Jacob the Baker: Gentle Wisdom for a Complicated World (Jacob the Baker Series) Read Online Free PDF

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.”

MORE PATHS CROSS THAN MEET
    “
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