Category: meekness

Bring to Light the Mystery: When It is All Said and Done

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When it’s all been said and done
There is just one thing that matters
Did I do my best to live for truth?
Did I live my life for you?
~James Cowan

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself beloved on the earth.
~Raymond Carver “Late Fragment”

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
~Mary Oliver from “When Death Comes”

We don’t know when we will be done with this world – some have a bit of warning and others disappear unexpectedly in the course of an ordinary day.

We all should consider ourselves warned.

When it’s all been said and done, have we spent our time on what is truly meaningful or are we determined to accumulate fame and fortune, stuff and status?

Christ lived His life for us. He was “all in” from the beginning and knew His destiny.

When it all is said and done,
what matters is the love He brought to this hurting earth.

We are called to live like Him.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…

Lyrics:
When it’s all been said and done
There is just one thing that matters
Did I do my best to live for truth
Did I live my life for you

When it’s all been said and done
All my treasures will mean nothing
Only what I’ve done for love’s reward
Will stand the test of time

Lord your mercy is so great
That you look beyond our weakness
And find purest gold in miry clay
Making sinners into saints

I will always sing your praise
Here on earth and ever after
For you’ve shown me Heaven’s my true home
When it’s all been said and done
You’re my life when life is gone

When it’s all been said and done
There is just one thing that matters
Did I do my best to live for truth
Did I live my life for you
Lord I’ll live my life for you

Come and See: Let Nothing Be Wasted

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Some time after this, Jesus crossed to the far shore of the Sea of Galilee (that is, the Sea of Tiberias), and a great crowd of people followed him because they saw the signs he had performed by healing the sick. Then Jesus went up on a mountainside and sat down with his disciples. The Jewish Passover Festival was near.

When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?” He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.

Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”

Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”

Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.

When they had all had enough to eat, he said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over. Let nothing be wasted.”  So they gathered them and filled twelve baskets with the pieces of the five barley loaves left over by those who had eaten.

After the people saw the sign Jesus performed, they began to say, “Surely this is the Prophet who is to come into the world.”  
Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
John 6: 1-15

He has filled the hungry with good things…
~Luke 1:53

If there is one thing universal about human beings, it is that we must eat to grow, stay healthy, and stay alive. Feeding a hungry person is one of the most nurturing and loving actions available to us in our outreach to others.

I learned this first as a nurses’ aide in a rest home when I was a teenager. The most disabled residents depended on me to feed them, bite-full by bite-full. I could not rush them or they might not swallow properly and could aspirate. I needed to be aware of what they liked and didn’t like or it might end up back in my lap in much less appetizing form.

Later, as a mother feeding my children, especially late at night in a rocking chair, I found those times to be some of the most precious hours I ever spent with them. I was able to make a tangible difference in their lives with a gift from myself — of myself.

As a volunteer for our local homeless mission ministry, I see our donation-dependent organization preparing over 600 meals daily as the community funds to feed those without resources.

So too, we, the hungry, are fed by God–from His Word, from His Spirit, from His Hand at the Supper as He breaks the bread, from His Body.

Our eyes are opened, our hearts burn within us.

But the ironic truth is that Jesus, having come here as God incarnate, was fed and nourished by His human children. He thrived, grew, and lived among us because His mother nourished Him from her own body and His earthly father had a trade that made it possible to feed his family.

We feed others as we are fed.
We fed God when He chose to be helpless in our hands,
trusting and needing us as much as we trust and need Him.
Therefore, as He said: let nothing be wasted.

Fill the hungry.

AI image created for this post

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year alongside my church family. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…

Bring to Light the Mystery: Impossible Blossom

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There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots.
Isaiah 11:1

There are days we live
as if death were nowhere
in the background; from joy
to joy to joy, from wing to wing,
from blossom to blossom to
impossible blossom, to sweet impossible blossom.
~Li-Young Lee, from “From Blossoms” from Rose

I drag the lawn chair
to the center of the new lawn
where you have warned
it will ruin the delicate
grass. From here
I have a perfect view
of the pink camellia,
the one with rose-shaped flowers
which you secretly think
I have ignored. This is my camellia
viewing platform
I tell you, remembering
signposts in Japan.

… the camellia
opens its flesh-colored petals
with utter unself-consciousness,
releasing its scent
into the dangerous air.
~Linda Pastan from “Camellias” from Heroes in Disguise

In the midst of people dying
in war-torn countries,
as bombs drop and buildings fall to rubble –

we seek the peace of Someone
who is both truly man
yet very God –
an impossible Blossom blooming purposely
in the midst of our mess –

reminding us of Life and Light
He shines in the darkness where we all dwell;
this God who becomes a Man
impossibly shares the sweetness of His glorious splendor,
lightening our heavy load.

This gentle fragrant many-layered Bloom:
given to the undeserving
with joy and love
without reservation
without hesitation
from joy to joy to joy,
defeating death — our death.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:

…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…

Last Stanza:
O Flow’r, whose fragrance tender
With sweetness fills the air,
Dispels in glorious splendor
The darkness ev’rywhere;
True man, yet very God,
From sin and death now saves us,
And shares our ev’ry load.

Bring to Light the Mystery: Birds of Hope

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Yesterday,
running slowly
in the gravel
I saw
a tiny bird
feathered pulsating globe
of white and gray
on its back
black pinprick eyes
pointing up to the sky.
I stooped down
closely
to peer.
We stared at one another—
creature to creature—
for a small eternity.
I scooped him
into my hands
and placed him gently
an offering
upright
onto the grass
whispering
a prayer to the One
who sees
and knows
each one
every sparrow
and every sorrow.
~Karen Swallow Prior “Creature to Creature”

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? And not one of them is forgotten before God. Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.
Luke 12:6-7

God of the sparrow, care for us,
Speak in our sorrow, Lord of grief.
Sing us Your music, lift our hearts,
Pour out Your mercy, send relief.
~Craig Courtney (link to song below)

A little bird, with plumage brown,
Beside my window flutters down,
A moment chirps its little strain,
Then taps upon my window-pane,
And chirps again, and hops along,
To call my notice to its song;
But I work on, nor heed its lay,
Till, in neglect, it flies away.

So birds of peace and hope and love
Come fluttering earthward from above,
To settle on life’s window-sills,
And ease our load of earthly ills;
But we, in traffic’s rush and din
Too deep engaged to let them in,
With deadened heart and sense plod on,
Nor know our loss till they are gone.
~Paul Laurence Dunbar “The Sparrow”

The first thing I heard this morning
was a soft, insistent rustle,
the rapid flapping of wings
against glass as it turned out,

a small bird rioting
in the frame of a high window,
trying to hurl itself through
the enigma of transparency into the spacious light.

A noise in the throat of the cat
hunkered on the rug
told me how the bird had gotten inside,
carried in the cold night
through the flap in a basement door,
and later released from the soft clench of teeth.

Up on a chair, I trapped its pulsations
in a small towel and carried it to the door,
so weightless it seemed
to have vanished into the nest of cloth.

But outside, it burst
from my uncupped hands into its element,
dipping over the dormant garden
in a spasm of wingbeats
and disappearing over a tall row of hemlocks.

Still, for the rest of the day,
I could feel its wild thrumming
against my palms whenever I thought
about the hours the bird must have spent
pent in the shadows of that room,
hidden in the spiky branches
of our decorated tree, breathing there
among metallic angels, ceramic apples, stars of yarn,

its eyes open, like mine as I lie here tonight
picturing this rare, lucky sparrow
tucked into a holly bush now,
a light snow tumbling through the windless dark.
~Billy Collins “The Christmas Sparrow”from Aimless Love

Through the winter, I feed the sparrows,
the woodpeckers and chickadees,
the juncos and finches and towhees,
and yes — even the starlings.

They all would be fine without my daily contribution to their well-being, but in return for my provision of seeds, I am able to enjoy their spirited liveliness and their gracious ability to share the bounty with one another.

These birds give back to me simply by showing up, without ever realizing what their presence means to me.

How much more does God lay out for me on a daily basis to sustain me even if I fail to show up for Him?

How oblivious am I to His gracious and profound gifts?

How willingly do I share these gifts with others?

Unlike the birds, I could never survive on my own without His watchful care.

When life feels overwhelming, when I am filled with worries, sorrow, regrets and pain, I seek out this God who cares even for sparrows. He knows how to quiet my troubles and strengthen my faith and perseverance, a comfort that extends far beyond sunflower seeds.

photo by Harry Rodenberger

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:

…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…


God of the sparrow, sing through us
Songs of deliv’rance, songs of peace.
Helpless we seek You, God our joy,
Quiet our troubles, bid them cease,
Quiet our troubles, bid them cease.
Alleluia.

God of the sparrow, God of hope,
Tenderly guide us, be our song,
God of affliction, pain and hurt,
Comfort Your children, make us strong,
Comfort Your children, make us strong.
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.

God of the sparrow, care for us,
Speak in our sorrow, Lord of grief.
Sing us Your music, lift our hearts,
Pour out Your mercy, send relief.

God, like the sparrow, we abide In
Your protection, love and grace.
Just as the sparrow in Your care,
May Your love keep us all our days,
May Your love keep us all our days. Amen.
~Craig Courtney

Bring to Light the Mystery: Living Broken

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brokenvessel2

The great mystery of God’s love is that we are not asked to live
as if we are not hurting, as if we are not broken.
In fact, we are invited to recognize our brokenness as a brokenness in which we can come in touch with the unique way
that God loves us.

The great invitation is to live your brokenness under the blessing.
I cannot take people’s brokenness away 
and people cannot take my brokenness away.  
But how do you live in your brokenness?
Do you live your brokenness under the blessing or under the curse? The great call of Jesus is
to put your brokenness under the blessing. 
~Henri Nouwen from a Lecture at Scarritt-Bennett Center

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

 But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair;  persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
Therefore we do not lose heart.
2 Corinthinians: 6-12, 16

It is a ceramic pot meant specially for our kitchen table — handmade by a potter friend using the abstract artistry of mane hairs from our farm’s Haflinger horses burnt onto the sides. But it hit the floor and broke into many pieces, looking completely beyond repair.

It is back on our table, repaired with love and care by another friend, using nothing more than copious amounts of Elmer’s Glue. This is the glue of every child’s school desk, the glue of every mother’s junk drawer, the glue of every heart that needs mending.

Elmer’s is not the gold of the Japanese art of kintsugi, where broken vessels are repaired with precious metals, creating an object even more valuable and beautiful than before, with streaks and tracks of gold highlighting their shattered history.

Yet it is now even more precious to me. Someone we love cared deeply enough to make it in the first place, and another we love cared deeply to repair it, making it even more beautiful and blessed in its brokenness, highlighting ragged pieces made whole again.

Someone made us.
Someone repairs us when we fall apart.
Someone blesses our brokenness with a glued-together beauty that makes us whole.

Every day, as the sun goes down,
I pause, broken, remembering how often
I messed up that day, in big and small ways.
Cracked open, my mistakes are illuminated,
weighing down my heart, impossible to forget.
Yet, as I pray for mercy, there follows a peacefulness,
as my errors are blotted out. My slate, one more time, is wiped clean.

Therefore do not lose heart.

horsehairvase

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:

…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…

Bring to Light the Mystery: Where Are You?

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Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”
Genesis 3:8-9


We’ve moved into a bigger house.
Now our voices wander among the rooms
calling, Where are you?

And what we can’t forget
of other houses confuses us
as we answer back and forth, Over here!

It’s a little like returning to the village
where you were born, the sad bewilderment
of discrepancies between
what you remember and what’s there.

No. It’s more like a memory of heaven.
Voices coming closer, voices moving away,

and what we thought we knew
about life on earth confounding us.

And then that question
from which all the other questions begin.
~Li-Young Lee “Discrepancies, Happy and Sad” from Book of My Nights

You can hide nothing from God.
The mask you wear before men will do you no good before Him.
He wants to see you as you are,
He wants to be gracious to you.
You do not have to go on lying to yourself and your brothers,
as if you were without sin;
you can dare to be a sinner.
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer from Life Together

Ready or not, you tell me, here I come!
And so I know I’m hiding, and I know
My hiding-place is useless. You will come
And find me. You are searching high and low.
Today I’m hiding low, down here, below,
Below the sunlit surface others see.
Oh find me quickly, quickly come to me.
And here you come and here I come to you.
I come to you because you come to me.
You know my hiding places. I know you,
I reach you through your hiding-places too;
Touching the slender thread, but now I see –
Even in darkness I can see you shine,
Risen in bread, and revelling in wine.
~Malcolm Guite “Hide and Seek”

When I go to the doctor, I trust I’m seeing someone who tries to know me thoroughly enough that they will help me move out of illness into better health. There are times when, as a patient, I need to be asked: Where are you in your life right now?
What are your worries and fears?
How can I support you through this?

This is how acceptance feels: trusting someone enough to come out of hiding, even when ashamed or fearful or feeling hopeless.

As a physician myself, I am reminded by the amount of “noticing” I needed to do in the course of my work over the decades. Each patient (and there were so many) deserved my full attention for the few minutes we are together. I started my clinical evaluation the minute we sat down together and I began taking in all the complex verbal and non-verbal clues they offered up, sometimes unwittingly.

As their audience, I become a witness to their struggle; even more, I must understand it in order to best assist them.  My brain must rise to the occasion of taking in another person, accepting them for who they are, offering them the gift of compassion and simply be there for them – just them – right then.

God doesn’t struggle in His Holy work as I did in my clinical duties. He knows us so thoroughly because He made us; He knows our thoughts before we put them into words.
There is no point in hiding from Him.

He can hold us in His Hand, discerns our secret heartbeats.

We, the no longer hidden, are His. His alone.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:

…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…

Bring to Light the Mystery: The Open Wounds

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Your cold mornings are filled
with the heartache about the fact that although
we are not at ease in this world, it is all we have,
that it is ours but that it is full of strife,
so that all we can call our own is strife;
but even that is better than nothing at all, isn’t it?

…rejoice that your uncertainty is God’s will
and His grace toward you and that that is beautiful,
and part of a greater certainty…

…be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart
and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive,
still human, and still open to the beauty of the world,
even though you have done nothing to deserve it.
~Paul Harding in Tinkers

I think there is no suffering greater than
what is caused by the doubts of those who want to believe. 
I know what torment this is, but I can only see it, 
in myself anyway, as the process by which faith is deepened. 
What people don’t realize is how much religion costs. 
They think faith is a big electric blanket, 
when of course it is the cross. 
It is much harder to believe than not to believe. 
If you feel you can’t believe, you must at least do this: 
keep an open mind. 
Keep it open toward faith, 
keep wanting it, 
keep asking for it, 
and leave the rest to God.
~Flannery O’Connor from The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor

Nothing that comes from God, even the greatest miracle, can be proven like 2 x 2 = 4. It touches one; it is only seen and grasped when the heart is open and the spirit purged of self. Then it awakens faith.  … the heart is not overcome by faith, there is no force or violence there, compelling belief by rigid certitudes.  What comes from God touches gently, comes quietly; does not disturb freedom; leads to quiet, profound, peaceful resolve within the heart.
~Romano Guardini from The Living God

On my doubting days,
days often full of uncertainty,
I recall how the risen Christ
invited Thomas to place his hand in His wounds,
gently guiding him to His reality,
so it became Thomas’s new reality.

Thomas then understood:
this God’s open wounds
were calling out
for belief.

Christ’s flesh and blood
awakens our fragile faith
by a simple touch.

…he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.”
Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
John 20: 27-28

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:

…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…

Come and See: Do You Want to Get Well?

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Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for one of the Jewish festivals. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the invalid replied, “I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”  At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

The day on which this took place was a Sabbath, and so the Jewish leaders said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath; the law forbids you to carry your mat.” But he replied, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’ ”

 So they asked him, “Who is this fellow who told you to pick it up and walk?” The man who was healed had no idea who it was, for Jesus had slipped away into the crowd that was there.

Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, “See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you.”  The man went away and told the Jewish leaders that it was Jesus who had made him well.

So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jewish leaders began to persecute him. In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.” For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

John 5: 1-18

I am overcome by ordinary contentment.
What hurt me so terribly all my life until this moment?
How I love the small, swiftly
beating heart of the bird singing in the great maples;
its bright, unequivocal eye.
~Jane Kenyon from “Having it out with Melancholy”

Thou art indeed just, Lord, if I contend 
With thee; but, sir, so what I plead is just. 
Why do sinners’ ways prosper? and why must 
Disappointment all I endeavour end? 

…birds build—but not I build; no, but strain, 
Time’s eunuch, and not breed one work that wakes. 
Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain.
~Gerard Manley Hopkins from “Thou art indeed just, Lord”

It seems so obvious: someone lying on a mat near a healing pool for 38 years – an Old Testament reference to Israel’s wilderness journey and inability to enter the promised land – wants to get well.

Jesus knows this man’s heart is troubled.

Yet Jesus asks this paralyzed man whether he wants to be healed. Not if he is ready to be healed, but whether he wants to be well. It doesn’t seem like a hard question to answer, but at times in our own lives, we too may not feel ready for a transformation to wholeness?

Maybe we really aren’t sure what “well” and being healed will mean to our lives. We wander in the wilderness of weak, struggling bodies and minds, hoping and praying to be led into a promised land of no illness or limitations. But often we aren’t sure. We only know there are many compelling reasons – no help, no hope, isolation from family and friends – to explain why we are stuck where we are.

We can’t imagine it being any other way.

Some are born with disabilities determining what they can and can’t do, knowing no other existence than to be dependent on others for help and care. Others develop illness or experience injury that changes everything for them, creating overwhelming needs leading to profound discouragement.

Some try anything and everything, proven or unproven, to find relief from their symptoms, to find their way out of their wilderness — sometimes with lasting results, often with no improvement.

Jesus is asking this man and asking us: are you ready to live a full life that takes you beyond your current limits? If so, we are transformed from who we have been, to someone we and others may no longer recognize.

It is a scary prospect to pick up our mat, carry our own baggage and walk. But when Jesus enters our life and asks us, point blank, if we want to get well, to become whole, to leave our wilderness behind and join Him – we should not hesitate – wasting precious time explaining all the reasons it hasn’t worked so far.

Jesus is ready, willing and able. And we will be transformed.

…our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
Romans 8:18

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:
…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…



Bring to Light the Mystery: Sustained Hour By Hour

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Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention…
            And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng’s clamor
recedes: the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, O Lord,
Creator, Hallowed one, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.
~Denise Levertov from “Primary Wonder” from Sands of the Well

Here is the mystery, the secret,
one might almost say the cunning,
of the deep love of God:
that it is bound to draw upon itself
the hatred and pain and shame
and anger and bitterness and rejection of the world,
but to draw all those things on to itself
is precisely the means chosen from all eternity
by the generous, loving God,
by which to rid his world of the evils
which have resulted from
human abuse of God-given freedom.
~N.T. Wright from The Crown and The Fire

Inundated by the inevitable bad news of the world,
I must cling to the mystery of His magnetism
for my own weaknesses, flaws and bitterness.

I am frozen in the ice of sin, waiting to be thawed.

He willingly pulls evil onto Himself, out of me.
Hatred and pain and shame and anger disappear
into the vortex of His love and beauty,
the mucky corners of my heart vacuumed spotless.

We are let in on a secret:
He is not sullied by absorbing the dirty messes of our lives.

Created in His image, sustained and loved,
thus a reflection of Him,
it is no mystery
we are washed forever clean.

photo of Mt. Baker reflected in Wiser Lake by Joel DeWaard

This year’s Barnstorming Lenten theme is Ephesians 3:9:

…to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God, who created all things…

Come and See: Could This Be?

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Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”

Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”  They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
John 4:27-30

The woman is isolated and shunned by her community, which is why she comes to the well at noon and not in the cool of the morning or evening with the other women. She sees nothing but problems and barriers at first: the divisions of race and religion, the practical problem of the deep well, of having no buckets — and then the living presence of Jesus changes everything.

We see him through the icon, with one hand on his heart, the other on the water, himself the living connection between the two. Gazing at the icon, we see that the living water is already at the brim of the well. Has his presence drawn it up from the depths, or is it in fact flowing from him into the well, and not the other way round? Certainly, everything is reversed for the woman, and she who had to walk away from her village to find an outer source of refreshment will soon herself be a centre of renewal and be spreading good news in community.
~Malcolm Guite “Poet’s Corner” from Church Times

Icon painted by John Coleman for the Retreat Association

Some ask the world
and are diminished
in the receiving
of it. You gave me
only this small pool
that the more I drink
from, the more overflows
me with sourceless light.
~ R. S. Thomas “Gift” from Experimenting with an Amen 

..my heart leaps in wonder.
Cold, fresh, deep, I feel the word water
spelled in my left palm…
opening the doors of the world…
~Denise Levertov from “The Well”

I approach the well with shame, in the heat of the day,
not wanting to speak or be spoken to…

Yet this man, waiting there,
asks for water
asks for my help
asks, despite of who I am
and what I have done.

Then he offers to me
what I could not give him:
knowing my life and my shame
he opens the door to the rest of my life,
having no more thirst.

Could this be?

My heart leaping in wonder,
now I must tell everyone I know…

I am reading slowly through the words in the Book of John over the next year. Once a week, I will invite you to “come and see” what those words might mean as we explore His promises together.