Thank you, God, for keeping me healthy this past month. I (Shane) am back from the third retreat I led in a month. All of them were wonderful, and I didn't get sick. Really, I'm grateful. Now it's back to the daily, to all the little things that pile up when we're away or preparing other things. It's disorienting at first, but I'm glad for it. So is Shadow the cat!
I want to talk about the daily office readings, but gosh they're making it hard. We're in Genesis, where too many people are dying and God is recommending slavery. We're reading Hebrews again (what's up with that, a monk asked yesterday). I picked up Garry Wills' book on the priesthood, and he has several devastating chapters on Hebrews. Can we just skip to Lent?
But today, thanks to John, we are at the well with the Samaritan woman. Jesus crosses religious/cultural lines to invite a "fallen" woman to give and receive the water of life. She doesn't know yet what he means, any more than most of John's characters "get" Jesus, but she's on the path.
At the retreat last weekend, we read other stories of Jesus' care for those outside the margins. "Who did Jesus come for?" I chanted. "Sinners!" we answered. That's us. All of us. Jesus offers us water, and bread, and spirit and truth and life and love. Jesus gives us words to take to others, to share our amazement and our questions.
So come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters! And you who aren't thirsty, or don't know it, get thirsty! There's life in that water.
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