Food for the Soul

I've written so extensively about the gospel of the Samaritan woman at the well (which my parish didn't see fit to read today) that I wondered if I would have anything left to add this evening.

But there was a new verse I hadn't ever thought much about.  I've written about what the woman says, what Jesus's acceptance and knowledge means to her, and how deeply impressed I am by her choice of single question to ask God when she meets him by the roadside.

I pretty much glossed over Jesus's explanation to His disciples that He doesn't need food and water because

“I have food to eat of which you do not know...My food is to do the will of the one who sent me and to finish his work."

Having just talked about the living water, it's easy to see this as a purely spiritual reference, but I think what Jesus is really doing is demonstrating for us just how to get the living water He told the woman about.  It's by sharing His word, by caring for people.  By taking care of others.

I noticed the pattern in my day Thursday of things feeling awful when I was focused on myself and turning wonderful when I began to focus on others.  And again, The Sound of Music is helping me along.  I realize only when I'm describing it to others or looking objectively or looking at taking on clerical duties, how exhausting my Sound of Music schedule is and has been.  I'm sure it's taken a toll.

But the truth is that I don't feel it.  Not when I come home from rehearsal soaring on the joy of having coaxed performance and cast fellowship and joyful singing out of teenagers.  It's not what, perhaps, I would have chosen in a vacuum to do, but I'm hard-pressed to think of a better-spent Saturday than this past one with 11 hours of errands and painting and tie-dying and a thoroughly disorganized rehearsal or a Sunday with a long Skype call to the Biesels, paper tech, programming the lights, and finally buying a ukelele because I loved the Biesels' music so much.

I have food.  I am well fed and sustained by the love I get to be a part of.  By teaching, by sharing my love of theatre, by talking with students about this love-filled show, I am fed well enough that I can subsist on what remains in my kitchen after several weeks of being too busy to go grocery shopping.  I can work 11-12 hour days and still have energy to burn.

Jesus reached out to someone with a lot of love to give but no clue how to direct it. He accepted her completely, and He talked about the most important matters to His teachings with her.  He filled her -- and Himself -- with living water in doing so.

I tend to accidentally fall into my living water moments, but perhaps I'll start to choose them properly now that I can recognize them.