The Woman at the Well and the Woman at GLIA

(Originally published in November, 2019, as "The Woman at the Well and the Woman at GLIA"  in the newsletter of St. John's UCC on Madeline Island, The Lighthouse.)

Braving stormy waters en route to Mackinac Island. The bridge connecting
the U.P. With the rest of Michigan is visible in the background.

On the day we were driving across the U.P. to Mackinac Island for the GLIA (Great Lakes Islands Alliance) conference, I was also trading messages with some UCC colleagues in other parts of the country about Bible readings that will be coming up in Lent 2020. One of those readings is one of my favorites: the woman at the well (John 4:5-42).

At the heart of the story is an encounter between Jesus and a Samaritan woman. Their interaction is remarkable because, under ordinary circumstances, it would never have taken place: at the time of the story, Jews and Samaritans simply didn't talk to each other. And, after all, why should they? The Jewish world had everything it needed. What could possibly be gained by talking to someone from "outside"? In the story, Jesus suggests that part of the answer has to do with gaining access to something he calls "living water."

GLIA 2019 Islands Summit

When we arrived at Mackinac, our first activity was dinner with all the other conference particiapnts. Naturally, I scanned the room to find the other people who had come from Madeline Island, because that's who I wanted to eat with. Then a little voice inside my head said, "You should go sit with someone you don't already know!" I ginned up my courage and went to a table that still had several empty seats and said, "May I join you?"   

I was welcomed to sit down, and my dinner companion and I had a very nice conversation. It turns out Madeline Island and Bois Blanc Island have a lot of points in common. Of course, there were also moments when something she said reminded me of the distance between us. ("Whoa -- only 50 residents in the winter? That seems . . . extreme . . . !")

I'm a great believer in the power of literature to help people connect, so naturally, the conversation turned to the topic of the books we liked. We found we both loved Louise Penny. (We even cooked up an idea for a murder mystery series centered on Great Lakes islands!) Then she mentioned A Gentleman in Moscow. I pointed excitedly to Rachel, and said, "She's reading that book right now and thinks it's fantastic -- "

"Couldn't stand it!" my dinner companion interjected. "Made no sense. I have no idea what was going on in the book. Awful!"

Oh well . . . apparently our literary tastes has both similarities and differences!

Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow

We met up again two days later in the workshop I led. Our group discussed the possibility of a GLIA-wide reading activity. "What if people on islands all across the Great Lakes chose to read a particular book, and then talk about it together?" The workshop generated a lot of enthusiasm. People came up with lots of ideas about how to use such an activity to connect with people on other islands, and beyond. It occurred to me that here was a group of people, each of whom lived in a place endowed with nearly limitless resources -- especially water -- and yet they were expressing a yearning for something more. They wanted to connect.

Woman: Get your own water from the well, and when you're gone I'll get mine.
Jesus: Why are we talking about the water from the well? Why not talk about living water?
Woman: Living water? Where can I get that?

The upshot of the workshop was that about a dozen people agreed to be involved in trying to carry the idea forward so people living on islands stretching from Madeline Island in Lake Superior to the Lake Erie Islands near Toledo can connect with each other.

At the final meal of the conference, I yielded to my temptation to find a seat away from everybody else and sat alone munching on a hamburger. My friend sought me out and said, "That workshop was really good! I'm looking forward to seeing what develops." She turned to go, paused and then turned back to say, "But please: no Gentleman in Moscow!"