By: Bren Dubay
October 2018
When reading a pamphlet about vocations, this sentence caught my eye, “[God’s] love cannot do without personal response. He neither manipulates nor forces anyone. He does not know what we will reply and cannot answer for us.”
For some reason, the sentence turned my mind to Jesus and the Samaritan Woman. It was about noon when she came to the well. That’s not the typical time women in that day and age would go to the well. They would have gone much earlier. This woman comes alone and at noon and that must be significant.
Jesus is at the well waiting.
I have spent a great deal of my life seeking God, running this way and that. Maybe the heart of the spiritual life is how do we allow ourselves to be found by the waiting God.
An analogy I ran across that has helped me — imagine a helicopter that’s trying to land. The helicopter is God’s presence, God’s grace. Our spiritual life is not about finding ways to jump up and grab the helicopter. The helicopter is already there. If we long for that helicopter and we want it to land, we clear the ground so it can.
Find a place and spiritual practices that help clear the ground. Find a spiritual director. I know a person whose spiritual director suggested she write a dialogue between herself and Jesus and others. She wrote a scene where, after a difficult climb up a steep cliff dragging a huge bag of rocks and a tank of helium, she sits down and looks out over a beautiful blue lake. She calls Jesus by his Hebrew name Yeshua. It is a scene of letting go. There are prayers written on the rocks she carried up the mountain. They are her prayers, heavy ones that perhaps have held her back. One at a time, she reads the prayer then heaves the rock over the side of the cliff into the lake. After each rock, she unties a balloon from the helium tank or uses the tank to blow up a balloon; each has a prayer written on it, too, but it is a prayer of thanksgiving. She reads the prayer aloud, lets the balloon go and watches it float up and away. She is clearing the ground. Here is what happened when she climbs back down.
(HERSELF descends the cliff holding onto the helium tank and the empty bag; SHE loses her balance from time to time sliding on the loose rocks. SHE sees YESHUA at the bottom of the cliff; SHE is out of breath)
YESHUA
Why didn’t you jump?
HERSELF
Excuse me?
YESHUA
(taking the helium tank)
Up there. Why didn’t you jump?
HERSELF
Into the water?
YESHUA
Yes.
HERSELF
From up there?
YESHUA
Yes.
HERSELF
(at a loss for words)
It… what? A bit irresponsible, don’t you think?
YESHUA
Why?
HERSELF
I could break my neck. Rocks. Lots of them. At the bottom of the lake. I put them there. Some of them.
YESHUA
Go back up there and jump.
HERSELF
You’re crazy.
(YESHUA laughs)
HERSELF (continued)
Somebody told you to jump from a precipice once. Are you really Yeshua?
YESHUA
(smiles)
I am.
HERSELF
Very funny.
YESHUA
Climb back up.
HERSELF
(turns and begins to walk up the cliff)
This is crazy.
(YESHUA watches HERSELF climb back
up)
HERSELF
(stands at top of cliff looking down at lake)
Are you kidding me?
(paces back and forth near the edge)
Jump?
(walks away from the edge)
This is crazy.
(going back to the edge; shouts)
You’re crazy.
(sees YESHUA standing on the far shore facing her; perhaps SHE paces as SHE talks to herself)
What possible point could there be for my jumping into the lake? Sure, I did it in a dream. Not from a high cliff though. This is for real. Well, maybe not for real. I’m in my imagination. Awake in my imagination. Are you real? I don’t even know if you’re real. Who are you? Do you exist?
YESHUA
(a mighty shout)
I am.
HERSELF
Shut up. You are. What’s that supposed to mean? I am, too, but I don’t know how much longer I’d be if I jump off this cliff.
(pacing again)
I’ve jumped off a cliff having faith in you before. Left a potentially lucrative career path to become a playwright. See where that has gotten me?
(pacing stopped by YESHUA’S shout across the lake)
YESHUA
Jump.
(HERSELF turns her back on YESHUA, walks away from the edge then suddenly turns back runs to the edge then dives)
(HERSELF hits the water diving deep. SHE opens her eyes and finds peace in the clearness of the water, in the smooth sandy bottom of the lake and in the colorful fish swimming about; SHE smiles as well as one can smile a smile underwater; the smile gives way when SHE remembers the rocks; SHE swims turning this way and that looking for them, but finds none. Even if a bit confused and bemused, SHE gently swims refreshed by the water; finally, SHE starts for the surface needing air and as her head emerges from the water, all sorts of old, disturbing images flash through her mind; SHE is knocked backed by them and goes under then breaks through the surface gasping for breath; this happens again then a third time; SHE feels a hand on her arm pulling her, lifting her out of harm’s way)
MARY
I’ve got you. The water isn’t very deep here. I’ve got you. Can you stand up?
(HERSELF clutches and coughs)
MARY (continued)
You’re all right. I’ve got you.
(HERSELF nods; MARY walks her to the shore and helps her dry off with a big towel then helps her into a thick bathrobe; MARY leads her over to the campfire where YESHUA is frying fish; HERSELF sits; silence)
HERSELF
There weren’t any rocks.
YESHUA
(focusing on the fish)
Nope.
HERSELF
Where did they go?
(YESHUA continues to focus on the fish)
HERSELF (continued)
You took them?
YESHUA
I did.
***
When we reply, “Yes,” the waiting God joins us in clearing the ground.
The Samaritan Woman came to the well alone and at mid-day, a sure sign she was an outcast. At the end of the encounter with Jesus, she puts down her pail and runs to the village to tell others what has happened.
Jesus had said to her, “It is not you who have chosen me, I have chosen you.” Ultimately, after much dialogue between them, she goes to the village shouting, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?”
She was found. She chose to reply, “Yes.”
