The Spring of Humanity

The Spring of our Humanity

One of the Gospel stories that has stimulated my reflection over the years is the story in John’s gospel of the meeting between Jesus and the woman at the well. You can read the story in John 4:1-42

⁴ Now he had to go through Samaria. ⁵ So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. ⁶ Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon.

⁷ When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, ‘Will you give me a drink?’ 

There is so much to say about this conversation between Jesus and the woman. It seems they are alone when the culture of the time did not allow such a private meeting between Jesus the rabbi and a woman. But he breaks the norm and reaches out to her.

But the phrase that stands out for me is when he says:

 ‘Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, ¹⁴ but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’

We are living in times when we need to dig deep to find the spring of our soul.

I remember reading a story of a man who returns to a farm where he grew up many years before. He goes to find a spring that was in the field where he played. Everything looks so different for him. It is now a field for cows and there is cow dung everywhere. He is very disappointed and returns to where he is staying. Then something occurs to him. He takes a spade and goes back to the field where he remembered the spring to be. He clears away the cow dung and digs deep into the earth. He finds the spring as it oozes fresh from the earth.

The Spring of our Humanity
 
Lord in these uncertain days you are reminding us
that your Son is the water of life,
that
beneath the river of our lives,
lies another river,
the river of life,
that can become  a spring of humanity in us
 welling up to eternal life.
Help us Lord during these days to find that spring in us.
As we spend days in our homes
let us
delight in being creative
let us be
makers and artists of living in simple spaces.
Bless our nation and all nations that we may be inventive people
finding
new ways to outsmart this virus,
discovering news paths
to enhance employment and the worth of people
and in all this
make us aware
of
the dignity of all.
When it comes to illness and suffering
let us be
imaginative in the way we care
for others and ourselves
and
when we despair and are depressed
like Moses
strike the rock in us
 and let the streams of your energy and your love
flow and seep into our lives again
so that
we feel the tide coming in
 the ocean of your love
Amen

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