A city kid, I only experienced farms when I worked on one in the summer. In my first encounter with a real well I saw the farmer sweat as pulled up the water-freighted pail. The next well I encountered that same summer yielded water by pumping a handle.
Some of today's public bathrooms are equipped with electric eyes. Break the beam & out comes the water. No sweat!
Electric beams celebrate science. Old time wells offer easier metaphors for spiritual growth. Thus, Jesus' parable of the woman at the well teaches that if she drank Love's waters she would never be thirsty again.
Actual wells can run dry. Love's never does. But, as life's demands scare us from living love we grow thirstier & forget how to water our souls. Or shun the work it takes.
Love lives in us. No technology can its water to out lips. Hard to raise Love's pail if it is barnacled with selfishness.
Fear generates its own sweat as it threatens that Love can never meet our needs.
At the risk of straining the analogy, it takes huge strength to lift Love's water to our lips each day. Our bodies favor how Fear's electric eye opens the door to short satisfaction rather than lasting hope.
It is easier for a caregiver to bring a patient a glass of water than it is to heal the same patient's fear of surgery with the waters of Radical Loving Care.
In truth, Radical Loving Care offers both. The difference is that Love's soft rains brings Spring's healing touch. Whether the patient's body is cured or not new flowers bloom for both patient & healer.
- Rev. Erie Chapman
Picture: "Tears" a short film by Erie, 2020
Journal of Sacred Work 
Leave a comment