Lower the Bucket

There's an old story, probably not a true story, but a great story, about a photographer sent to shoot a forest fire. A small plane would be waiting at the airstrip. He got there an hour before sundown. A little Cessna sat on the runway. He jumped in with his gear and shouted, "Let's go!"

The pilot looked tense. The takeoff was shaky. The flying was worse. But the photographer didn't notice. He was busy looking at the smoke.

"Take us over the north side," he said. "Make a few low passes."

Looking at the smoke and blazing fire, the nervous pilot exclaimed, “Are you sure? Why would you want me to do that?"

"Because I'm a photographer! Photographers take pictures!"

Long pause. "You mean… you're not the flight instructor?"

…

Most of us have had a moment like that. A moment when we looked around and realized nobody at the controls really knew how to fly. A diagnosis. A marriage in trouble. A child in crisis.

Where do you turn?

The poet and philosopher John O’Donahue once said, “…for parenting, for relationships, and for work, to have access to a religious tradition is a huge, strengthening, critical resource…” He went on to say, “It is not that our tradition doesn't have dark passages in it, but there are also zones of great light and immense wells of refreshment and healing.”

Wells. The prophet Isaiah reached for the same image: "With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation." (Isaiah 12:3)

But a well does you no good from a distance. You have to lower the bucket. O'Donohue called it a vigorous, relentless conversation with your own tradition. Praying the psalms. Wrestling with the hard passages instead of skipping them. Showing up among God's people when it would be easier to stay home.

That kind of drawing keeps us from becoming ingrown and bitter… or cynical and hard. It keeps us from losing our bearings.

When we don't know where to turn, perhaps the invitation is simply this: lower the bucket. Draw deeply. And trust that the well is still there.

Prayer: Loving God, when we lose our bearings, when no one seems to be at the controls, be our guide. Draw us back to the deep wells of your grace. Keep us from growing bitter or hard. Keep us open. Give us a thirst to know you more deeply and love you more fully. Amen.

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