However, that water is scarce is increasingly oblivious to many who live in suburbia and luxuriate in the technological. As a Singaporean, I only need to turn on the tap and there is water. Twenty-hour hours, seven days a week: water from the tap, whenever and wherever I need it. For some, this is economic progress, even prosperity. But it whispers a truth we no longer hear, immersed as we are in the din of excess abundance and convenience: water is precious. Our kindred in harsher, drought-ridden plains know this fact all too well: every drop matters.

That water is precious for life is appropriate for Lenten reflection. Indeed, the encounter between the Samaritan woman and Jesus at the well calls us to contemplate it. She came to draw water for drinking. And Jesus offered her water not only to satiate her thirst but for eternal life.

In their encounter, I see how forgetful I can be, every now and again, of the more fundamental to living the good and happy life. With so much that is materially delightful around me, I can grow neglectful of that which is necessary to living life fully as a believer.

Have you had this experience too? I suspect we confront this acutely when we struggle with our greed to acquire more only to realize how empty it leaves us.

Lent invites us to live contrarily. It calls us to detachment, to turn away from the preoccupation with having more, so that with lesser, we are emptied for better. Less about me and my wants in prayer so that I can listen more to God. Less about me fasting obligatorily so that I will fast more voluntarily for God and others. Less about me being charitable so that charity can find its truest expression in the happiness of the other I enable.

Lent urges us to be less so that we are more readily disposed to receiving the gift of eternal life. Jesus died to gain this for all humankind. Our Lenten gaze directs us toward this. Truly, Lent urges us to detach ourselves from the earthly that comforts to trust in the heavenly that assures. When we, finite and wordly, can do this, Jesus’ gift to us of eternal life with God makes good sense.

Frankly, detachment is never easy. But we see in the Samaritan woman its possibility: she listens with openness. With this, we too can encounter Jesus. In him, and the eternal life he offers, all we already have pales in comparison. Then, we might find courage to join her to say, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may not be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Perhaps, the next time we switch on the tap for water, we will recall the preciousness of eternal life Jesus offered the woman at the well. This can be that moment to ask ourselves, do I want to drink of the living water Jesus offers me too?