A talk in church today:

He grew up in the more rural outskirts of DC, not all that far from where we did. His parents grew up very poor, the children of immigrants, one grandfather a refugee Ukrainian Jew.

His family had bought a small wheat farm in Maryland with the intent of as much self-sufficiency as they could manage in order to supplement their paychecks.

But it needed a new well, so his father took a branch from, he thinks it was a peach tree, and used it for divination.

Nathaniel hastened to add that divination has been debunked, there’s no science in it, it’s an old folk tale, he made sure we knew he knew that. But that’s what his father could afford to go on so that’s what he did.

Seems the peach seemed to tell him there was more water where everything was greener. Worked for him. So he got some help and dug himself a well and when there was a drought it kept right on going.

On finding out his neighbors’ wells had gone dry, he shared his water with the farmers around him–because when you’re in a position to be who and what someone else needs, that is a gift from Above.

And then Nathaniel read the scripture that whoso comes to God to take part in His love, “It shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”

Love thy neighbors.

Help them water their much larger fields. Because that’s the one thing they most needed that they couldn’t do for themselves right then, and his family with their very small farm could do something about it.

The children and their children have never forgotten the lesson.