The Woman at the Well

I saw this video recently at a conference at our school. It made me stop and think a lot about those who feel unseen and unknown in our culture, and what it means that God stops and sees. 

This idea of seeing is very important in how we understand and practice lament. This is evident throughout the Old Testament, especially. There are two characters in particular that come to mind. The first is Hagar in Genesis 16:13: "She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her, 'You are the God who sees me,' for she said, 'I have now seen the One who sees me'" (NIV). The second is Daughter Zion in the book of Lamentations. She calls out for someone to see her and laments the depth of her sorrow, "'Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by? Look around and see. Is any suffering like my suffering that was inflicted upon me, that the Lord brought upon me in the day of his anger?'" (Lamentations 1:12, NIV). 

I believe that lament grows our emotional capacity to love and encounter others. The articulation of lament and complaint is a powerful instigator, which initiates and enables the ability to have empathy toward others in the face of extreme “narrative wreckage”[1] and collective trauma. Dissonance, here, facilitates a kind of emotional capacity to move toward others in their distress and bear witness to the tragedy of trauma. As biblical scholar Kathleen O’Connor argues,

To be witnesses to the suffering of others requires the gathering up of our passions, something that cannot be done by will-power alone. Only as our spirits find release from numbness, from their marbled protections, and from their passion-quenching denial can we relate to others in solidarity and compassion that does not make them objects of our own needs.[2]

Thus, our empathy and emotional heath are matured and broadened in this engagement.

And this brings me back to the Woman at the Well. She reawakens us to to see the suffering and the plight of those who are "of no reputation." Why should we pay attention? At the risk of a Sunday School answer, we should pay attention because Jesus paid attention. She was seen and known by Jesus. And so we are challenged and called to pay attention and to know others and to love them in the midst of their grief and sorrow. We know ourselves in the interchange, and our emotional capacity to understand our own grief and sorrow grows. 

Another version of the same text...

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[1] Kathleen O’Connor, Lamentations & The Tears of the World, 7-8. She uses this phrase throughout her book.

[2] Ibid.,108.