Here we are in Wet Lent
Where I live, in the Pacific Northwest, Lent is almost always pretty wet. Yeah, it rains in Oregon. A lot, although this year we seem to have donated much of our precip to California.
I’m sending out this version of The Deep End because I accidentally ended up with two different pages. I’m begging the Substack folx to help me fix it but I didn’t want all you lovely readers to get fed up and walk before I could explain.
Until then, I promise I won’t deluge you with my ramblings, but I did want to make a small comment about today’s Lenten reading, about the Samaritan woman at the well.
Much has been said about how Jesus wasn’t supposed to talk to women, especially a Samaritan. But let’s turn our attention to the water.
Water Water Everywhere
Like life, water is both life giving and dangerous. We are made of water, we must have water to live. Water and spirit team up to grant us a living water.
Yet water can be deadly as well. Just today, a boat capsized off the San Diego coast, killing the occupants. Every year someone drowns in the cold waters of the Willamette River that runs through the middle of my town. And of course floods, hurricanes, cyclones and waterspouts can destroy our daily lives.
For me, the Deep End lies at the intersection of what we live and the spirit we can’t see but know is there.
Like clear water, God is invisible love that floods our hearts. God may not answer all our prayers the ways we hoped, but we can allow the soothing pure water to wash over our wounded places and cleanse the places which fester with our hurts, our resentments, our unbending wills.
When we finally stand there, naked yet unafraid to love or to be loved, maybe we’re brave enough to dive deeper still, down where our ears pop and we’re weightless, able to hear the silence of God’s voice in the abyss, saying, “Fear not, pilgrim. Fear not.”
I hope you’ll bear with me as I try to get this Deep End up and running smoothly. You might even tell a friend! Thank you for wading into the deep end with me.