Tuesday, March 13, 2012

John 4:8-10

See a previous blog entry around this time last year here for my analysis of the next part of her story.

WOMAN OF SAMARIA

A few steps later, I remembered that Jews share nothing in common with Samaritans. That he would at best show a cold diffidence - that this would be more respectful, in its way, that a warm civility, a show of simple kindness. My heart was suddenly in my feet, and I silently cursed myself for allowing such a stupid, small thing to put me so thoroughly out of sorts.

I avoided eye contact, although I felt his gaze on me, as I went to the well and dropped my jar down. When he spoke, I near lost the rope in my surprise.

"Give me a drink."

It was not the demand of a rich noble used to be obeyed. It was not the plea of a man on hard times, although his clothes were travel-stained and his skin darkened by the sun. There was neither command nor entreaty in his voice. It was as if he was offering me a choice: to be the kind of person who would give him water from my jar or not to be. The kind of person too frightened of strangers.

I met his gaze, and I felt he could see right through me. He did not see a woman of Samaria, a natural enemy. He did not see a fallen woman nor even just a woman, whom he could dismiss out of hand. He looked at me, just as another person sharing a small patch of earth - and perhaps a drink of water - with him. Under his gaze, I felt naked - but no, that wasn't quite right. I felt finally present. I felt like I had been a shadow, a ghost, for years, and now at last my feet were solidly on the ground again.

I blinked. He was a Jew. I a Samaritan woman of questionable morals. With whom we share nothing in common, not even a patch of dirt upon a weary road. "How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?"

His eyes looked sad, but he smiled gently. "If you knew the gift of God and who is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him and he would have given you living water."

For a moment, I thought he had seen how thirsty I was for everything but the tepid water I hauled home every noontide. For the simple kindness I had wanted when I first saw him, but more: for his gaze now. For someone to look on me not with the speculative adoration of a potential lover nor the possessive leer of a man on the prowl nor the hateful spite at one who flouted the rules of society. Just as a person, worth speaking to, worth seeing. As if all the things that stood between us were nothing. How terribly thirsty I had been, for so long, to be treated as just a person, just another soul moving through the world, as real as those around her.

I blinked. He didn't even have a bucket.

[I actually LOST my first version of this, which pretty much broke my heart. I remembered most of it, but it's much shorter in this version (perhaps not an entirely bad thing). But anyway, sigh.]