I was surprised with what perceptions arose in each place, and how the two impressions ended up blending together.

I had lived in Sacramento in the mid-70s after college, trying my hand at selling real estate. I made many friends, and grew to appreciate the river, the parks, the Victorian houses, and the neighborhood I lived near the Capitol. I had not been back since. As we drove up the I-5, a lot of fond memories came back to me.

We had booked a hotel in Rancho Cordova to be close to where we were going to meet for dinner. As we came into the city and headed east on Highway 50, I was amazed at how much the city has sprawled and grown. Logically, I knew the population had tripled since I had lived and worked there and there would be changes. But I was surprised at how out of place I felt.

Memories kept coming as I thought of the people I knew back then and I wondered if I could trace them down. But as I remembered each person, I realized I’d lost touch with them and that most of them, no doubt, had died. It became clear that the life I had known was gone.

The next day we headed north to Oregon.

Our friends’ home is on the banks of the Siletz River at a point where the river flows into the sea. It’s a large, impressive river. I realized that, growing up in southern California, I was familiar with seasonal creeks but no real rivers.

Soon I was mesmerized as I sat quietly and watched the river flow. I thought of our countless ancestors who have watched rivers over the centuries, and who sensed they were watching the unending movement of time. Day-to-day, we live as if our lives are stable. But days, months, and years pass, and we realize life has always been quietly moving all around us, and our lives are part of that constant movement and change.

The melancholy feeling of loss I had visiting Sacramento came back, but I saw it in a new light. I understood it was just another example of life’s river flowing.

A verse from a 3-century old hymn began singing itself in my mind: “Time like an ever-rolling stream bears all its sons away; they fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.” The hymn is based on a song of Israel, Psalm 90, which is itself 2,500 years old. That sense of being part of “an ever-flowing stream” is an ancient awareness.

A new thought arose: my time in Sacramento may have passed long ago, but many new people have come into that community with most of their lives are in front of them. New lives have replaced mine and all who are no longer there. And this is good.

I kept watching the Siletz River. I could look eastward and imagine, at the headwaters of every tributary, the water’s journey just beginning. Then I could look westward and see the waters finding their way to the sea. The waters will evaporate, form clouds, and bring rain, and the river will replenish itself. And this is good.

I’m grateful for what I have seen and what I can still see. And knowing what endures is not me but the river itself.

Top Image: Siletz River looking eastward; image below: the river as it merges with the sea. Photo credit: R. Ellsworth

Playing in Life’s Jazz Orchestra

A seminary professor once ended a class by offering a memorable metaphor for the spiritual life.

Life, he said, is like playing in a jazz orchestra where the Divine One is both composer and conductor. We’ve all been given a score for our life to play, as well as the freedom to play it as we want. The composer’s aim to use every one of us to create an inclusive and beautiful work of music.

At times, we may play notes not in the score. Maybe we do so by mistake because we are tired or confused. Or maybe we do so willfully, because we like to strike out on our own, regardless of the consequences for us or others.

If this was a classical score, playing the wrong notes might ruin the piece. But it’s a jazz score, always open to improvisation and the unexpected. The Divine Composer takes whatever notes we have played and instantly rewrites the entire score to incorporate what we’ve done into something new, both for ourselves and others. And, as the composer is also the conductor, we are all invited to play our part in this newly revised score. In this light, no “mistake” is beyond an ultimate redeeming use. The score is constantly evolving, but the divine intent – to use us all to create something new and beautiful – is unwavering.

In this orchestra, none of us are mindless robots. All of us experience both the freedom to play as we want and the invitation to make something extraordinary when we follow the conductor’s lead and collaborate with others.

As we learn to trust the notes set before us day by day, we find a deep satisfaction in playing our life score as best we can, both for our own sake and the sake of the larger composition. Of course, accidentally missed or intentionally misplayed notes can keep appearing, but never are beyond being incorporated into something wonderful.

One thing I like about his metaphor is that it assumes we have free will. Other models seem to assume there is one, fixed, preordained plan for your life, which is a challenge to understand if we have free will.

Another point: if we make some poor decisions and play off-key, we’re not thrown out of the group. Every moment, every day, we are offered a fresh beginning and new music to play.

This model is not coercive. We are not being commanded to perform or threatened with punishment if we refuse. If we play it, it’s because we have decided we want to do so. We want to have our life count for something that includes a personal sense of satisfaction but goes beyond us. Musicians often talk about what a thrill it is to make music with others, creating something exciting that’s more than the sum of the parts. This is the key to a fulfilling life.

It could be that the basic teachings of the great traditions – loving God, loving neighbors, caring for the earth, seeking justice, and lifting up those on the margins of life – are like musical scales and keys that are the foundation of every score. But the genius of the composer is to use these in ever new ways while giving everyone an important part to play in bringing the music to its full potential.

Arguably the greatest jazz composer, arranger and conductor of all time was Duke Ellington. Here’s a sampling of his wisdom that seems to fit well with I’ve described:

“A problem is a chance for you to do your best.”

“The most important thing I look for in a musician is whether he (or she) knows how to listen.”

“Everyone prays in their own language, and there is no language that God does not understand.”

This metaphor for spiritual life may not be perfect, but it’s as good as any other I’ve encountered.

Photo Credit: Maria Schneider Jazz Orchestra, Blue Note, Tokyo

How Vin Scully Endured Personal Tragedies

Many people are writing tributes to the sports announcer Vin Scully, who died this week at 94. He was the “voice of God” for me and many kids with transistor radios when we were growing up — he was omnipresent, trustworthy, forgiving and always positive. His endless tales of players’ backgrounds were told with reverence and affection. He was a constant in my life over six decades. Beyond the famous baseball moments he was part of, I have several other enduring memories.

In 2010, I was in Phoenix for spring training. After the game, I was exiting behind the stands and happened to see him walking alone as he headed toward his car. He was dressed in a well-worn suit, and I remember thinking he looked older in person than he did on television.

In 2016, my youngest daughter, her fiancé and I made a pilgrimage to “Vin Scully Day” at Dodger Stadium where we heard him sing “Wind Beneath My Wings” to his wife and 54,000 reverent and faithful fans.

We all knew he was a very private man. I vaguely knew his first wife had died and he had remarried, but I never heard him discuss it.

The one exception came in 2008, when he was interviewed on KCET along with UCLA Coach John Wooden. At one point, the interviewer changed the topic from sports to personal challenges. He noted that Scully’s first wife had died suddenly at age 35, leaving him with three children. He’d remarried Sandra, a woman with two children of her own, and together they had one more child. Later his oldest son died in a helicopter crash at age 32. Vin was asked how he had gotten through it all.

He said creating a new family after the death of his wife while working full-time was very hard – not the amusing experience of blended families being portrayed on the “Brady Bunch” TV show at the time. He didn’t go into the loss of his son. But he concluded by saying the only way he got through it all was to “stop asking why.”

Asking “Why?” is a perennial human question.

“Why did that person have to die when they did?” we ask. The answers people find are varied. Some attribute it to the intentional act of an inscrutable God. Others theorize it must be “karma,” a kind of moral accounting system in which we inherit debits and credits from past lives that shape our personal fate. In modern times, we may look to causes that can be objectively verified, such as family history or the actions of viruses, bacteria, and natural forces. We may find fault in the way a car is designed or blame a toxin in our food supply.

We are curious, intelligent creatures, and we yearn to find answers for personal losses and tragedies. Sometimes we find them. Such answers may bring some peace, and we are reassured that the universe isn’t chaotic after all.

But satisfying answers don’t always come.

Vin’s first wife died of an accidental medical overdose. That’s explainable on one level – simple chemistry. But that doesn’t take away the heartbreak, sorrow, and unfathomable reality that one day a young wife and mother of three is alive and well and the next day she is gone.

His son died working as a helicopter pilot, which may be attributable to a simple error in judgment of a person up in the air at the helm of a large and complex machine. But the harsh reality that a remarkable young man whom you’ve loved since birth is here one day and absent the next – that will always be a shock.

Vin did, at times, talk about the importance of faith and prayer. He was raised a devout Irish Catholic and remained one his entire life. His immersion in that faith made a difference in how he endured and how he lived. But he never claimed that any of his prayers helped him find an answer to the question that apparently haunted him in the early days of his grief — why did death come to these two beloved people in such an untimely way? Vin — the gracious, wise, humane, and compassionate observer of so many human encounters — said the key for him to going on with his life was to “stop asking why.” I will remember that. And I will also remember what a joy it was to turn on a radio and hear him invite us all to pull up a chair “wherever we may be” and listen to a master storyteller at work.

Photo credit: “Dodgersway”

“Beholding” as a Spritual Practice

Last week I attended a leadership conference featuring David Brooks, PBS commentator and columnist for the New York Times. He covered many issues in his three talks, and one I want to share with you concerns the attention we give other people.

David said he recently was working alone at home one evening when his wife came in the front door. He looked up to see her and realized she hadn’t yet noticed him sitting at his desk in the adjacent room. He decided to simply watch her for a minute. After she closed the door behind her, she put her things down, and paused. The house was quiet. She then turned and walked into the kitchen. In that unplanned moment of simply observing her, he realized how much he loved her. He said the experience of seeing her this way was not just a visual act, but something more: he felt as if he was beholding her.

He contrasted this moment with what we experience often in modern life — looking at each other without really seeing each other. When we meet someone, we quickly form assumptions about them before they even speak and filter whatever they say through our assumptions. When someone we know is talking – even someone we know well – our busy mind often isn’t listening carefully to them, but instead preparing what we are going to say in response. “We are not good at “reading” others,” he said, which has created “an epidemic of social blindness.” The quality of attention we bring to someone else is a moral act. If we are truly paying attention with humility and genuine respect, we are granting that person dignity. We are beholding them.

I looked up the origin of the word. In Old English, the word bihaldan meant “give regard to, hold in view.” Modern definitions include, “To hold by, keep, observe, regard, look” and “To look upon, view, consider as (something); to consider or hold in a certain capacity.” If I was to add my own definition, it would be “to give reverent attention to a particular person or experience.” I kept turning the word around in my imagination and was intrigued with the possibility that to “behold” someone could be to “hold” that person’s “being” with a particular sense of awe and care. We are not looking at them with our “busy mind” but opening ourselves to the mystery and wonder of their living presence.

In Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith, Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor described the factors that led her to leave parish ministry. One reason was that she had become weary of people wanting her to tell them what they were supposed to believe. She said her spiritual journey had not been so much about believing the right thing but inviting others into experiences of beholding —“beholding life on earth in all its glorious and terrible reality.”

Being with someone when they die can often evoke a feeling there’s something sacred in the room. I remember my sisters and I spending time at our deceased father’s bedside before the mortuary arrived. We weren’t just looking at dad, we were beholding him.

And I recall what it’s like raising young children. You’re busy all day long with them – talking, listening, dressing, negotiating, feeding, bathing, reading a story — and it’s a big accomplishment to finally get them into bed. A little while later you come back to their room to check on them. You carefully, quietly open the door and see if they’ve fallen asleep. Seeing they are, you sometimes stand there and keep looking at them. You now “see” them for the miracles they are. You may even think, “When they are asleep they look like angels.” In those moments, you’re not just looking at them – you are beholding them

Maybe we can try beholding one person today and see what we experience.

Imgage: Sleeping Child Covered With a Blanket, Henry Moore, 1942

Taken Your “Life-House” Out For A Walk Lately?

Taken your life-house out for a walk lately?

Hard to resist if it’s a nice spring day with a bright heaven-candle in the sky.

Who knows? You might come upon a fresh masterpiece by a weaver-walker.

Life-house, heaven-candle and weaver-walker are examples of “kenning,” a practice in OId English in which a “figurative phrase or compound noun stands in for a familiar word.”[i] Such words were created by our linguistic ancestors between 500 and 1200 AD. Life-house is a word for “body,” heaven-candle for “sun,” and weaver-walker for a “spider”.

I think these words are delightful.

“Body” is a boring word — one definition is simply “the physical aspect of a person.”[ii] It doesn’t suggest what this “aspect” is really for. But life-house tells me so much more. This is the “house” I received when I was born and where “I” have resided all these years. It’s got some deferred maintenance issues, to be sure, and the older we get there are longer lists of things that need to cleaned, replaced, spruced up, covered up, and repainted, not to mention the possibility of discovering leaks as the pipes wear out. But there’s no down payment or mortgage to pay, no crazy real estate market to contend with – it’s a gift we’ve each been given. Our body is where we live – our one and only life-house.

“Sun” is defined by NASA as a “a hot ball of glowing gases at the heart of our solar system.”[iii] Possible digestive and political jokes aside, that’s obviously a scientifically accurate way to put it. But how much better a word is heaven-candle? That glowing orb that illuminates the day is like a generous candle that fills the sky with welcome light every day, without which we would bump into all kinds of things. Our heaven-candle never drips wax on the carpet and is expected to last for another two billion years without being replaced.

“Spider”: “An eight-legged predatory arachnid with an unsegmented body consisting of a fused head and thorax and a rounded abdomen.”[iv] Yuck. “Unsegmented” sounds like somebody needs to make an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon; “fused head and thorax” sounds like they’ve already had at least one such procedure. As to “rounded abdomen” – not sure what’s polite to say there. But as a description, it sounds depressing. How much better is weaver-walker? Doesn’t this word capture the miracle that this creature actually weaves while it walks? (In spite of all its surgeries?) I’ve known some great knitters in my time, but not one that can do that while strolling down the sidewalk, let alone suspended in mid-air generating its own thread.

These examples of “kenning” bring to mind words created when our children were young.

I remember watching Monday Night Football once and a daughter walked in and said, “What are you watching, Daddy? Catch-the-man?” Sounds more accurate than “football,” a word which should be permanently released to the custody of soccer.

Another time, one of the girls was very angry at someone and passionately declared, “They are a Dumbo-airplane!” Years later, I’m still pondering how to visualize that, but have always appreciated the emotional force behind the phrase.

Less poetic but similarly useful was a word we created, “birthday-cereal.” The origins can be traced to taking young kids to the market and walking down the cereal aisle. Attracted by the graphic images for Fruit Loops, Sugar Crisp, and Cap’n Crunch, they’d constantly beg me to buy one of these nutritional disasters. It was exasperating. One day I issued the following edict: they could have any cereal they wanted on their birthday, but on all other days, we would only buy cereal with less than 10 grams of sugar in it per serving. Not only did the haggling disappear, but it improved their literary and math competency as they became experts at silently rushing from box to box down the aisle, carefully examining the chart of nutritional data on every one like Sherlock Holmes.

So “catch-the-man,” “Dumbo-airplane,” and “birthday-cereal” were “kenning” creations in our family – I’m guessing every family has their own.

Let’s turn back one more time to savor a few more of these Old English gems.

After we’ve taken our life-house out for a walk under the heaven-candle while keeping an eye out for weaver-walkers, we could take a trip to gaze at the wave-path. You know, the sail-road? Ok, I’ll try one more word for it: the whale-way. Got it? The ocean! “The entire body of salt water that covers more than 70 percent of the earth’s surface”[v] is the dull way to put it. Wave-path, sail-road, and whale-way are words that help me see movement and life on the sea.

Finally, after our enlightened walk and time spent gazing from the shore, we should have a dust-viewing. That’s the Old English description for “visit to a grave.” After all, that’s where our life-houses will end up. But we’re not there yet. And right now, today, we have this divine opportunity to give thanks for the miracles of the heaven-candle, the weaver-walkers, and the endless creativity of our species. Let’s not let that opportunity dissolve into the dust just yet.

Image: “Spider Web Glowing in the Morning Sun,” Erica Maxine Price

Got some “kenning” examples of your own? Share them in the “Comments” section.

[i] “Here Be Dragons,” book review of The Wordhord, by Hana Videen, WSJ, May 9,2022

[ii] Wordnik.com

[iii] https://www.nasa.gov/sun

[iv] https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/spider

[v] The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

One reader, who is not able to post comments on this site, writes this:

Hi Steve,

I so enjoyed your sharing of, “Life-House.” Once again, since my comments are not possible to add on-line, I will share them with via email.

When my children were young they very disliked eating broccoli. We changed the name to “Green Trees” which they took pride in that they were eating a tree.

One of my granddaughters would only eat chicken when she was young. I told her that salmon was pink chicken, she ate it, and even likes it to this day, but embarrassed if I tell anybody she use to call it pink chicken.

In my classroom, I had a small picture frame with a label at the top, “HOT NEWS.” If a child came to school with a heavy or joyful heart from something that recently happened in his life, he/she would have troubling focusing on the work or verbal exchange during the day. Some examples would be, “my goldfish died last night, Grandma & Grandpa are coming today, Mom is going to have a baby, my dog/cat is in the hospital, etc” The advantage of the HOT NEWS is that once the child shared with his friends in the classroom and teacher he/she had the ability to have better focusing skills. The disadvantage is that the Hot News might be information being shared which was a family secret. Examples, Dad said mom is not with her girlfriends this week, but is having nose surgery. The child’s comment “I don’t know if she is getting a shorter or longer nose, but I will tell you later when she comes back home.” Now 25 children know the mom is having a nose job, which they will share with their mom, a top secret the Mom did not want to advertise.

One of my son’s said his teacher was as “dumb as a rock.”

I always told my children and students that they were responsible for answering their body telephone and no one else can. This might mean they need to use the restroom soon, they were not feeling well and needed to go home from school, etc.

To discount the different colors of people, I told my granddaughters and sons when they were young that how they looked was just God’s wrapping paper, but inside we are all the same, except how we share from our heart.

Thank you for letting me share with you some of my favorite examples of words with unique meaning.

I always appreciate and enjoy your words of wisdom and interpretations of life’s experiences.