34 Comments

To me the only reason to suppress a well spring is to destroy (or attempt to destroy) life creation of pure spring water of life. An act of Evil if ever I beheld one.

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Power always wants to move things by force and seldom that is a holy act. Good story, thanks!

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We have a man named Joe Powers here in local town government... he is not a friend of the aquifer. May the holy powers limit him also!

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lol, get diggin' baby.... good for the muscles.... St. Anne's well is waiting for you

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founding

Holy Righteous ancestors of God, Joachim and Anna, pray for us. I certainly wouldn’t want to cross her. :)

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Secular folk do not like mysteries. Christians, Catholics in particular, know that some mysteries are intended to exist, and are comfortable with them.

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A friend can often be heard saying

“Man plans, God laughs.”

Do not mess with the wells, indeed.

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The number of times that I have referred to the School's Collection is astounding.

What a true blessing that project is!

Maybe, if the well is not far from your home, you could pop round on the 25th or 26th of July and see if anyone still visits on St. Anne's Feast days (and if not, you would be there).

God Bless you on your continued journey with the Holy Wells.

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Feb 25·edited Feb 25

Pertinent I think to this essay. Jeremiah 2:12-13

Be appalled, O heavens at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, declares the Lord, for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me , the fountain of living waters and hewed out cisterns that can hold no water.

Done that myself more than once, sigh.

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Feb 25·edited Feb 25

Inconvenient waters. Reading this brought to mind how often small streams get paved over as cities grow. They get in the way of gridded streets and headlong construction, so planners bury them and pretend they're gone. But they inevitably reveal theselves as basements flood and sinkholes form at street corners. Sometimes cries of "Free the Creek!" will arise as people remember water sources and watercourses are also living things, members of our communities.

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"There are plenty of stories about non-protestant foolishness being punished too, often by the well moving of its own accord, in protest at some ill treatment."

FWIW, there are comparable Russian miracle stories.

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Maybe this is how it begins.. you try to subvert/destroy something good in nature, and this gives you the confidence to lie about anything that doesn't comport to your ideology...and here we are.

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There is always a story...

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We had an old farm well. The health department said fill it in or restore it. So we restored it by building a house over it and sinking new pipe. It dried up

due to a drought and possibly our neighbor drawing on that aquifer for her cows. I think water is back but we haven’t tested it. We use it for our horse. I know it’s not a holy well but it is cool.

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Feb 25Liked by Paul Kingsnorth

"Mr. Power's Error" could be the title of a ghost story by M.R. James or the like. Even the basic plotline would work!

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This brought to mind Hawthorne's "The House of the Seven Gables" - a Victorian ghost story about a disputed tract of land, valued for its freshwater spring. The moral of it is: don't mess with someone else's spring!

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