From Personal Experience

AM Psalm 101, 109:1-4(5-19)20-30 • PM Psalm 119:121-144
Judges 13:15-24 • Acts 6:1-15 • John 4:1-26

Pretend you are living your life at double speed and pretend also that your life is about writing poetry. That is what my brother-in-law was doing. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, screenplays, criticism, memoir but poetry meant the most. He was excellent at novellas. How is it he did these things? The natural world was for him a substitute for religion.

He was a good person but not perfect as was the woman we read about who met Jesus at the well. She seemed to have a natural understanding with herself that when speaking to this man, Jesus, she must tell the truth. And so she did.

When asked about her husband, she replied “The man I have now is not my husband.”

“You answer truly,” Jesus said. And with further conversation she proved herself to be answering from her heart.

My brother-in-law was upright also but his joy was writing about the natural world. And it was plain he was searching and coming very close to what he called “Plain Song.”

In the beautiful story from John of Jesus conversing with a woman from Samaria there looms the same understanding between two souls, that one desires the truth and the other has the truth.

My brother-in-law is no longer alive but he wrote about the woods and seas and deserts and all that was wild and filled with how he understood God. I think that is why I am so drawn to this story of the unmarried woman who came to a well and talked to Jesus and was honest with Him and herself.

Written by Rebecca Newth

Rebecca Newth is a member of St. Paul’s and sings alto in the choir.