What all those dry taps taught me

It was our second time to the forest shack. I found the little gem on Airbnb a couple years ago. Somewhere between the stream of pricey beach houses splattered in seashell chimes and nautical dish towels, it entered my feed like a beloved thorn between the roses. Maybe it was the simplicity of a 3x4m common space; or the suggestion to sleep outside (“just mind the pesky bush pigs”). Or maybe it was just the price - a 3 figure breath of fresh air in an otherwise suffocating space called ‘holiday rentals’. Whatever it was, we happily heeded his rusty fork disclaimers and booked it before the hordes of budget-loyal, bush pig fanatics descended on our find. One year later, and we seemed still to be the only people banging down the shack’s door. And this year our hard core was upgraded. The pipes were bone dry. We were warned of it, so we came prepared with 5 litre bottles, empty buckets and hand sanitiser for Africa. The dam was right where the owner said it would be - down the dusty forest path, turn right at the random water bottle in the dirt. There it was - a burst of brackish blue amidst the corn-coloured air, thick with cicada song. Armed with inorganic shower gel and shampoo (confession), we waded into the water - our toes displacing mud that turned the surface milky brown. It was all rather ridiculous to think we’d come out clean. At best, we managed to give our muddy scalp a hint of chamomile and coconut. But we did it. For almost a week we scouted the fresh waterholes of Nature’s Valley like gypsies, looking for a place to stash our towels and inorganic soap. We went armed to the local grocery store with a luffa, because, you know, we may just stumble upon a public shower in the back alley. Beachfront showers were open season. Taps were fair game. And let’s be honest, salty skin was also just fine some nights.

And then, on the second to last day, I met the owner of the eco-village. I was busy flailing my limbs and treading like a one-footed duck (translation: shaving my legs in the deep end) when she and her dog appeared at the shoreline. She looked like the kind of lady you would expect to see appearing out of the bullrush, all loose goosey with her silver locks and floral sundress cascading down her sun-kissed back. She had laughing wrinkles and moved slow and seemed at peace with the mud; suddenly I felt very shallow for caring about my leg hair. She asked, “Why don’t you just use the shower?”, to which I rebutted: “because the pipes are dry.” She looked confused. “Didn’t the owner read his email? We switched the water back on two weeks ago. You just have to open the mains.” At this point, I suppose I could have thrown Mr. Shack Man under the bus and treated myself to a proper little stinker in the bush. But there was no time for that. I was now the keeper of the Very Good News, and my task was a sacred one. I had to find the mysterious ‘mains’ and then restore the shack to its former dysfunctional glory. “Children,” I announced, “turn on the tap!” And with that, the most glorious shade of brown belched forth from the belly of the borehole. It poured out like liquid gold all over our hands. It transformed my children into voluntary dishwashers, my sons into ‘flushers of the toilet not in need of reminding’. When the geyser had boiled hot, we took turns under the shower head and let the water singe our backs, our sighs of happy relief mixed with steam to rise like thank offerings through the trees. Our showers only lasted two minutes each; that’s all the hot water the little geyser could hold. But those two minutes were more than enough to feel like forever. You would think we would’ve fought for more time under the tap, once the geyser was reheated - but we didn’t. Instead we really wanted the next person to have what we just had. Something this delicious needed to be shared. It didn’t take long for the novelty of plumbing to wear off the next day. Dish duty wasn’t quite as cumbaya in the morning, toilet flushing lost its high tech edge. Water just fell out of the pipes and into the drain, quiet and unthanked, in a steady cycle of reckless giving. Normal life resumed, I suppose. But now almost a year later, I keep thinking about that week at the shack. I keep thinking, I’m so glad the Shack Man was not on top of his inbox. I’m so glad we had to lug buckets and scout for waterholes and learn the art of scrub-and-tread in the nearby dam. I’m so thankful we were brought back to the simplest of concerns, like water, for us to realise how much we need it - and how little we need of other things. We learned to laugh that week, and we were forced into the quiet rhythms of gratitude; the slow, deliberate pace of praise. Our priorities were few - rest, play, eat, get water, repeat - a pace that did our children well and gave us space to breathe and think and write and sip our coffee slow.

And we started to see everything as grace - poured out, crazy grace - that was no longer a moment or an event in time, but a state of constant being. Ironically in the not-enough, we became acutely aware of the more-than-enough, the grace-beyond-grace presence of God, that saturated our spirit pores and filled us like oxygen. All those bone dry pipes helped us find a different kind of fountain, a Water Living well that Jesus never meant to stay as metaphor. Somewhere in the week we stumbled upon that mystery of living soul-belly-full. And here’s the other thing I keep thinking about. I’m just as glad that Earth Mother came down to the dam that morning. I’m so glad to have found out, all we had to do that whole time was turn the tap on. Because, let’s face it, how many of us live as if the mere matter of earthly survival is up to us? As if the uphill climb of raising kids and raising funds and raising ourselves out of bed each Monday morning comes without a harness, and we’re all hanging on the cliff face by the fractional grip of fingertip. How often have I been that spiritual gypsy, scouring for affirmation or emotional energy or mental real estate, when there’s a Bedrock of Resource beneath my feet? I live with forgetting that I’m chosen and wanted, and pursued to the point of death. When I go all Annie orphan on God, Psalm 8 reminds me that the stars, so dark and terrible and wondrous, are His needlework, stitched together like sky jewellery by His fingertips alone. But I, on the other hand, I am carved into the fleshy centre of palm - my name engraved, as sure and irreversible as the scars that took the nails. There, in the central spot where nerve and muscle and sinew overlap, the letters of my name are also intertwined. If He holds me that tight in His grip, He must surely have my back. Even when it may not seem like it at the moment, He has me. Jesus said in John 10:10, But I have come to give you everything in abundance, more than you expect—life in its fullness until you overflow! I can’t say I’m really living this ‘running over’ life yet, but I’m starting to see the slightest something of the everything He was referring to. Today I’m grateful for those dry taps that helped us find the Well.