One of the great fears of modern society is the fear of loneliness and alienation. This is the most personal of fears. Loneliness or alienation is hurt. The pain is not just psychological; it often manifests through physical symptoms that refuse to go away—or even walking away, escaping from others. It gets worse when it is followed by panic attack symptoms and becoming a codependent person. The uncertainty, feeling isolated and imminent threats preoccupied my mind. There is a deep hollow inside the heart, empty at the core of being. Worthless becomes a reality. T.S. Eliot expressed this experience in his poem, “The Hollow Men,” saying:
We are the hollow men.
We are the stuffed men.
Learning together
Headpiece filled with straw.
Hollow people feel they have no foundation, nothing to build their lives upon. They feel that no one, above all, no one cares for them. Look at how the Samaritan woman was not willing to draw water in the morning or in the evening together with another woman who would habitually come to the well because they were avoidin
g the heat.
Amazingly, the deepest yearning to quench the thirst is actually unstoppable.
The story of the Samaritan woman (John 4:5-25) probably can explain this miraculous guidance. She, who was in a sorrowful and hollow situation, finally met with the divine professional “Healer.”
When she whispered, her dried voice was quiet and meaningless, as the wind in dry grass… She was thirsty inside…
Searching for water under the midday sun perhaps spiritually symbolized how desperately she needed to find something to quench her thirst. She had tried everything, including “five husbands.” She had forgotten—that mostly, the lonely—and the alienated person often tended to reconnect with someone who was equally lonely, alienated, isolated, rejected, and empty within. She leaned on just another person of straw.
The healing transformation story started when she was aware of her shadow (i.e., sorrow and hollow), miraculously meeting with a great professional divine “Healer.” Jesus began the conversation: “Give me a drink!” It meant, “I thirst!” He put himself at the same pace as the thirsty woman. He got her attention.
That starting conversation was powerful and very therapeutic. It was explained by Carl G. Jung, who said,
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious”
At no time is the Samaritan woman more conscious of her “darkness” of life when it is exposed in the noon, in the midst of heat and burning light. At that moment, she could trust that her dark night of life had come in service of the light. She could breathe through the transition and did the necessary work to prepare for her rebirth. She moved from a codependency to an interdependency personality. The therapeutic conversation guided her to stand on the threshold and commit to the healing transformation journey to becoming new.
She was more aware at that moment that she was not alone. She was standing and talking with a professional divine “Healer.” The external and internal ideologies, belief systems, and old-time dogmatic statements that block the genuine, truthful relationship were crumbling down. Her statement, “How can you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?” didn’t mean anything now. Instead of debating or reasoning, she experienced directly that the Healer offered her “living water.”
Furthermore, she was challenged to be more mindful of managing her faith and confidence in the healing transformation process. Her new belief system was installed. Her awareness of her inadequacies had been transformed throughout the direct therapeutic conversation with the professional divine “Healer.” She journeyed from deficit to the fullness of discipleship.
The walls of the frozen culture, religious boundaries, ideologies, theologies, beliefs systems, or dogmatic teachings that had divided and abandoned one another in the family of human race, between Jews and Samaritans, between the status or position of male and female, husband and wife, between parents and children were broken down.
The miraculous therapeutic encounter freed her as a person. She had the strength and courage to rush back to her city to become a witness that the healing had happened. She proclaimed and gave testimony to the whole village. She left her water bucket at the well and her old way of life behind. She had been healed and transformed.
Her heart was not hollow anymore.
Her heart delights with divine mercy!
Her soul has not filled with straws anymore!
Her soul was filled with a spring of water that welled up to eternal life!
Her soul worshiped, proclaimed, and gave testimony and gratitude wholeheartedly to the world!
unconditonalthoughts 