I'm Emily P. Freeman and welcome to the next right thing. You're listening to

episode 266.

This is a podcast about making decisions, but also about making a life. If you

struggle with decision fatigue, chronic hesitation, or if you just need a few

minutes away from the constant stream of information, and the sometimes delightful

but also distracting hum of entertainment, well, you're in the right place for

discerning your next right thing. Sometimes I talk directly to you and

sometimes I bring on a guest. Sometimes I read words straight from the Hebrew

scripture and sometimes like today, I'll read words from someone else for all of

us to listen to and carry with us and reflect on together. Today I've chosen a

poem by Macrina Whitaker, a writer who has been a companion for me for many years

now, though she never knew it. She died in 2020 and I wish I would have been

brave enough or had the connections to ask her to be a guest on the podcast before

then. She was a master of everyday spirituality and had a lovely way of seeing and

speaking of God in the midst of ordinary things of life. She wrote a reflection on

Jesus' interaction with the woman at the well as recorded in John chapter 4.

So here is on Being a Well by Macrina Whitaker from her book Seasons of Your Heart.

Listen in.

What makes this world so lovely is that somewhere it hides a well. Something

lovely there is about a well so deep, unpiped and real, filled with buckets and

buckets of that life-giving drink. A faucet will do in a hurry, but what makes

the world so lovely is that somewhere it hides a well. Sometimes people are like

...