For someone who when he spoke and acted was the most charismatic man I have ever met, he blended in by the well. I did not notice him when I arrived. I was tired of course being there in the heat of the day, exhausted by being judged by people who did not know my story, and the intense weariness of not being able to change the narrative that people have read about me. He spoke the truth when he said that I had had five husbands, and that I was now living with someone else. Everyone in town knew.  I do not make excuses, but what if you knew that Solomon, my first, died so very young, Eliab, my second, and Joshua, my third died in battle. Reuben gave me a bill of divorce as he met someone younger, and yes, I left Simeon and I deeply regret it. But I am read as if I have had multiple marriage breakups. I understand. I read other people too. He read me, but did not judge. By the time I met him, I was already judging myself.

He even let me play games as I tried to work him out. At first it was a bit of banter. ‘How can you ask me for a drink’. I did not expect him to follow up his polite request with the comment, ‘if you knew who it was that was asking you, then you would ask me for the drink’. It was absurd. There he was a guest, a foreigner, an outsider saying that he could provide water, and yet he had nothing with which to do it.

I should have finished the conversation there. Given him the water and began the long weary journey back home. But you see it is not often that I get decent conversation, so I talked about Jacob, our common ancestor. We ended up talking about Gerazim and Jerusalem, not that I was particularly interested in either, but he took me seriously. It  was his seriousness as well as his charisma that drew me to him as well as his laughter. His laughter lines made him look and feel open and honest, and his eyes when they held mine were curious, open, and expectant. Our conversation was in many ways like playing games of strategy like in the stone games in our marketplaces. He was rare as a man to engage with a woman in such a way, and even rarer to interact with a grey headed one like me. He smiled as he said, go and call your husband. He knew, and I knew that he knew. He did not stop our conversation because of it. I did. I had to tell others about the man I had met at the well. Could he be the Teacher? I knew he was. I just wanted the world to know about the man who did not judge me and treated me like an equal. To be treated like that by the One changed everything. I stopped judging myself that day. After all, he did not offer judgement, so I did not, and I learned to smile once again.