Water from the Well

A free-flowing artisan well in Prattville, Alabama 

We stopped by one of the artisan wells here in Prattville a few days ago to fill our water jugs.  I met the nicest lady who had come to fill hers as well, and we chatted while Larry helped an elderly gentleman carry several full containers to his pickup.  This was not the first time we've met and visited with people at what appears to be one of the most popular spots in town.  Earlier this summer we met a group of women from a church in Montgomery loading various sized containers, anything that held water, into their van. It was obviously as much a social event for them as they gathered around the well, laughing and talking among themselves.

When we first moved to Alabama almost 25 years ago, I didn't think much about the artisan wells in the area.  We were living in a brand new house and I was perfectly content with the water pouring out of those shiny kitchen spigots.  Besides, my life was simply too busy to be hauling bottles of water into the house for what was at that time a family of six.      

Fast forward to Elmira, New York where we would spend our final years of pastoral ministry.  We were settling into the parsonage when a member showed up with a water cooler and plopped it down in our kitchen.  "As long as you're here, you help yourselves to as much water as you want from my store." he insisted.  One sip of that pure, spring water was enough to convince us that it was worth the few miles drive to John's business to keep us in supply, and for the next ten years that's all we drank at home.  When one has had a taste of the best, it's hard to be satisfied with anything else.

"Take the cooler with you,"  John insisted when Larry offered to return it as we packed up our household items. "That was a gift."  And a wonderful gift it had been, but out of his generosity I had moved beyond simple preference to dissatisfaction with anything but that pure,  unadulterated spring water.  And the other downside to all of this, we'd have to start buying what had been so generously given to us over the past ten years.

Not too many days later we pulled into our Alabama driveway, this time to stay.  The moving truck had already been emptied of our belongings, including the water cooler which now sat empty in the kitchen corner.  A couple days later, we were drinking what had come from one of those same wells that I had hardly taken notice of all those years earlier.  A couple of the guys who were helping us move in had taken our empty jugs and filled them with water that was still pouring out of the ground all these years later.  It cost us nothing, and it was good.  Very good.

Larry filling up one of our jugs 

Back to that elderly gentleman who Larry was helping a few days ago.  "Some friends visiting here from Chicago took as much water as they could fit in their vehicle back home with them," he said.   I thought of those women who travel from Montgomery to fill their bottles from the well.  And as I stood talking with my new acquaintance, we couldn't miss the deeper meaning in all of this.  She recalled Jesus meeting the woman at the well, a place where she opened her heart to the greatest need in her life, the Living Water.  I remember that all those years ago, I was satisfied with what came out of my tap. It was fine. That is, until I had a taste of something that was so much better.

Prattville--also known as "The Fountain City"     

Message from a Fortune Cookie

It always hits me a bit after the new year rolls around.  I have this insatiable desire to organize and get rid of stuff.  A couple years back I hit the big file cabinet that holds our personal papers.  I spent days going thorough every single folder, throwing out and shredding documents from years back and reorganizing what remained.  I felt a tremendous sense of accomplishment after finishing up and gave myself a good old pat on the back.  Yep, I was pretty proud of myself.

Therefore, when the subject came up on what we're keeping and what we're not, I thought to myself, "I've got this!  I mean, pack rat I am not.  Clutter?  Not my thing.  Too much stuff?  Absolutely not!" 

Several weeks earlier Larry had announced to the church that he would be retiring sometime during the summer.  With that announcement came the daunting realization that we had a big job ahead of us.  It's called packing, and it would be nothing like that move from seminary to our first pastorate.  For seven months we had lived in a tiny furnished apartment in student housing.  I think all we had were some wedding gifts, a few kitchen items, a vacuum cleaner and a dining room table (sans chairs) that we bought at an auction for fifteen or twenty dollars.  Fast forward 42 years and the accumulation was, needless to say, quite significant.

The big items weren't the problem.  What we needed we would keep.  What we didn't need, we could  sell or give away.  But the smaller stuff, well, where to begin?  Besides three closets full of clothes and bookshelves stuffed with books and movies and photo albums, there were boxes, totes and large containers full of holiday decorations, old letters, music books, toys, dolls, old photographs and Packer paraphernalia.  There were trunks full of costumes for dress up and puppets from our missionary days.  Board games and puzzles filled up the corners of the attic and children's books cluttered the shelves along with the old VHS tapes that hold the memories of those growing up years with our children.   

Yep, we had stuff.  And lots of it.  So where to start?  It wasn't 30 minutes later that I was peering into one of the kitchen cupboards.  Even though the move was several weeks away yet, I felt the need to start, to begin somewhere, and this was as good a place as any.  The first thing I spied was an unopened fortune cookie from Chinese takeout a few weeks earlier. Removing it from its plastic wrapping, I broke open the cookie, pulled out the tiny slip of paper and read the following: Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens. 

Message from a fortune cookie  

Well that was certainly not applicable where I was concerned. Unnecessary possessions? I didn't have all that many things that are unnecessary, and the stuff I do have, it's just a natural accumulation of lots of years of living.  And besides, how seriously should I take some saying that comes out of a fortune cookie anyways? And yet the timing was uncanny.  Well, since I was in the cupboard I figured I'd get through my spices, some of which I knew I'd had for a v-e-r-y long time.  By the time I was done I'd tossed a dozen or more tins and jars of the stuff, some expired by several years I'm embarrassed to admit,  into the trash.   But it felt good, really good.  I could do this.  Round one done.

A few days later I hit the closets. Things went pretty well until I came to the one that held those things that I no longer wear but hang on to because of some emotional connection.   I found myself staring at the purple dress I wore at both Fawn's and Autumn's college graduations.  I hadn't worn that thing in 10 years and knew I probably never would again.  I'd tried it on a few years prior, thinking it'd make a great Easter dress but it was a bit tight in the stomach.  Unnecessary possessions are unnecessary burdens.  It was time to let it go.  Stupid fortune cookie. I just had to open it.

My purple dress donated to the church's clothes closet

In the meantime Larry was attacking his study with a vengeance.   Books, old sermons, teaching notes, letters, pictures, photographs, gifts and assorted paraphernalia being packed away in totes, tossed or given away.  A couple of young pastors were on the receiving end as he cleared a few hundred books out of his library, some newer, others going back to seminary days.  "I don't need them.  Might as well give them to someone who can use them." I'd never seen him so pragmatic, this man who is notoriously sentimental.

That same pragmatism came a bit harder for me, surprisingly, as I am not quite as nostalgic as my husband.  But reality was starting to sink in.  Our forty plus years of pastoring was coming to an end and some pretty big challenges lay ahead, the first of which was getting all our personals from New York to Alabama.   Larry reserved a moving truck from Budget and the date set for loading was put on the calendar.

"I don't ever want to do this again." Over the course of Larry's career, we had pastored in five different states and served in Central America as missionaries for a time, but I didn't remember moving ever being this hard. The seeming insurmountable task of packing up our entire household coupled with the thought of leaving the people and area we had grown to love for a far-off place was overwhelming.  And I repeated my sentiments once again.  "I don't ever want to do this again.  Ever."

I'm not saying that God had that little slip of paper put into that fortune cookie specifically for me.  But it was still a reminder to me over those days and weeks of sorting and packing and tossing and giving away that just because we had it didn't mean we needed it. When the last item was loaded, or should I say squeezed, onto that truck and the door was slammed shut, I felt a pang of guilt.  There was a lot of stuff in there, and despite the multiple trips to the local thrift store, I wondered if we had let enough of it go.

Our friend John showing up to help load up 

"Why did we bring this with us?"  We had been unpacking, settling back into our Alabama home,  and I had already asked Larry that same question several times while holding up the items in question.  We have already made two or three trips to one of the thrift stores here in town and have plans to haul over another load sometime soon.   Why indeed?   

Violets for Fred and Louise

Violets among the dandelions filled our yard in New York 

"Happy May Day!" I said to the cashier as I handed her the two bouquets of multicolored daisies to ring up.  "It's May Day?" she asked as she scanned the bar code.  "Yep, it most certainly is and I'm celebrating!" She smiled and nodded, probably more to humor me than anything.  I put the debit card back in my wallet and before stepping away wished her a happy May Day one more time.  I was feeling good, May had arrived, and I couldn't wait to share this day with a couple of friends.   

I always looked forward to that first day in May growing up in Western New York.  March seemed to stretch on forever and April was usually a tease, changeable and unpredictable.  But May was different.  Her disposition was sunny and she held the promise of many good days ahead.  At her arrival, the trees were blossoming and the returning birds were building or settling into their nests.  The grass was becoming a lush, thick green, interspersed throughout with the inevitable dandelion and the much daintier purple violet.   

I might have acquired my love for the month of May from my mother.  On May Day each year she would cut a small section off a roll of wallpaper, form it into a cone, make a handle and and glue it all together with a bit of wallpaper paste.  Then she'd send us on a hunt to fill it with whatever flowers we could find and each year it was the same.   We would fill our paper basket with violets.  

Fred and Louise McMullen lived next door.  I don't know how old they were, I just knew they were lots older than my mom and dad.  And they had no children.  So every first of May we would quietly creep over to their backdoor, place the basket full of violets over the doorknob, ring the bell and skedaddle before they could retrieve it.  I'm pretty sure they knew all along that the Marvin kids and their mama were behind the ritual, but we did it anyways.  Year after year.

I had decided the night before that I was going to surprise someone with flowers for May Day.  Perhaps it's simply nostalgia,  realizing this would be my last May Day in New York. Or maybe it was just one more way of thanking my mother for the example she had set for us, her children, showing us how to care for our neighbors in simple, yet tangible ways.      

So after leaving the store with my two bouquets, I called friend number one from the car.  Well into her 90's, it'd been way too long since I'd stopped in to see her.  She answered on the third ring.  The back door would be open for me, she said.  The second friend, pretty much confined to her home, seemed delighted with her bouquet as well.  But I know full well that the better part of my May Day surprise was the visit itself and that I had chosen to include them in my personal celebration.  The flowers were simply a reminder of that.         

I'm pretty sure that's what it was like for Fred and Louise as well.  The busy mom with the five rambunctious children next door (and we were) chose to include them in the joyful welcome of spring,  fully arrived after the long, long winter.  And for them, hopefully, the wallpaper basket full of freshly-picked violets placed on their doorknob was simply the reminder that there were those who cared enough to place them there.            

Violets that I discovered just today along the wall of our parsonage

Divine Seat Assignment

Larry and I flew home from a conference in Orlando this past Saturday.  It was a long enough flight that if a passenger wanted to take in a movie they could.  Somehow we ended up across the aisle from each other, him in the middle and me by the window.  The couple to my left had their screens turned on and their big headphones plugged in even before we had taxied down the runway.  Only when the attendant handed the woman beside me her complimentary orange juice did I have a chance to ask where she was from.  "Australia," she responded and immediately put her headset back into place. 

I'm not one who feels like I have to engage every stranger I meet into a meaningful conversation, including those I might be sitting by while traveling cross country.  But I couldn't help but think of some months earlier when Larry and I were returning from a visit to Los Angeles where we had traveled to meet our new baby granddaughter.  The plane was much like this one, but that time we were sitting together, Larry by the window and me in the middle.  The man next to me on the aisle seemed approachable, so I'd asked him where he was from and where he was going.  He too was from Australia but lived in the States and was returning from a trip after a visit with his aging parents. 

I need to back up.  The day before we had visited a very large, used bookstore in downtown Los Angeles, a place that Autumn and Jimmie had wanted to check out since moving to California three years earlier.  I figured it wouldn't be a bad idea to pick up something to read for the long flight back to New York.  I went up to the second level and found a small section of Christian books off in a corner.  I found something by a favorite author of mine in good condition for six dollars and packed it in my carry-on later that night.

The used bookstore in downtown Los Angeles

It was about an hour into the flight and an hour into my book when I read the following:  God is in the business of strategically positioning us in the right place at the right time.  God is setting you up....I don't believe in coincidence, not if you are living a Spirit-led life.  I believe in a sovereign God who is ordering your footsteps, preparing good works in advance, and making all things work together for good.   Then a few paragraphs later came the clincher.  Can I make a simple observation?  Notice who's next to you. What you think is a seat assignment might be a divine assignment.  The Person two inches away may change your destiny, or you might change theirs!  ("Chase The Lion" by Mark Batterson p. 41)

"Uh, Lord, are you trying to tell me that this is a divine appointment with this stranger sitting beside me?"  He'd been watching a movie for the last hour, and except for knowing what little bit he'd told me, that was it.  I didn't even know his name.  Besides, you don't try to carry on a conversation on a plane with someone wearing headphones staring at a screen.  But I also sensed that God was about to do something.  "OK Lord, if this is your plan, I'm in.  But you're going to have to get this thing started.  It's up to you."   

A few minutes later Larry suddenly whispered, "I need to get out. I have to use the restroom."  He'd been accepting coffee from the flight attendants every time they walked by.  This was the second time I was having to apologize and ask the nice, patient man in the aisle seat if he would mind letting my husband out. He smiled, a good sign, and Larry disappeared towards the back of the plane.

The earphones were now off and the screen was dark.  I felt a nudge.  It was time.  God promises to give us what we need when we need it.  In this case,  I needed an opener and He gave it to me, a simple inquiry about how hard had it been to leave his parents living so far away.  From that one question,  the conversation would continue for the next two and a half hours, the remainder of that flight.  In between the words spoken and stories shared, we were permitted to see into the heart of a man who was looking for answers to some difficult questions and seeking direction for the next season of his life. I opened the book and showed him what I had read, knowing by his expression that he too recognized that this had been a divine appointment.         

Before we landed I felt one last nudge.  I asked John (for that is his name) if he would like to have the book as a reminder that God had set up the seating assignments that day.  But mostly, that he would know that God had a plan for him in the next season of his life.  I wasn't even supposed to be on this plane," he had told us, "and as far as I know, I got the last seat."  It just happened to be by us.  He accepted my gift gratefully.  Our last moments were in the terminal in Detroit praying together. He would be boarding for Iowa shortly and we for New York.  That was the last time we saw him. 

There's a bit more to this story.  I emailed the author and shared the story of how God had used his words to bring a few strangers together on that flight out of Los Angeles.  And then I ended with this:  "I know this whole episode encouraged John at a crucial time in his life, but it also did something in me.  We've pastored and done missionary work for over 40 years.  But I needed something fresh, and those moments on that plane revived my spirit in a way that I can not explain.  Thank you."  A few days later, I received a reply, and this is what he wrote.  A big smile on my face right now. And God does it again! Thanks SO MUCH for sharing this.  Love it when the Lord sets up these divine appointments--never gets old does it?   Mark 

No, it never does.