The Serpentine Ghost by photographer Ben Horne

Exodus 17:2-7 (NRSV)
The people quarreled with Moses, and said, “Give us water to drink.” Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the Lord?” But the people thirsted there for water; and the people complained against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried out to the Lord, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” The Lord said to Moses, “Go on ahead of the people, and take some of the elders of Israel with you; take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will be standing there in front of you on the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it, so that the people may drink.” Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. He called the place Massah and Meribah, because the Israelites quarreled and tested the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”

Jeremiah 2:12-13 (NRSV)
Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.

The Father is the Spring,
the Son is called the Stream
and we are said to drink the Spirit.
– Athanasius

The thirst for God is universal because we have been created with a longing for the Creator. This desire to know and be known by the One who made us and loves us is often ignored, denied, and finally buried under a multitude of pursuits and interests. But then some event in life invites or forces us to pause, and the desire for God comes rushing back to our awareness. And once again we know that real life is impossible without the companionship of the One who first gave us the gift of life and who sustains us even now. – Rueben P. Job, A Guide to Prayer for All Who Seek God

From The Awkward Season- Prayers for Lent by Pamela C Hawkins

The things of God have a circumference. They are preserved in a written body of truth. It’s like a well – and no one has ever fathomed the depth of God’s truth. To go into the power of the gospel, or of prayer, or the Holy Spirit, or divine love is to plunge ever deeper and deeper into God’s well. Every man or woman used by God has gone down into this vast reservoir. – Jim Cymbala, Fresh Wind, Fresh Fire

Quote and Blessing from In the Sanctuary of Women by Jan L. Richardson
And the well runs dry. It’s one of the most common experiences in the spiritual life. A practice that we have cherished, a habit that has deepened us and drawn us closer to God, a discipline that we perhaps have engaged in for years no longer seems to work. … Pondering the questions that lie at the bottom of a dry well offers a journey of its own. What I know is this: to find the answers, we have to pay attention to the dryness. This is a desert place. As uncomfortable as it may be, there is no substitute for these desert places in the spiritual life. They offer a wisdom that we cannot get any other way.

BLESSING
When the well goes dry, listen.
Sit by it, your ear pressed to its rim.
Hear the empty and the hollow of it.
Let be. Let be.
When finally you hear your breath
echo back to you,
let this sound be your first prayer.
Where there is breath,
there is water somewhere.
Breathe.

John 7:37-38 (NRSV)
On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ ”

Our brokenness is the wound through which the full power of God can penetrate our being and transfigure us in God. Loneliness is not something from which we must flee but the place from where we can cry out to God, where God will find us and we can find God. Yes, through our wounds the power of God can penetrate us and become like rivers of living water to irrigate the arid earth within us. Thus we may irrigate the arid earth of others, so that hope and love are reborn. – Jean Vanier, The Broken Body

Prayer for Living Water
God of the Wilderness, we are thirsty. We are dry and hard. Our hearts are more stone than flesh. Swing your saving rod once more. Crack us open. Break us of quarreling and division. Smash our fondness for complaining. Shatter our mistrust, especially our mistrust of you. Let your living water flow, a stream in the desert, a spring of salvation. God, we are so very thirsty. Flood us and the world with your healing and transforming love, through Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

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Prayer for Living Water © 2010 Lisa Ann Moss Degrenia
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