You would walk right past it if you did not know what you were looking for. There’s a decidedly typical house tucked against the foothills in Farmington, plain red brick with a typical plate glass window, a budding tree in the front yard, and over in the corner, next to the neighbor’s gate, is a wooden post steadying a thin pipe planted quietly in the ground. A small white striped hose is attached to the pipe, the other end of which rests comfortably between the rails of a grate in the ground. From that hose flows a steady stream of cool, clear water, straight from the breast of Mother Earth.
When I first started going to the well that was all there was. Now there is a small box for donations, and always a bowl, winter-spring-summer-fall, for thirsty animals. Last week, when I stopped with my empty milk jugs rattling around in the back of my van, there was also a bottle of dish soap and a bucket of bleach water. It’s a sign of the times.
This artesian well flows 24/7. It cannot be stopped. If one were to try to stop it, it would just find another route, like the basement of any surrounding houses, until the earth finally relented and gave it its original path once again. My mother, the realtor, always said that water will find its way home, and people may think they can change its course when they want to build a house on top of it, but in the end the water always wins.
I do not know the people who live in that house, who gave legitimate form to the flow of that water, reining it and leading it comfortably downhill. Their generosity is evidenced in that hose, and in the little note that reminds people to return the hose to the grate so their yards and streets would not flood. They are stewards over this little vein of the bloodline of Mother Earth. That water, filtered by layers of carbon and who-knows-what-else lies beneath the surface, is as pure as it gets. I can feel it when I drink it. It may be my mind playing tricks on me, but I swear my mouth is sincerely happy after I swallow big gulps, cool but not frigid. It arrives at the surface having the same temperature regardless of the season. Down there, at the source, things are dependably steady.
I am charmed to think that in my sleepy little town, up the hill from the thread of Sycamores on Main Street, Mother Earth willingly nourishes her children from her voluptuous breast. She offers us the essential life source at the same steady pace, day and night, in sunshine or rain. We may be steadying ourselves from an earthquake, as in just days ago. She still flows. We suffer from a worldwide pandemic which has essentially paralyzed society, grinding to a halt businesses, events and nearly all physical social interactions. She still flows. We mourn the loss of life, the loss of innocence, and dreams of graduation and dances and first loves and growing loves put on hold. And yet, still she flows.
This ugly virus cannot get down there to her source. She flows at her steady unaltered pace, offering herself to anyone who is willing to accept her.
It is no accident that Jesus himself made himself known at a well. Living water. Any thirsty soul would understand.
I find comfort in knowing where that well is situated. I could walk there, if I needed to. If we have need, I know how to get back to that well. And I am grateful that the people who own that house on that sacred spot understand that they do not own that water, only God could. But they are stewards over its path. They are vehicles for something divine.
I would hope, that if God gave me a well, I would share it, too.
I guess, in ways that are not physical, He has.
Covid 19 deaths to date: 42,352
