Living Water

Never Thirst Again, Lynn Aldrich, 2011. Cut garden hoses, plastic tubes, acrylic paint on wood panel, 16 x 13 x 1.5 in.

Quench (overall and detail views), Lynn Aldrich, 2008. Galvanized steel, plastic hoses, oil, 94 x 17 x 25 in.

“The Fount” from the album Carry Me, Father. Composed by Heather Schopf. Performed by Forever Be Sure Music (FBS).

Poetry:

“Ghazal: Woman at the Well”
by Carolyne Wright

In this late season, who is the woman at the well
drawing water, reflecting on the woman at the well?

Millennial fissures in the well-rim, weed-choked cracks
where brackish water rises for the woman at the well.

At the bottom of the well shaft, the sky’s reflective eye
opens, closes on the shadow of the woman at the well.

Where are the rains of bygone eras? Preterite weather
yields more rusted bucketsful for the woman at the well.

Ancestral well of Jacob, where a weary traveler rests,
where Jesus asks for water from the woman at the well.

Oh plane trees of Samaria, in whose shade a stranger
speaks of artesian fault lines to the woman at the well!

Chaldean fountains, oases of date palms and minarets—
how they flourish in the dreams of the woman at the well!

Mirages of marble, pomegranate flowers, cedars of Baalbek
shimmer in the sight of the woman at the well.

On the night of destiny, the angel Gabriel descends
and hovers by the footprints of the woman at the well.

Jacob’s ladder leans against the door of heaven—
on the bottom rung, the woman at the well.

Women of Sychar, women of Shechem! Draw aside your veils,
reveal the features of the woman at the well.

Wise ones, why do you weep? Do you fear your fate
tips a mirror toward the woman at the well?

Oh artisan of sorrow, mystery’s precision, sit down
beside your sister, second self, the woman at the well.

In memoriam Agha Shahid Ali

LIVING WATER

Rain, blessed rain. The first rain after nine months of nothing but grass getting dryer and leaves getting dustier. Precipitation that brings snow to the peaks above blackened Altadena, burned up nearly three weeks earlier in the Eaton Fire. It’s raining, finally, as I sit and write this.

These past few weeks have made the words of Psalm 63:1, “a dry and thirsty land where there is no water,” vivid for me. I can’t imagine how much worse it has been in the past (like the time of Ahab & Elijah—three years without rain) or how dreadful it is in other places (like South America where rivers responsible for hydro-power have dried up so there’s not only little water but also no electricity, or places like Somalia and Afghanistan where extreme drought is exacerbating other civil problems). When rain finally comes, it’s like heaven. It’s life-giving.

But our Scriptures for today aren’t about the life-giving properties of physical water (although, like much of creation, that points us to truths about God), but about “living water,” as John 7:38 puts it. I’ve heard of water that is clean, spring, brackish, stagnant, contaminated, purified, potable, alkaline, bottled, hot, iced, fizzy, but “living?” How can water be alive? I believe Jesus uses this phrase because of a life cycle. This is not the water cycle we learn about in grade school science (evaporation, condensation, precipitation), but the cycle in which we first thirst for God, then have hearts made alive again, and then experience life flowing from us to others.

The cycle starts with thirsting for God. Jesus tells a crowd of people, as recorded in John 7, that they should come to him and drink. Psalm 63 gives us a prayer that prompts our soul to thirst for God. We need to be deeply aware of what else we long for, crave, and seek. We need to know, as the opening verse in today’s music says, that if we turn to “everything our eyes can see,” our “thirst comes back.” Instead, we must daily turn our desire to God.

When we do, we get to the second stage in the cycle––the filling and renewal of our hearts. Those who receive what he offers, Jesus tells the woman in John 4, will never thirst. This echoes what he tells the crowds in Matthew 5, that those who thirst for righteousness will be filled. The image in our Scripture passages is that of a spraying fountain or flowing river. Do we trust God to truly satisfy our thirsts with this kind of sweet abundance?

Finally, this blessing is not just for us as individuals, not simply for our personal eternal life. Living water is to share with others (as we see when the Samaritan woman goes back to her village in John 4:28).

Today’s poem is a “ghazal,” an Arabic form of poetry with a repeated phrase at the end of each couplet. This phrase “the woman at the well,” again and again, like a rhythmic drumbeat, pulls us into the question, “Who is she?” The poet’s conclusion is that “she is us.” So, let’s read John 4 as if we are that Samaritan woman encountering Jesus. We too are desperate for a solution to the daily burdens of life (“I wish I didn’t have to do this day after day”). We too have back stories of shame (her series of husbands) and of fear (coming to the well at noon to avoid seeing others). We too are over-confident in our religious heritage (“our ancestor Jacob”). We too are bowed down by systems of injustice that make life oppressive (like this woman who lived in a culture where, in order to survive, she had to live with a man). And Jesus meets us and gives us living water to share with others.

I love the art for today because it reminds me that living water doesn’t come from people whose lives are sparkling like mountain streams or impressive like the Trevi Fountain in Rome. Rather, we are ordinary and varied, like the garden hoses in artist Lynn Aldrich’s Never Thirst Again. We are even quirky, like the twisted steel gutter pipes in her Quench.It is the Spirit flowing in us who provides the living water.

Prayer:
Where are the droughts in my life? What parts of my life are dried up and as prone to disasters as southern California hillsides are to wildfires? Why can’t I recognize my thirsts? Why don’t I trust you, Lord, to satisfy? Will living water really flow from me to refresh others? Heavenly Father, you are my God; my soul thirsts for you. Jesus, give me your living water. Holy Spirit, flow out of me so you can bring life to this world.
Amen

Dr. Kitty Barnhouse Purgason
Professor Emerita
Department of Applied Linguistics and TESOL
Biola University