Read Jacob the Baker: Gentle Wisdom for a Complicated World (Jacob the Baker Series) Online
Authors: Noah benShea
T
he children arrived after school. They folded their bodies onto the flour sacks.
A warmth reflected between the faces of the children and the child in Jacob.
The proximity to this warmth caused Jacob to reflect, “Vision is often the distance I need to see what is directly in front of me.”
A boy found his courage and asked Jacob, “Why do you say, ‘A child sees what I only understand’ ?”
Jacob paused a moment before answering, letting the silence draw the boy’s face upward.
When Jacob spoke, his voice had a long-ago quality.
“Imagine a boy, sitting on a hill, looking out through his innocence on the beauty of the world.
“Slowly, the child begins to learn. He does this by collecting small stones of knowledge, placing one on top of the other.
“Over time, his learning becomes a wall, a wall he has built in front of himself.
“Now, when he looks out, he can see his learning, but he has lost his view.
“This makes the man, who was once the boy, both proud and sad.
“The man, looking at his predicament, decides to take down the wall. But, to take down a wall also takes time, and, when he accomplishes this task, he has become an old man.
“The old man rests on the hill and looks out through his experience on the beauty of the world.
“He understands what has happened to him. He understands what he sees. But, he does not see, and will never see the world again, the way he saw it as a child on that first, clear morning.”
“Yes … but,” interjected a little girl unable to contain herself, “the old man can remember what he once saw!”
Jacob’s head swiveled toward the child.
“You are right. Experience matures to memory. But memory is the gentlest of truths.”
“Are you afraid of growing old, Jacob?” asked a child, giggling while she spoke.
“What grows never grows old,” said Jacob.
A
man and a woman came to Jacob, concerned because they could not communicate their feelings for each other and feared this expressed a void in their relationship.
Jacob listened to the couple, letting his eyes wander between their eyes.
“If you don’t have words,” said Jacob, “then share what you do have. Share the silence.”
“But,” said the woman, “how can we talk to each other in silence?”
“Ah,” Jacob reminded, “isn’t that why you came to see me? Because what isn’t said between people is also heard!”
T
wo children, who had become dependent on Jacob, were concerned about what they would do as he grew older and one day died.
Jacob, sensing this, drew the children near and told them this story:
“Once there was a student who was with a teacher for many years. And, when the teacher felt he was going to die, he wanted to make even his death a lesson.
“That night, the teacher took a torch, called his student, and set off with him through the forest.
“Soon they reached the middle of the woods where the teacher extinguished the torch, without explanation.
“ ‘What is the matter?’ asked the student.
“ ‘This torch has gone out,’ the teacher answered and walked on.
“ ‘But,’ shouted the student, his voice plucking his fear, ‘will you leave me here in the dark?’
“ ‘No! I will not leave you in the dark,’ returned his teacher’s voice from the surrounding blackness. ‘I will leave you searching for the light.’ ”
J
acob walked next to the river.
It’s path ran like a long, blue vein on the back of an ancient hand.
Crickets sang, and their song was so consistent the music ceased.
A blush of breeze rose from the grass. Jacob felt as if an angel’s wing had beat against his cheek. He touched his cheek slowly. He felt embarrassed by the thought.
“That I should think an angel came to me.”
He wept. And, again, the brush of breeze against his cheek.
Jacob decided he would not sleep that night. He chose instead to lie on top of the covers and trace his breathing.
By following his breath, he hoped to find the trail by which breath was given to this world.
He saw himself as a boy, sitting and dreaming on the porch of his parent’s home, laying his cheek on the cement steps made warm by the spring sun.
He saw the bakery, the tracks of the pigeons, the significance of a single footprint left casually in the dust.
He saw time and the way it unwound a man.
He saw himself release thought and judgment.
He saw the shape before form, the view before the wall.
And then he stopped seeking and knowing.
And then he was at one with the One.
And there was nowhere else for him to be.
MY HEART KNOWS WHAT MY MIND ONLY THINKS IT KNOWS
M
ax was chasing pigeons out of the back door of the bakery when he noticed Jacob coming toward him.
He offered Jacob a wide grin and welcome.
“Hey, Jacob! What’s going on here? You going to make us all holy men?”
Jacob looked up from below the loading dock and laughed.
“No, Max. God made you holy. And, you are responsible for knowing that.”
“Not me,” said Max. “You’re the saint!”
Jacob let the idea of this pass over him without any resistance. He reminded himself, “To deny a thought is to engage a thought.”
Jacob walked into the bakery and stopped. His eyes rose and settled in a slow, arching vision of the space. He thought of how many times he had stared at the abstract shadows the sun sketched on the walls.
He wondered how many of the details in this moment among moments would cling to him when all this dissolved.
Someone touched Jacob’s elbow. He returned.
It was someone he hadn’t seen before.
“Are you Jacob?” she asked.
He considered that a good question.
The woman waited for an answer.
“Yes, I am Jacob.”
“A few moments ago, you were standing very quietly. What were you doing?”
“I was praying,” said Jacob, without a trace of self-consciousness.
“Praying for what?” asked the lady.
“Praying to be Jacob.”
“That doesn’t make sense!”
“Good, the reason for religion is not reason.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, I don’t pray because it makes sense to pray. I pray because my life doesn’t make sense without prayer.”
“Ohhh,” said the woman, stretching the word into several syllables.
The sunlight, which only moments before had been transporting Jacob, now passed like an oriental fan across the woman’s face.
“Why did you come to see me?” asked Jacob.
The woman lowered her eyes for a moment and then ventured out again in a series of quick questions.
“People say, you believe in God. Is that true?”
“I say, God believes in us.”
“Yes, but do you trust God?”
“Faith uses its strength to develop trust.”
“Do you think God is a man?”
“No, but I don’t think God is not a man either. I think God is.”
Jacob’s answers made it difficult for the woman to hold to the questions she thought were on her agenda.
“Jacob,” she asked with an innocence which surprised herself, “is it hard to pray?”
“Sometimes it is difficult to get out of my own way,” said Jacob.
“And what does that mean?”
Jacob’s smile wrinkled warmly. “That means I am often more of a wall than a window to myself.”
“So,” she said, “prayer removes the obstacles in life?”
“Prayer many times brings together … what never was apart.
“Prayer reminds me,” he said, “that I’m not lost in a dream. I’m only dreaming I am lost.”
“Do you always pray in the same way, Jacob?”
Jacob spoke slowly. “Ritual gives form to passion. Passion without form consumes itself.”
“The children said you told them, ‘Prayer is the path where there is none.’ ”
Jacob’s eyes drew back their last curtain. “Yes. Prayer is a path where there is none, and ritual is prayer’s vehicle.”
EACH OF US IS THE SOURCE OF THE OTHER’S RIVER
T
here was a man who was married to a very wise woman. In time, the man became jealous of his wife’s wisdom.
Insecure inside and angry outside, the man argued to himself that, since man was created before woman, man was clearly superior.
Seeking support for his insecurity, he sought Jacob at the bakery.
“Woman was created from the rib of man,” said the husband, beginning to build a case for himself.
“Yes,” said Jacob, barely looking up. “Woman was made from the rib of a man. But, from what was man created?”
“Well, from the ground, the earth, of course.”
“And,” said Jacob, “isn’t a woman the earth which receives your seed?”
“Yes,” said the man, feeling foolish.
Jacob stopped what he was doing and spoke with the ease of truth.
“Each of us is the source of the other. And our only strength is in knowing this.”
“
J
acob!” a voice demanded through the din of the bakery. “When will the Messiah come?”
Jacob turned from the dough bench and found the man behind the question.
“You know,” said Jacob, “there is an old story that, if we were to treat every person we met as if they were the Messiah, then it wouldn’t make any difference if they weren’t.”
And, while Jacob spoke, he began to wander in his own thoughts:
“If God made man by filling him with His holy breath, then God has whispered into each of us.
“So, each time we exhale, we are releasing God’s breath, the message of God’s being.
“That means we are all messengers from the Source, and maybe, if we treated every person we met as if they were a messenger, we would get the message!”
These thoughts calmed Jacob, but the man who asked the question had grown impatient.
“Jacob, do you sincerely think we are capable of treating everyone as if they were the Messiah?”
“I don’t know,” said Jacob.
The questioner seemed to enjoy the idea of this. “You don’t know?”
“My friend,” said Jacob, meaning it with his voice, “the furthest a wise man can travel is to
the border of his ignorance. The furthest a wise man can see is to the beginning of his blindness.”
The man threw up his arms, clearly disgusted with Jacob’s answers.
“I was told you were a holy man, a prophet, a teacher, but, instead, you tell me that you don’t know, that you are ignorant, and that you are blind.”
Jacob patiently nodded through the negative description.
“Well,” the scoffer continued, “what should I see in you?”
“A man,” said Jacob, speaking slowly, “and, in reflection, you might find I look a great deal like you.”
A
n older man, who was both wealthy, and suspicious, invited Jacob to dinner in order to test him.
When the dinner was served, Jacob was given an empty plate and cup while his host’s plate overflowed and his cup had wine draining past its brim.
Jacob said nothing but sat there and watched the man devour his sumptuous meal.
When the man had finished, Jacob stood, said thank you for his dinner, and prepared to leave.
Unable to resist Jacob’s silence, the host asked, “Weren’t you angry because I gave you nothing?”
“No,” said Jacob, passing through the door. “You gave me what you had. If I expected more from you than I received, then I was filled with my expectation and not your offer.”
A
woman, whose father had passed away, came to see Jacob because there was a tradition to cover the mirrors during the time of mourning, and she struggled to understand the significance of this act.
“Is it so I do not concern myself with vanity but think about my father?”
“Yes,” said Jacob.
“Is it so I do not see myself in this deep sadness?”
“Yes,” said Jacob.
“Is it so I do not confuse the image of life with life itself?”
“Yes,” said Jacob.
“And what else Jacob?”
“Well,” said Jacob, “if it is death that gives life meaning, then, perhaps, this tradition is to remind us that, when we have not lost someone, we shouldn’t lose ourselves by refusing to pay attention to who we are, what we have been, what we are becoming.”
UNDERSTANDING IS LIVING IN A HOUSE WHERE EVERY ROOM HAS A POINT OF VIEW
A
man with a glow in his eye, a man who had turned his vision into a mission, came to see Jacob.
“Jacob, I have come to invite you to take up ‘the cause’ with me!”
“I am only a baker,” said Jacob.
“Come on, Jacob,” said the man, waving his hand with contempt at the factory, “you are much more than a baker.”
“Really?” asked Jacob. “How much more could I be?”
“It is written,” said the man, “that we are to be a light unto the nations.”
Jacob had seen this form of self-inflation many times and was clearly not comfortable with it.
“To be a light unto the nations does not mean we are to put the spotlight on ourselves. It means we must all know we are living in the dark, and it is our mutual ignorance that reminds us we are brothers and sisters.”
“I see the light,” asserted the man, hoping to invoke Jacob’s interest.
But Jacob recognized the look in the man’s eye and replied simply, “… good,” leaving the other man to pick up his argument.
“Good?” said the man. “I tell you I see the light, and all you tell me is ‘good’! You should prepare yourself to come with me.”
“I can’t,” said Jacob.
“Why?”
“Because I do not follow a man.”
The man was crestfallen. “I’m sorry you will not join me.”
“But, I am with you,” said Jacob. “We are all a reflection of the One Light. We are all on a journey between destinations that do not exist. We are each other. To think otherwise is a case of mistaken identity.”
The man moved off slowly.
As soon as he was out of earshot, a woman poked at Jacob with her chin and asked:
“Why didn’t you tell that man he was crazy?”
“Why?” asked Jacob. “Because understanding is living in a house where every room has a point
of view. Sanity may be only mutually agreed upon reality and reality a handle of convenience we attach to our experience. Perhaps he saw other realities. Too often, those who do not dream seek to destroy the dreamer by waking him.”
“Huh?” said the lady, unsure what Jacob meant and raising her nose…. “Well, he shouldn’t have treated you that way.”
But Jacob was not confused about who he was. “The part of that man that I did not like is also a reflection of me!”