I've seen worse landscaping atrocities, but yes, the wilder wells are best. Wasn't aware of negative connotations to "tinker" on the other side of the pond. Just read through some debate on this at r/Ireland. Doesn't seem to cause great upset for most, though some do encounter pressure not to say it.
Could the grid be lifted? That fontem has become 'non potable', pardon my French as they say.
Back somewhere the spirits of litigation and utility must laud up weed control, tidiness and fake answers to peril? Hmmm ... the killer in the prison yard was always the blue sky I wonder?
In the US we say someone is "tinkering around" , its like not doing anything specific. I like to tinker around the yard, checking out the plants and see what birds are nesting right now or just enjoy being outside.
Reminds me of one of the Narnia books where a river god was shackled by the bridges over his river and in the story destroyed the bridges to be free again. Maybe someday this well will be free and wild again.
Also, when I lived in Athens, I discovered a river that had been encased in concrete and redirected. There are many beautiful places in Greece, but that was a sad, sad sight. While we lack holy wells in Canada and indeed any sort of holy place in nature (some aboriginal sites could be an exception) I am grateful that we still have, well, nature.
In this series, I keep thinking over and over how America doesn't have holy springs (we obliterated, not sanctified and reimagined, what was already here) --- but, after reading this, maybe we DO have them, tons of them -- maybe we have the most holy springs of any nation on this green earth, maybe they've just been made to look like all these storm drains in our New-Jersey-as-microcosm-for-the-whole-thing "Garden State" where garden doesn't equal Eden, garden equals concrete. Guardin' state. In the prison of the Machine.
“Another testimony of the miracle was a Union soldier from Maryland who was there and was witness to the miracle was S.E. Lookingbill of Company C 6th Maryland Vol., Inf., 2nd Brigade 3 Division, 6th Army Corps, Army of the Potomac
�There is a fine stone house erected in 1901, at Providence Spring and this Inscription is on the wall: "The Prisoners' cry of thirst rang up to Heaven; God heard, and with His thunder cleft the earth and poured his sweet water came rushing here." On another side of this house is the inscription: "God smote the hillside and gave them drink, August 16, 1864.
There has been a great deal written about Providence Spring and what caused the water to come out of the earth at this place. I will state that I was there at the time God gave this spring to us, and this spring came through prayer for water.
The water furnished the stockade by the branch became so unfit from the filth on the outside and from the cook house and stables that there was a general cry for water from all over the camp and God heard the cries of his people and gave them Providence Spring. The Confederates at the time, and even to this day, call this Providence Spring, and say that God answered the soldiers' prayer for water.”
Thanks, I have been to Andersonville, but I didn't know about the spring. I was shocked at how small and unsheltered the prison camp was, and the spring really is a miracle.
I dont know if it comforts you to know this, but here in Buena Vista, Colorado, our Orthodox Church goes to a local spring in a crevice in the Rockies and the priest blesses the waters every January. Same place every year. I dont know if that makes it more holy but it IS BLESSED and that must mean something special. :-)
Every year on Theophany (Jan 6 new style calendar), we have a great blessing of the waters and we go out to local creeks, rivers, or other bodies of water and bless them ie. make them holy. We have a creek running just beside our parish and our whole community processes out there and into the woods during the Divine Liturgy. One year, after we came in from the blessing, I asked to no one in particular, "So can we go down and drink from that creek now?" and got an immediate reprimand from one of my more worldly seeming sisters in Christ "NO!!". The next year I went to our priest after and asked him the same question and he said, "Absolutely!" But did I go and drink it? No. When I was a kid I sure would have.
I've been thinking about this, Maria. Philip Sherrard -- an Orthodox theologian -- critiques sacramentalism (!!), in that conveys the sense that the things of God's Creation -- in this case, flowing water -- are sort of "inert" or "on standby," waiting to be vehicles of God's presence, but only when a priest "activates" them. This, he says, underlies the empty materialism of today, since, once you stop believing in priests, then matter is just sitting there, inert. The truth is that God is "everywhere present, filling all things" already, with or without any sacramental action (at best, the action is revealing what is already true, not imparting a new truth onto some inert background). Blessing the waters of course does not make them non-polluted -- hence, your reasonable, non-childlike hesitancy to drink them, even after blessed. What we need to do, says Sherrard, and says me in the wings of Sherrard, is to see the flowing water of creation as already holy, already sacred everywhere, overflowing with the presence of God: If that's truly how we saw things -- and I do believe this is reality, not just sentimental poetry -- then we wouldn't pollute the water in the first place. There is a fundamental incoherence in American Orthodoxy, where we (I'll say we, since I've only recently walked away) bless the waters in one moment, and then in the next drink it from plastic cups...
I don't know if you have ever read Fr. Stephen Freeman's Everywhere Present. If not, it is a very essential book for Americans converting to Orthodoxy, or even considering it. He says in that book that one of the mistakes of the Protestant Reformation is that they threw out sacraments and feast days stating, "Every day is holy! All of creation is holy!". The problem with that, he says, is that if "everyday is holy" then very soon, no day is holy. We set aside days to make holy and acts to make matter holy, not because it isn't already, but because we need it perhaps. But also I've been catechized that blessing matter doesn't give it some extra power. It makes the matter what it was created to be. The Fall of Man included the entirety of creation and part of why we are hear is to bring that holiness back to creation. To make straight what is crooked.
Hmm. Well, if blessing the water really does make it what it was created to be, then you should be able to drink it no problem, right? Depending on which Protestants you're talking about, they didn't throw out the sacraments or holy days, but reduced them to the eucharist and baptism, and to Sunday -- but, in any case, however the various Christian bodies have thought about Creation and holiness and time, etc, looking around at what we -- we Christians, specifically, including Orthodox ones -- have done with the world in the last 500 years, it hasn't been working. On the other hand, despite Fr. Stephen's objections about (some) Protestants making nothing holy by making everything holy, there have been spiritual cultures in the world which, in fact, have seen everything as holy, without sliding into "nothing is holy"--for example, the Oglala Sioux. The "nothing is holy" attitude is a uniquely Christian phenomenon, and has its roots not so much in Protestantism per se as in the hyper-clerical sacramentalism Protestantism protested against (argues Sherrard). Well, it will be interesting to see how deeply American Orthodox are able to listen -- truly listen -- to Creation, and to "make straight what is crooked," or bind up the wounds of Creation, as Margaret Barker puts it -- which indeed is our high calling, I agree with you there. For my part, it seems like there isn't a fundamental seriousness about Creation in Orthodoxy, as odd as that sounds, because at the core of Orthodoxy is this idea -- which comes from Platonism, not Yeshua -- that to be spiritual is for the soul to escape this body and this Earth, as it says in many of the saints' troparia:
"The image of God was truly preserved in you, O [---------], / for you took up the Cross and followed Christ. / By so doing you taught us to disregard the flesh for it passes away / but to care instead for the soul, since it is immortal. / Therefore your spirit, venerable [----------], rejoices with the angels."
I’m sure these well intentioned Well Improvements were carefully thought out by the local N.I.C.E. affiliate. Quite likely an excellent explanation of this has been written by Mark Studdock in a local paper. Check out his essay and you’ll feel oh so much better.
Co. Council workers are well known for leaning on the shovels and staring into holes. I bet they had a field day with this one. By the way, is that "County Work" in the second line a slip or a deliberate pun?
Well, gosh. This former public administrator and related parks and rec folks did not engender such wreckage as seen here. I was fortunate to be around folks who had an eye for the serene. I knew aplenty who wanted to 'improve' the 'environment' in this manner, though. Storm drains belong at the curbs of your streets.
The concrete walls, the way the grate over the well was situated haphazardly within the walls and the big block with signage at the entrance sitting off-kilter--all those different angles with no coherence shouts chaos and disorder. It's almost as if the planners wanted it that way. Bring back the golden mean when designing spaces around holy sites and gardens and buildings.
Terrible tragedy but great reading, as usual. Thank you.
A most excellent holy rant! I, too, feel better, even via proxy. Saints and tarmac...rant indeed!
It does look like a well in a prison yard. Maybe the prisoners were trying to swim away through the well.
It does look like a drain, you’re right. And I don’t know if the pebbles make it better or worse … fascinating though.
I vote for worse.
I've seen worse landscaping atrocities, but yes, the wilder wells are best. Wasn't aware of negative connotations to "tinker" on the other side of the pond. Just read through some debate on this at r/Ireland. Doesn't seem to cause great upset for most, though some do encounter pressure not to say it.
Oh heck!
Could the grid be lifted? That fontem has become 'non potable', pardon my French as they say.
Back somewhere the spirits of litigation and utility must laud up weed control, tidiness and fake answers to peril? Hmmm ... the killer in the prison yard was always the blue sky I wonder?
Municipal deadness, the bench is a joke .
In the US we say someone is "tinkering around" , its like not doing anything specific. I like to tinker around the yard, checking out the plants and see what birds are nesting right now or just enjoy being outside.
Reminds me of one of the Narnia books where a river god was shackled by the bridges over his river and in the story destroyed the bridges to be free again. Maybe someday this well will be free and wild again.
Reading that book to my youngest daughter right now!
Also, when I lived in Athens, I discovered a river that had been encased in concrete and redirected. There are many beautiful places in Greece, but that was a sad, sad sight. While we lack holy wells in Canada and indeed any sort of holy place in nature (some aboriginal sites could be an exception) I am grateful that we still have, well, nature.
'Ealth and safety, you know.
In this series, I keep thinking over and over how America doesn't have holy springs (we obliterated, not sanctified and reimagined, what was already here) --- but, after reading this, maybe we DO have them, tons of them -- maybe we have the most holy springs of any nation on this green earth, maybe they've just been made to look like all these storm drains in our New-Jersey-as-microcosm-for-the-whole-thing "Garden State" where garden doesn't equal Eden, garden equals concrete. Guardin' state. In the prison of the Machine.
An American holy spring
https://mb-henry.com/2018/01/18/providence-spring-a-miracle-at-andersonville/
“Another testimony of the miracle was a Union soldier from Maryland who was there and was witness to the miracle was S.E. Lookingbill of Company C 6th Maryland Vol., Inf., 2nd Brigade 3 Division, 6th Army Corps, Army of the Potomac
�There is a fine stone house erected in 1901, at Providence Spring and this Inscription is on the wall: "The Prisoners' cry of thirst rang up to Heaven; God heard, and with His thunder cleft the earth and poured his sweet water came rushing here." On another side of this house is the inscription: "God smote the hillside and gave them drink, August 16, 1864.
There has been a great deal written about Providence Spring and what caused the water to come out of the earth at this place. I will state that I was there at the time God gave this spring to us, and this spring came through prayer for water.
The water furnished the stockade by the branch became so unfit from the filth on the outside and from the cook house and stables that there was a general cry for water from all over the camp and God heard the cries of his people and gave them Providence Spring. The Confederates at the time, and even to this day, call this Providence Spring, and say that God answered the soldiers' prayer for water.”
https://www.faithwriters.com/article-details.php?id=135840
Thanks, I have been to Andersonville, but I didn't know about the spring. I was shocked at how small and unsheltered the prison camp was, and the spring really is a miracle.
Man, awesome, beautiful -- thanks for this, BeardTree!
I dont know if it comforts you to know this, but here in Buena Vista, Colorado, our Orthodox Church goes to a local spring in a crevice in the Rockies and the priest blesses the waters every January. Same place every year. I dont know if that makes it more holy but it IS BLESSED and that must mean something special. :-)
Beautiful, Agnes. Definitely comforting.
Oh Hey! I just posted about this earlier in the thread!
Every year on Theophany (Jan 6 new style calendar), we have a great blessing of the waters and we go out to local creeks, rivers, or other bodies of water and bless them ie. make them holy. We have a creek running just beside our parish and our whole community processes out there and into the woods during the Divine Liturgy. One year, after we came in from the blessing, I asked to no one in particular, "So can we go down and drink from that creek now?" and got an immediate reprimand from one of my more worldly seeming sisters in Christ "NO!!". The next year I went to our priest after and asked him the same question and he said, "Absolutely!" But did I go and drink it? No. When I was a kid I sure would have.
I've been thinking about this, Maria. Philip Sherrard -- an Orthodox theologian -- critiques sacramentalism (!!), in that conveys the sense that the things of God's Creation -- in this case, flowing water -- are sort of "inert" or "on standby," waiting to be vehicles of God's presence, but only when a priest "activates" them. This, he says, underlies the empty materialism of today, since, once you stop believing in priests, then matter is just sitting there, inert. The truth is that God is "everywhere present, filling all things" already, with or without any sacramental action (at best, the action is revealing what is already true, not imparting a new truth onto some inert background). Blessing the waters of course does not make them non-polluted -- hence, your reasonable, non-childlike hesitancy to drink them, even after blessed. What we need to do, says Sherrard, and says me in the wings of Sherrard, is to see the flowing water of creation as already holy, already sacred everywhere, overflowing with the presence of God: If that's truly how we saw things -- and I do believe this is reality, not just sentimental poetry -- then we wouldn't pollute the water in the first place. There is a fundamental incoherence in American Orthodoxy, where we (I'll say we, since I've only recently walked away) bless the waters in one moment, and then in the next drink it from plastic cups...
I don't know if you have ever read Fr. Stephen Freeman's Everywhere Present. If not, it is a very essential book for Americans converting to Orthodoxy, or even considering it. He says in that book that one of the mistakes of the Protestant Reformation is that they threw out sacraments and feast days stating, "Every day is holy! All of creation is holy!". The problem with that, he says, is that if "everyday is holy" then very soon, no day is holy. We set aside days to make holy and acts to make matter holy, not because it isn't already, but because we need it perhaps. But also I've been catechized that blessing matter doesn't give it some extra power. It makes the matter what it was created to be. The Fall of Man included the entirety of creation and part of why we are hear is to bring that holiness back to creation. To make straight what is crooked.
Hmm. Well, if blessing the water really does make it what it was created to be, then you should be able to drink it no problem, right? Depending on which Protestants you're talking about, they didn't throw out the sacraments or holy days, but reduced them to the eucharist and baptism, and to Sunday -- but, in any case, however the various Christian bodies have thought about Creation and holiness and time, etc, looking around at what we -- we Christians, specifically, including Orthodox ones -- have done with the world in the last 500 years, it hasn't been working. On the other hand, despite Fr. Stephen's objections about (some) Protestants making nothing holy by making everything holy, there have been spiritual cultures in the world which, in fact, have seen everything as holy, without sliding into "nothing is holy"--for example, the Oglala Sioux. The "nothing is holy" attitude is a uniquely Christian phenomenon, and has its roots not so much in Protestantism per se as in the hyper-clerical sacramentalism Protestantism protested against (argues Sherrard). Well, it will be interesting to see how deeply American Orthodox are able to listen -- truly listen -- to Creation, and to "make straight what is crooked," or bind up the wounds of Creation, as Margaret Barker puts it -- which indeed is our high calling, I agree with you there. For my part, it seems like there isn't a fundamental seriousness about Creation in Orthodoxy, as odd as that sounds, because at the core of Orthodoxy is this idea -- which comes from Platonism, not Yeshua -- that to be spiritual is for the soul to escape this body and this Earth, as it says in many of the saints' troparia:
"The image of God was truly preserved in you, O [---------], / for you took up the Cross and followed Christ. / By so doing you taught us to disregard the flesh for it passes away / but to care instead for the soul, since it is immortal. / Therefore your spirit, venerable [----------], rejoices with the angels."
Ha ha! Love this comment, Graham.
Calm down…!
I’m sure these well intentioned Well Improvements were carefully thought out by the local N.I.C.E. affiliate. Quite likely an excellent explanation of this has been written by Mark Studdock in a local paper. Check out his essay and you’ll feel oh so much better.
Co. Council workers are well known for leaning on the shovels and staring into holes. I bet they had a field day with this one. By the way, is that "County Work" in the second line a slip or a deliberate pun?
Apparently municipal workers are the same the world over LOL
Well, gosh. This former public administrator and related parks and rec folks did not engender such wreckage as seen here. I was fortunate to be around folks who had an eye for the serene. I knew aplenty who wanted to 'improve' the 'environment' in this manner, though. Storm drains belong at the curbs of your streets.
The concrete walls, the way the grate over the well was situated haphazardly within the walls and the big block with signage at the entrance sitting off-kilter--all those different angles with no coherence shouts chaos and disorder. It's almost as if the planners wanted it that way. Bring back the golden mean when designing spaces around holy sites and gardens and buildings.
"Articles of piety"......a beautiful phrase indeed, and I do indeed feel your pain.