Some of my favorite and most formative childhood memories were of camping season
at my home campground, Glenn Wood Hills, in the Kentucky/Indiana Mission Center.
They were "fill my bucket" kinds of experiences.
But, as much as I savored the moments that I spent with people I loved in that sacred place,
my bucket always emptied faster than I thought it would once I re-entered the rhythms of everyday life.
I would wait, impatient, for another opportunity to return to the well where I could be filled again.
Over the years, I've discovered other wells in other places–
sacred environments where I return again and again to drink deeply when my spirit feels dry.
Some of these wells are people in whose presence I can relax into my truest self
and experience nourishment in relationship.
Sometimes I stumble upon a well unexpected, and I dip my bucket over its edge,
pulling up for a grateful drink. And sometimes the road is long before I find a well again.
I walk with this bucket bone dry, peering into the distance for some familiar form of what gives life.
So much of my spiritual journey has been characterized
by this constant search motivated by thirst for the sacred presence to be real in my life.
Perhaps that is why I am so drawn to the story of the Samaritan woman at the well.
It is living word that speaks directly to my own parched soul.
I invite you, as you listen, to open your heart to God's invitation in these words for you today.
From John 4:7 through 15: "A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her,
'Give me a drink.''" (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.)
"The Samaritan woman said to him, 'How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me,
a woman of Samaria?'" (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.)
"Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,'
you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."
The woman said to him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?
Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well,
and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?"
Jesus said to her, 'Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.
The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.'
The woman said to him, 'Sir, give me this water,
so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.'"
There is a lot that happens in this encounter with Jesus at the well.
If we were to read on in the text, we would listen in awe as Jesus confronts the woman,
in grace and love, with the realities of her life.
We would witness her worth restored, a barrier broken, a community's faith renewed.
We could focus on the power of invitation,
the courage to reject the status quo, the call to social justice, and the healing of relationships.
All of this matters, and is intertwined with the question I invite us to tend to,
the question the Samaritan woman herself asks of Jesus,
"Where do you get that living water?"
I believe this is a question that we all find ourselves asking in some form at some time.
This unquenchable thirst for the Sacred shows up throughout our Christian heritage.
The Israelites wandering in the wilderness cry out to Moses,
"Why did you bring us here to die of thirst?"
The Psalmist laments, "I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water."
The Prophet Isaiah proclaims, "I am about to do a new thing;
now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert."
And Jesus offers an invitation,
"those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.
The water that I give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."
When he speaks these words, the Samaritan woman hears in a different way.
They are no longer talking just about the water in this well.
She speaks aloud her deep desire, "Give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty."
She is so serious about this desire that she leaves her bucket at the well
when she goes off to share the good news of her encounter with others.
Something has happened in her
that compels her participation in this subtle, yet radical act of trust.
She has discovered a spring of water gushing up to eternal life in her own soul.
I want to speak aloud this desire too.
I too am asking the question, "Where do you get that Living Water?"
Jesus is pointing to a powerful reality in this encounter.
Using the metaphor of water, which is necessary for life,
he is offering an invitation to awaken to the Spirit as the source of our being.
The Spirit isn't just present in some places, like the wells we find along the way, life-giving as they may be.
The Spirit is a constant current flowing beneath all reality, available and accessible in everything, everywhere.
When I am most alert and aware, I recognize this.
I have felt that gushing spring of abundant grace and love deep in my own being.
I have come to its ledge in profound moments of connection with others,
or sitting in silence tending to the Holy yearning for union within.
It can happen anywhere, and at any time. I might be in the middle of a crowded store when suddenly,
I am caught up in the flow of Spirit permeating that place, shining alive in the faces of
strangers engaging the tasks of their day. It's not that Spirit descends upon that place.
I wake up to reality as it already is. I am given the grace of seeing for a time what is always true--
that everything is sacred and every moment is an opportunity
to live in the abundance of the Spirit which fills every place.
Sometimes I imagine being on the surface of things and tapping into whatever moment
I am in to discover that spring that is running underneath.
Sometimes I need to remind myself when encounters with others are challenging
or I find myself in a situation where I would rather not be.
Even there, in the places I resist, if I can gather my attention long enough,
the Spirit is gushing forth, a constant source of connection and fuller life.
What is a well anyway but a tool to glimpse into the depth of things,
to pull up what is beneath the surface that we might otherwise nott see?
Jesus knew that sometimes circumstances restrict us from living from this abundant source of fullest life.
When he came to the well and encountered the Samaritan woman alone,
he could see the weight of the bucket she was carrying,
how unsustainable her present mode of being had become.
Ostracized from community, an outcast in society, and questioning her own worth,
in the simple act of seeing through to her truest self,
a way was opened for that gushing spring eternal to come bubbling vibrantly to life in her.
What may be currently restricting you from becoming awake to the eternal source of life in you?
How are you invited to leave your bucket at the well to drink deeply of the Presence of God
always accessible in abundance, flowing in and through all things?
The poet Rumi puts it this way:
"There's a basket of bread on your head, yet you go door to door asking for crusts.
Mad with thirst, you can't drink from the stream running close by your face.
You are like a pearl on the deep bottom wondering inside the shell, 'where is the ocean'?"
In his book, "The Call to Discernment in Troubled Times," Dean Brackley makes the observation
that often our societies have become dry, desert places full of people thirsting for love, meaning, and connection.
They too are asking in some form or another, "Where do you get that living water?"
It is a desire in the form of a question:
"Forget the well, I want to go to the source of what matters most and is really real."
Maybe in your own life some reliable wells have gone surprisingly dry.
Maybe you too are thirsting for more.
Maybe you are the pearl on the deep bottom wondering inside the shell, where is the ocean?
Maybe instead of searching for a different well, we are called to open up channels for living water
to flow through our daily encounters with friends, family, and strangers.
These channels are opened through offering space to listen deeply, speaking aloud our own stories,
paying attention to opportunities for divine connection,
welcoming the Other as sacred guest, choosing love over fear,
and truly seeing each other at the wells where we meet for who we really are and can become.
We are invited to drink deeply of the always-accessible presence of the Holy
available in abundance wherever we are.
The sacrament of communion is another reminder of the same ancient truth– God's presence in all things.
The symbols of bread and wine signal to us both what nourishes and what is necessary.
As we come to the table of remembrance, reconnection, and reconciliation, we partake of food and drink,
necessary elements of daily living on this planet,
and also an invitation to what will truly nourish our souls.
We speak of our deep hunger and our deep thirst.
We come to the table to absorb these elements, representing the body of Christ, into our own selves.
Christ IN us, part of us, living in us. Incarnation here and now.
God with us. A Spirit-drenched planet.
No person or place has come into being untouched by the Living God.
We need these reminders to awaken to the reality that always exists–
Spirit present in us and present in the world.
So take a sacred risk and leave your bucket behind.
Within you is a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.
In every person, in every place, every relationship, every encounter,
every moment of stillness, and even in the midst of rush and hurry,
the constant current of the Spirit is flowing and moving and inviting us to drink deep.
For more infomation >> Video: Tenant: 'You didn't grab not one of your children?' - Duration: 1:53. 
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