Dig a Little Deeper

I was just preparing for tomorrow’s Mass, minding my own business, when a song got stuck in my head:  Dig a Little Deeper in the Well, by the Oak Ridge Boys.  I haven’t heard that song for years, and now it’s playing over, and over again in my mind.  I don’t expect the choir to be singing it at Mass tomorrow, but I’m afraid it’ll still be bouncing off the walls of my cabeza.  So if you go to the noon Mass tomorrow, beware – instead of Holy, Holy, Holy, you might hear me singing “Dig, Dig Dig . . . .”

 

So how did preparing for Mass make me think of the Oak Ridge Boys.  Well (so to speak), Sunday’s Gospel reading tells the story of the Woman at the Well.   You remember her, she’s the Samaritan woman who meets Jesus at the well and learns a lesson about the difference between drinking water and drinking of the living water.  My mind is pretty simple, so when I read a story about a well, I think, “Dig a little deeper in the well, boys, you gotta dig a little deeper in the well.  If you want a good and cool drink of water you gotta dig a little deeper in the well.”  I really hope I just launched that tune in your head for the rest of the day!   

The basic point of the Gospel, or at least one of them, is that Jesus is the living water – if we drink of the living water, we’ll never thirst.  In other words, every human need, every human desire is ultimately fulfilled by God, not by earthly goods.  We can drink all of the well water we want, but if we don’t drink of the living water, we’ll never be truly satisfied.  

This isn't the easiest message to absorb.  How can spiritual fulfillment take precedence over physical fulfillment?  We’re constantly experiencing physical needs (hunger, thirst), and we know that if we don’t satisfy them, we’ll die.  Well, that is the point.  We’re all going to die someday.  Food and water (and Ghirardelli dark chocolate mint candy) may sustain us in this life, but they won’t do us any good in the next life (I could make an argument that Ghirardelli candy has eternal value, but that’s a subject for a future blog posting). 

The trick to placing our spiritual needs ahead of our physical needs is remembering that life is so much more than just this life.  God promised an eternal life of perfect love for all who have faith in him.  Drinking of the living water, immersing ourselves in God and dedicating our lives to loving God by loving our neighbor, both sustains us in this life and carries us happily into the next.  Living each day with the song of eternal life playing over and over again in our hearts and minds offers a deeper, richer, more fulfilling life than one spent worrying about when we’re going to die.  Eternal life is the gift of the living water.  Finding the living water requires faith.  And if you’re having trouble finding it, you gotta dig a little deeper.

If this post wasn't enough to get the song stuck in your head, follow this link to hear “Dig a Little Deeper in the Well,” by the Oak Ridge Boys.