 The Way I See It #27"Do not kiss your children so they will kiss you back but so they will kiss their children, and their children’s children." -- Noah benShea, Poet, philosopher and author of Jacob the Baker, Jacob’s Journey and Remember This My Children.  Noah, what was the spark behind this particular quote? Is there a story or event that inspired it? And why did you think it would be particularly suitable for a Starbucks cup? For five years I wrote a weekly essay for The New York Times Regional Syndicate (and continue to do so on my website, www.noahswindow.com.) When my daughter was graduating from university and my son from high school, I stopped to think about all the notes I had left them while they were growing up: Don’t forget to clean up, wash up, pick up, etc. Then it struck me, what if I didn’t think I was coming home, what could happen in any post-9/11 New York minute, what then would I want my kids to remember if I wasn’t around? And I wrote an essay and now a book entitled Remember This My Children. In that process, it struck me that most of life is a series of reciprocal trade agreements: I give you this. You give me that. Teaching and parenting are the only exception. A teacher or parent gives, and what they get is the unparalleled experience of giving without expectation – the soul-gratifying experience of planting a tree from which you will never pluck the fruit. I wrote the line trying to touch this idea. This is what I want my children to know. I want them to know that life, in any venue, at its best is an opportunity to pay love forward. And when the folks at Starbucks told me the title of their program was “The Way I See It,” I thought to myself, bottom line, that’s how I see it. Whether in the schoolroom, the living room, the bedroom, or the boardroom, loving forward is life’s most noble adventure. Love is a ladder; it allows us to climb out of ourselves. |
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How do you approach writing? Do you work on a set regimen, a little of the 9-to-5 every day? Or do you write when the spirit moves you? I come from a blue collar background, and even though my work life is much less demanding physically than my father’s, I do try to bring both his industry and dignity to the labor of my efforts. Consequently I write every day with the exception of the Sabbath. It is a day when I like to pause and step back from my life surprisingly discovering that it often offers me a closer view. |
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You clearly draw a great deal of inspiration from your faith. Do you view writing as a way to “give back” to your faith, to teach others? Or is it more about the personal discovery, finding out what your faith means for you and sharing that with readers? One of life’s great challenges for each of us is to put our faith and not our fears in charge. While the issue of faith has much to do with one’s relationship to the Divine it is no less relevant in day to day living even if we understand faith in the day to day as nothing more and nothing less than patience. Having patience with our children, faith in our loves, and both faith and patience with ourselves is a good day’s work for any of us, and the first step toward Faith in God. And often the measure, I suspect, by which God decides whether we are worthy of Faith from above. All of us are trying to find our way. Prayer is a path where there is none. Faith sees around corners. |
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So, what happens when you have a really great idea on the Sabbath? Do you have to jot it down on a note and come back to it the next day, or do you just let it sit in your brain? There is a wonderful story of a man who wakes up on the Sabbath and discovers a pot of gold under his bed. When the man bends and reaches for the gold, it moves away from him. When he goes to pray, the gold follows him. Often the most important thing we can do is what we choose not to do. Often the best way to pick up speed is to put on the brakes. The best way to get where we’re going is to be where we are. The Japanese say that when you are in a hurry go slowly. For all of us in a hurry, the Sabbath is a time, to slow down and make cosmic progress. Take the time before times takes you. |
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Where else do you find inspiration for the things you write? The details make life holy. If you want a little happiness in life don’t forget to look at the little things. It is a poet’s work to see the incidental, pluck it, place an appropriate silence around both sides and see the profound in what passes for a passing moment. It is an artist’s job to as much discover art as create it. Prayer is a way of making the common profound by pausing, tying knots around a moment, turning our life into a string of pearls. |
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Your best-known character, Jacob the Baker, becomes famous for the little notes and aphorisms he writes. You’re pretty good with a turn of the phrase yourself. How much of Jacob is you, or the you that you would like to be? Jacob is a poor but pious baker who lives an anonymous life in a timeless world. While he waits for the oven to come to temperature, he writes little notes to himself trying to make sense to himself. Unknown to Jacob, one of his notes becomes baked in a loaf of bread. The woman who purchase the bread, comes upon the note, is stunned by the wisdom, rushes to meet Jacob, and soon the whole town discovers this long ignored treasure in their community. People come to him with questions about prayer and life and friendship and the children come after school and sit on the flour sacks to learn from him. When Jacob first began to reach out to folks around the world this question about the parallels in my life and Jacob was often asked. And my reply has remained fairly constant over the years. “Jacob and I are one, except I’m the one with character flaws.” Strength isn’t the absence of weakness, but how we wrestle with our weaknesses. Few of us can always be strong and still we can be a source of strength to others. Hopefully my work is that. May all of us go from strength to strength. And be a source of strength to others. By the way, if I can ever be a source of strength to you who are reading this, or just to connect, I actually read all my email noah@noahswindow.com. |
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Please note: The opinions put forth by contributors to “The Way I See It” do not necessarily reflect the views of Starbucks. We welcome your response to Mr. benShea's comments. |
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