What wells are you digging?
Ex 17:3-7; Ps 95:1-2, 6-7, 8-9; Rom 5:1-2, 5-8; Jn 4:5-42
Have you ever dug a well? You may not have realized it, but I assure you that you have dug many wells throughout your life. I vividly recall one of my wells.
I was serving as a university chaplain and we had taken the students on a mission trip to a rural mountain parish in Central America. Our task for the week was to help this small community dig a new well. I had never dug a well and I was excited to learn.
On the first morning, we showed up to a spot that had been marked on the grass and began digging. And we dug. And we dug. And we dug some more. For five straight days, we pretty much dug from morning to sunset. By the end of the week, the hole was deep enough that we needed a long extension ladder to get in and out.
But after the final swing of our shovels, the hole was still bone dry. The parishioners graciously thanked us for our labors, and as we boarded the plane to return to Chicago, I think we all felt a sense of disappointment that we had let down the community.
Shortly after we got home, I received a message that the well was now filled with water. A couple of local high school kids were able to complete what a van-load of collegians had failed to finish. While I was glad that the community had fresh water, I’m ashamed to admit that I also felt a bit of jealous pique that someone else got to finish what we started.
The truth is that I was digging not one, but two wells on that trip: the well in the dirt and the well in my heart. The well in the earth was straightforward enough, but the well in my heart was more complex and problematic.
I wanted that well to yield, not water, but a sense of self-satisfaction. I wanted to feel the success of alleviating a deep need; a need for water, but also, I fancied, a need for faith and catechesis. Surely, I would deliver that to these poor souls.
I wanted to dig up the satisfaction of feeling admired and appreciated by the college students for being such a good shepherd to them. I wanted Jesus and the Father to bubble up through my interior well to bring me deep consolation, as I engaged in these fine works of mercy.
My interior heart desired all of those things, and I wanted to be in control enough to dictate the terms on which I would receive them. We dig wells wherever we think our desires can be satisfied, and we dig them throughout our lives. We might be in an unhealthy relationship, like the Samaritan woman, but somehow convinced that it will prove fruitful, if we just give it one more chance — just one more swing of the shovel, just one more day of digging. I know this is the right spot, if I just persevere.
We can choose to dig wells on our career paths, in our pursuit of the pleasures of addiction, and on, and on.
Maybe that is why wells figure so prominently in the Bible and God seems to favor wells as places for encountering his people. He wants to meet us at the wells we dig, and at the places we choose to dig them, because he knows we are often frustrated by our failed attempts to wield control over our lives and world.
When we are exhausted from our self-controlled, often fruitless, digging, then we might be prepared to listen and receive from Jesus’ own well — his “life-giving” water. But until we’re ready to drink, Christ’s wellspring of love might as well be dry.
Take some time this week to honestly name the wells you have been digging lately. Where are you digging and why?
Maybe you’re perfectly in alignment with God’s direction. But maybe you’re digging in a spot of your own choosing that is yielding nothing but dust. If so, take a cue from our woman of Samaria and simply ask Jesus directly: “Where can I find this life-giving water?”