In our future international headquarters, I would like to see a lot of stone and water and light and wood; a waterfall falling from way up high, down into a pool which flows through the abbey like a stream, dancing underfoot, eventually swirling into an open deep well, re:feeding waterfall and still pool as a tributary flows outdoors; dreams and sketches.

Today, as I smile at the sunshine and fresh snow in the peaks, I’m reminded again that our home rests on at least two natural springs flowing freely into Spring Creek dancing crisp and clean toward the Bow River. The whole town sits above underground waterways up to 120 meters deep in parts. Wherever there is limestone, there are caves, whole underground lakes. I would guess that some of those underground lakes in this valley are above our heads, like Spray Lakes Reservoir and Cascade’s waterfall which are open testaments of more than melt waters. And all the coal in these valleys, natural carbon filters.

In the OT narrative, it’s iron age in the ancient near east and everything in the climate and tribal ethos is about moving flocks and herds from water to water, each water well a gold mine, whole communities grow around them, whole flocks and peoples clash over water. Jerusalem being on springs, underground cisterns; again, fresh water flowing through limestone… a treasure chest of elements throughout the ages.

The intentionality of digging a well…  human roots put down in a place, and that place gets stewarded; or not. Romance erupts, like a guy looking for a wife for another guy and finds her at a well (a core narrative in the Abraham, Isaac and Jacob motif). Marry the well metaphor to the boundary stone metaphor and everything deepens. This is where one metaphor is not enough to communicate truth, they blend into each other, just like different elements of creation openly sharing and shaping the same space at the same time… water, wells, romance, peoples, tribes – this is where the deeper words of God hide for us to re:discover them and teach them to the people; songs hide in these deep, dark, dangerous, yet refreshing places.

And the dangerous side of wells, the warnings, when we’re thirsty and have to have a drink, when our basic human needs force us to be less than human, when we are desperate to have, when we demand our thirst be quenched, when it’s not going to be us to die in the desert, someone else can die… We get these powerful (yet frightening) moments when Moses strikes the rock and water flows. God doesn’t agree for many deep reasons… and that narrative of Moses striking that rock continues with the people moving on… and they come to a “boundary” and they promise the people there, “we don’t want the water from your wells; we’re topped up, we’re just passing through”… and they get rejected and turned away. Fascinating how water and wells and boundaries and people and pilgrimage and diaspora and all kinds of other alignments surface in that one story.

There are thresholds being crossed and ancient boundary stones being re:discovered. Yet, in the mix, there are those who don’t know what they are doing… but they keep leading the charge anyway, despite warnings, blasting past boundaries, paving their paradise of ideology over ancient wells, erecting monoliths of idolatry. Wait patiently. Do not overstep. The waters can’t be held back. In the meantime, do not stike that rock. It’s not lack — it’s proximity.

Four lepers will come to announce good news, eventually.