Well Enough For All
I saw a documentary on a young Algerian (let’s call him Mohammed) who left his nomadic family to get an education in France. With time, Mohammed established himself professionally in Paris. He married a French woman, and together they had a son. When his son turned four, Mohammed brought him to Algeria to meet his grandfather. They spent the summer together, moving from camp to camp in the Sahara desert. Once, they worked a whole day under a sweltering sun digging a well. That evening, as they ate around a fire, Mohammed asked his father why they had set up camp so far from the well. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to pitch their tents close to the water, he wondered? Mohammed’s father laughed and then explained. “We do that because we would not want a stranger in need of water to feel uncomfortable helping himself to the well. If our tents were too close, he might feel as if he were intruding.” A reminder of the grace rooted in the thinking of others.