© 2024 Sophie Malicot
© 2024 French-speaking Association of Readers of the Urantia Book
Sophie MALICOT July 2024
It’s about 6 p.m. It’s summer.
Him. He is thirsty because the day was hot, having to walk at least 30 km on foot along the paths. The Master arrives at Jacob’s well and sits down. The apostles have gone to get food and tents from the neighboring town; he waits. The water from Jacob’s well is good, they say, less salty than others in the area. Jesus is thirsty but has nothing to draw water with.
She. She saw him from afar. Women are attentive from afar, to the surroundings they pass through; they scan in advance in order to warn who they will be dealing with. A way of anticipating bad encounters; a way of gauging possible encounters. Nalda is used to evaluating men at first glance. She often deals with them, especially since she is pleasant and her charm is eloquent. And sometimes uses it to live… Also from afar, she sees that he is Jewish, his clothes and his appearance betray him.
Him. “Give me a drink.”
She. She also knows that he comes from Galilee, a recognizable accent for having heard it here, passed by other travelers. However, Nalda is surprised to hear him address her directly. This is not appropriate for a self-respecting man. Why does he allow himself to speak in public to a woman? It is not done, especially their different ethnic backgrounds. So, since she is from Samaria and he is Jewish, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask me, a Samaritan woman, for a drink?”
Him. What do the differences matter; the essential is established and concerns Heaven. “In truth, I asked you for a drink, but if only you could understand, you would ask me for a sip of living water.”
She. What should she understand and has not understood? She knows that water is life, and that the importance of water carries the weight of life. Like the child in her woman’s womb. Like the pitcher in her woman’s arms. Like the past in these places of history that are transmitted by its own presence. And these weights conceal so many efforts to live themselves… “But, Lord, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep. Where then would you draw this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well, who himself drank from it and who gave his sons and his livestock to drink from it?”
Him. “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water of the living Spirit will never thirst. This living water will become in him a well of refreshment springing up to eternal life.”
She. Stop the weight. Stop the daily back and forths full of jugs that weigh down the terror of a life. Stop the transmission when it is a tradition that enslaves. “Give me this water so that I am not thirsty and that I no longer need to travel all this way to draw…”
And then… From this Galilean emanates such warm benevolence that she does not know how to interpret this balm of kindness on the hardness of her life. She is not used to such recognition. Suddenly, she feels totally considered for herself when usually only what is taken advantage of from her is considered. Nalda is often given over to her self-denial and her life is not easy. She does her best to deal with the daily grind, a possible condemnation by morality. But why is she alone condemned when others are included?
Could it be that this benevolent Galilean is a future courtier? A being attentive to her? She feels this surge of seduction rising within her; she recognizes it and knows very well the stratagems to use to become openly flirtatious: “Furthermore, anything that a Samaritan woman could receive from a Jew as worthy of praise as you will be a pleasure.”
Them: Eye to eye.
Him: “Woman, go get your husband and bring him here.” What a voice! Where does this authority come from that goes straight to his heart?
She: The voice came like a blow and resonated in that part of the being where the sense of reality is covered. She had lost her way on this path of seduction where the one who wins is lost. The Master prevented her from getting lost by preventing her from winning. Here she is destabilized, her interpretation distorted; she had misjudged the strange stranger.
“Woman”: is it an unknown greatness to which he invites her? Could it be that he is really good? And rehabilitates her despite the weight of the past which debases her? Now fear wins and confusion grows in her mind: “But, Lord, I cannot call my husband, because I have no husband.”
Him. “You have spoken the truth, for you may have once had a husband, but the man you are living with now is not your husband. It would be better if you stopped taking my words lightly and sought the living water that I have offered you today.”
She. Totally sobered up from these back roads where her weight of existence is in the eyes of Heaven, the lightness of ignorance of true reality. The truth is that she no longer has a husband because the one who was unjustly rejected her. This injustice made her lose her greatness as a “Woman” as the Master told her, and propelled her into a desperate situation: agreeing to live with a person is not being instituted as “Man” or “Woman”.
Nalda feels the particular instance that awakens in her at the words of the Master. An instance not of the lower self of the stratagems of seduction to win the world, but her higher self, lively, alert which raises her to the reception of the words of truth. She advances on the path of righteousness, where the thirsts from below transmute into thirsts from above. She is not “Woman”, not yet; she will only become so by becoming a person living from this water of the spirit, offered in her. The weight shifts: the earth is lighter when Heaven weighs heavily in the life of the being.
“My Lord, I repent of the way I spoke to you, for I perceive that you are a holy man or perhaps a prophet.” Nalda feels shame at having spoken so thoughtlessly. In her sobering up, she lets go of her lusts and advances to the edge of herself, just at the edge of the step to take to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But fear, tradition or other considerations stand in the way; is it not madness to ask for eternal salvation? Does she really have the courage to cross the abyss of faith? Or is it more reassuring to cling to the dominant customs and traditions?
She zigzags in her head and can only find something to say: “Our fathers worshiped on this mountain and, yet, you say that the place where men should worship is in Jerusalem; where then is the right place to worship God?”
Him. He knows well the human artifices and this avoidance of direct face-to-face with God. Because the call is without guile, and demands complete courage…
But he also sees the interior of the soul and Nalda has a real thirst for this better spiritual life. There is no point in going too fast; openness needs patience and he takes the detour to better go towards the essential. “Woman, let me tell you that the day is coming soon when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem…”
She. Sweet words act in secret; gently the heart opens, she feels it. How difficult it is to leave one’s strongholds…
Him. “…Your salvation will come when you receive, in your own heart, this living water that I am offering you at this very moment.”
She. The words still act… The heart opens more… Still a little but… Does this embarrassing life of hers banish her soul from eternal salvation? “Yes, I know, …”…《…John preached about the coming of the Converter…"
Him. “I, who am speaking to you, am he.”
Us. Where does this word come from? From what depths does it spring when it shakes us, cracks our fortresses and frees the soul? Original Word, springing from the depths of Being and founding being. Here it is offered to humanity, through the Woman, the Stranger, the little Virtue.
The divine gaze is not that of men; behind the appearances which justify voluntary condemnations, the eye of God sees the probity of the soul, and only the ardent desire to ask for a sip of living water weighs more than an immorality of form. A celestial purity in the opacity of the world.
She. Again, on the edge of herself, just on the edge of the step to take to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, … The breath is held, Heaven ready to open its doors wide but…
The twelve apostles. They bring back food and tents and they too see the scene from a little further away, one by one. A man and a woman speaking so intimately, the traditions are fierce and the reflexes tenacious. They are more than astonished, they are shocked. Without looking, without observing, quickly, put down the burdens and move aside. Modesty? Shame? Indignation? A repugnance rises in them in the face of the teachings of the Master who opens the Kingdom to these people.
Him. She would have taken the step; he knows it, he saw it. But she was cut off in her tracks from telling him. It takes time for the thought of God to become a word. Has she not crossed the abyss in the secret of her heart? So: “Woman, go your way, God has forgiven you. You will now live a new life. You have received living water; a new joy will spring forth in your soul and you will become a daughter of the Most High.”
She. She assesses men from afar, but also up close. The hearts of the apostles are in disapproval; a masculine disapproval that she knows well, the same one that never ceases to stone her life… So she abandons her pitcher and flees towards the city.
She, later. His gaze fixed on her eyes… She will never be able to erase this vision. And the way he had treated her… In an instant, it made her see her whole life pass by. Like a panoramic view of the whole, when the soul makes the border of lives porous in these moments brushing against death. A view no longer linear but circular. There, she brushed against Life so closely that she fell into it. For eternity.
She, later still. She doesn’t really know anymore… Did Jesus really speak to her about her five husbands? Or is it a fact of this panoramic retrospective that crossed her mind so abruptly? She is sure that he spoke to her about her only husband, even though she had had five men, but she told John that Jesus had told him everything she had done in her life.
John the Baptist. I would have liked to question my cousin, my Master, about his meeting with Nalda. She confided in me. But I did nothing. Some meetings are too intimate.
Me. Modern times are one of gender confusion. The quest for identity involves the erasure of identities. Being a woman or a man is discussed and the mutation from one to the other is proposed. Certainly discrimination of any kind is bad, the equality of women and men is a beautiful fight; an obvious fact fought in the history of men.
The world is moving forward and these civic struggles are good. But is this being a “Woman” to have the same rights as men? Has Woman, as Jesus invites us to this greatness, already come to earth or, in the long evolutionary process of humanity, is it still a future to be made to happen? In other words, is it a potential in the process of being actualized?
Jesus does not condemn sexuality. He knows that it is part of the life process of mortals and of the experiences to be lived. He spoke to this Woman of her unique Man. Is this a path to become Woman and Man, such that we will still carry these particularities to Paradise? Because one does not go without the other. I am Woman only if you are Man and you are Man if I am Woman. Not in relationships of quantity - the multiple partners of Nalda - but in relationships of quality.
The masculine-feminine poles have been explored for a long time, and presented in a way where one is contained in the other, each being having both. Thus the Tao proposes the yin and the yang; Jung advances the anima and the animus. Annick De Souzenelle speaks of the feminine of the being, as present in the woman as in the man… Receiving feminine pole - the cup - and transmitting masculine pole.
The meeting between Nalda and Jesus poses identities differently. Jesus is the son of Man. This name carries all the respect he has for the human; it also poses the accomplished degree of being, not at the celestial level, but at the earthly level in which he lives - “Here is the Man”. A level towards which we are advancing. He is Man and Nalda is not yet Woman. She is of the feminine sex and plays with feminine behavior. Her seductive attitude is not a degree of being but the means that her sex and the masculine domination of the world allow her to adopt to emerge from the ranks of beasts and begin to gain greater consideration under the sun given equally to all.
Is this the best way to achieve it? No, says the time that has passed on this story. But at the time she had little other choice. And the era still lasts today…
Jesus is not a woman nor the Daughter of Woman; Nalda is not a man. Their receiving and transmitting poles are in place; but Jesus speaks of another level of being where Woman is not Man and Man is not Woman. They do not merge nor are they inclusive of each other, each keeping their part inaccessible to the other sex, an essential and fascinating part because of the differences. And their complementarity.
“Woman”; an entirety, a full accomplishment in oneself, even if the other part - Man - is also a full accomplishment in oneself. A unity which in no way prevents another unity and the two unities are One. Can this “Woman” level only be experienced or can it be described partially? Without doubt a bit of both. Because without doubt it is above all the fruit of the divine archetype - universal God-Father and universal Son-Mother - this “couple” recognized by the Infinite Spirit as its divine parents. In this, the duplicated image Man-Woman is not describable because they are divine natures, existential spiritual essences of which nothing can be said. Only the personality carries one or the other and experiences a spiritual expression of it.
However, when the “Woman” actualizes herself, she becomes a life experience, with possibly a few words to ask. This level of being would be relative to a certain entirety of realization of the personality; but this personality needs the esteem of another personality of the same level of accomplishment as her to fully reveal herself. Recognition is mutual, and love can be experienced as a sap of life that flows without interruption, in a relationship of reflection of one another. Equality is no longer a question and even less a problem because it is experienced in evidence.
In this light, the cards of couples are seriously reshuffled; Nalda lives with a man but what about their respective inner levels? Can he recognize his Woman if he is not yet a Man? Jesus asks her to go and find her husband, the one who, symbolically, makes her “Woman”; and it is clear that Nalda does not have a husband…
Life is lived on all sides of humanity’s experience. The universal order of progress, given by the Trinity of Paradise, also concerns our developments as Women and Men on earth. In this sense, the current quests, although appearing crazy with identity disorders, are perhaps the reflection of this thirst to find what fully founds each sex and how this foundation is articulated with the other sex. The back roads are plentiful when we seek the unknown outside the beaten paths of habits and clichés. But in this dynamic of progress, women and men continue to grow in quality of being and esteem each other more qualitatively and mutually in this sense. Then Women and Men will gradually reveal themselves through each other and who knows what they will build together?
One certainty: when “Woman” lives, the personality knows it even if it says nothing about it; and with the “Man”, recognizes itself.
Booklet 143 chapter 5