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Story
Once upon a time, a discouraged follower of Christ Jesus had a vision. In the vision Christ led the disciple across some sand and to the shore of the Sea. The disciple carried a cup and a sieve. At the edge of the Ocean, the disciple and Christ stood on a rock, the sea breaking around them in frothy swirls. “Show me how to fill the sieve with water,” asked Christ. The disciple stooped down and filled the cup with water. He poured the water into the sieve. Cup after cup he poured into the sieve, but no matter how quickly he poured, only the smallest remnant caught in the bottom. Even that soon formed a drop and was swallowed, again, in the vastness of the Ocean. All the time Christ watched and said nothing. In the end the disciple faced Christ and shrugged. Hopeless was the task. Christ, then, spoke, “It is so with the life of the spirit, also,” he said. “So long as we stand on the rock of I, of myself, and seek to pour the divine life into that shell, so certainly shall that life escape us. This is not the way to fill a sieve with water nor the human spirit with the divine life.”
Then Christ reached out his hand and took the sieve from the disciple. He thrust his arm far behind him and, then, launched the sieve out into the face of the deep. For a moment it lay glinting in the sunlight on the face of the water. Then it slipped below. “Now, it is full of water,” Christ spoke. “It will always be full, and that is how you fill a sieve with water and the spirit with divine life. You throw the myself, the I, to sink into the Sea of the divine life.'”
Quote and Comment
“Without the heart,” writes Vladimir Lossky, “which is the centre [center] of all activity, the spirit is powerless.” The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church
Story
Once a Christian man who felt cut off from his Christ had a dream. He was walking by a well. The man heard weeping. He turned aside, and he was stunned to hear the weeping come from the well. He asked the well, “Well, why are you so sad?” Said the well, “Because I have so much to give, but am forgotten, and, thus, there are so many dying of thirst around me.” “Why,” asked the man, “is this so?” The well replied, “Because they no longer believe I even exists.” Christ appeared beside the well, and he spoke to the man. “See, my friend, so it is with you and those who live around you. You no longer live from the fount of the spirit, for though you speak about it, you no longer truly believe it exists. If you truly believed, you would drink. Believe, drink, and you shall live.”
Scripture: St. John 4.7-15
7There came a woman of Samaria to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." 8(For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) 9The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) 10Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." 11The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? 12Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock." 13Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, 14but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." 15The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water." (ESV)
Comments
We each have an inner well, the spirit, and this spirit is the well of the Universal Spirit, the Holy Spirit. Through the inner well, wells forth the divine life. The divine life is the divine energies; that is, Grace in all its manifestations. Grace has many faces. And, to enjoy the bounty of the inner well, we must not be distracted from it. We keep returning and drinking. The common person lives as though he or she is only a body seeking to survive and enjoy pleasures to the flesh, affections, and mind. The man or woman of spirit finds that the greatest delights come forth from within, and all the other delights pale in comparison. However, after one has lived long enough in intimacy with the inner well, enjoying its abundance, the person begins to drink of the well within all things, and even the natural world becomes a Sea of Amazing Grace.
Consider, if you are not already, sponsoring a child through Compassion International. You can find out more about Compassion International by going to www.compassion.net to read about sponsoring, in the name of Jesus, children living in poverty. Thanks! Brian K. Wilcox
To contact Brian, write briankwilcox@comcast.net .
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