Digging Again the Wells

“So Isaac departed from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there. And Isaac dug again the wells of water that had been dug in the days of Abraham his father, which the Philistines had stopped up after the death of Abraham. And he gave them the names that his father had given them. But when Isaac’s servants dug in the valley and found there a well of spring water, the herdsmen of Gerar quarreled with Isaac’s herdsmen, saying, ‘The water is ours.’ So he called the name of the well Esek, because they contended with him. Then they dug another well, and they quarreled over that also, so he called its name Sitnah. And he moved from there and dug another well, and they did not quarrel over it. So he called its name Rehoboth, saying, ‘For now the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.’ “ -Genesis 26:17-22 (ESV) [Read Genesis 26]

Isaac had gone with his family, servants and herds to Gerar to seek to escape from the famine in the land where his father, Abraham, had settled. Already, Jacob, with his mother Rebekah’s help, had tricked the twins’ father, Isaac, into awarding the first-born twin, Esau’s birthright to the second-born twin, Jacob. God had appeared to Isaac and told him not to go to Egypt to escape the famine, but to go to Gerar. Abimelech was king of the Philistines who dwelt in the land of Gerar. Isaac told Abimelech that Rebekah was his sister, (as Abraham, Isaac’s father, had claimed about Sarai, Isaac’s mother, years before.). King Abimelech found out beautiful Rebekah was Isaac’s wife. When he found out the truth about Rebekah and Isaac, King Abimelech warned his people, “Whoever touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death.” (Genesis 26:11). However, everywhere that Isaac was in Gerar, he dug again the wells Abraham had dug before, and gave them the same names. But the herdsmen of the Philistines said, “These are our wells; this is our water.” Isaac moved on, opening other wells; but the result was the same: contention. Until Isaac opened the well at Rehoboth, and there the Philistines did not come and take possession of that well. Rehoboth means, “For now, the Lord has made room for us, and we shall be fruitful in the land.”

My husband, the Rev. Grover Duffie Jones, was ordained to the gospel ministry at Choestoe Baptist Church, Blairsville, GA on July 9, 1951. After a “grueling” questioning by the Presbytery (Examining Board) of area Baptist ministers and deacons, he “passed the test” and was recommended for ordination, which proceeded immediately after the questioning period. My husband had also to preach his own “ordination” sermon, one he took from the passage of Scripture I’ve quoted above. As his beloved wife, I thought he did a remarkable presentation of the sermon, “Digging Again the Wells.” I won’t give the outline of his sermon here, but I will say that he was invited back to Choestoe Church on occasions of homecoming and special events to repeat the sermon he delivered on the day of his ordination to the gospel ministry. Fast forward to November 3, 1996, a day when Mrs. Dora Hunter Allison Spiva, noted (retired) high school mathematics and Latin teacher, and later a counselor, was being honored at a special “Aunt Dora Day: This is Your Life” at 2:00 p. m. However, at the morning service that day, Rev. Grover Jones was invited to give the sermon—the very one he had preached on his ordination day on July 9, 1951. Even though my dear husband had already been declared with dread Alzheimer’s then, he could still read and preach, if he had manuscript before him. And so, that glorious day, he preached “Digging Again the Wells.”

I wrote a poem, using the title of his sermon, and the idea from the Scripture at the beginning of this devotional, as a superscript to my poetic thoughts. I share that poem I wrote November 2, 1996 prior to the wonderful “Aunt Dora Hunter Spiva Day” at Choestoe Baptist Church. Aunt Dora (called “aunt” in respect by the congregation and many others) was actually my father’s first cousin through Dora’s mother, Martha Souther Hunter, and my Grandmother, Sarah Souther Dyer, sisters; and also first cousin to my mother, Azie Collins Dyer, through Aunt Dora’s father, James Hunter, sister to Azie’s mother, Georgianne Hunter Collins. Now, have I confused you completely on this double-cousin relationship? But they were all good, hard-working, honest Christian people, and Choestoe people’s church memberships were spread out to several Baptist Churches: some at Choestoe, some at Old Liberty, some at New Liberty (where my Souther great, great grandfather gave the land for building the church and forming the cemetery at a church now on Town Creek School Road), Old Union (called also Church Up on the Nottely River). Quite a spread of land, that district of Choestoe, where our ancestors came from Va, SC and NC before Union County was formed in 1832 while the Cherokee still fished along the Nottely River and lived in Choestoe, which the Indians named, meaning “The Place Where Rabbits Dance” in the Cherokee language. At the forced “Trail of Tears” exodus of the Cherokee in 1838, several of the Indians hid out in caves thus escaping the exodus. My ancestors befriended many of these and learned much of herbal medicine. For example, my own grandmother, Sarah Evaline Souther Dyer, was a noted herbalist doctor and the delivered hundreds of babies in the Choestoe District.

And here is my poem. It is a parody (written in the style and meter of) a poem entitled “The Bridge Builder” by Will Allen Dromgoole, and published in “Father: An Anthology of Verse (New York: E. P. Dutton), 1931. You may look up Dromgoole’s poem on “Google” to see how my pattern of verse follows his in his “The Bridge Builder.”

The Well Digger

(A parody on “The Bridge Builder,” a poem by Will Allen Dromgoole’s, 1931)

[Based on Scripture from Genesis 26:17-24, when Isaac digs again the wells dug first by Abraham]

An older person going a desert way

Came at the evening, cold and gray,

To an overgrown well, covered side to side,

With sand and debris piled at angles wide.

The aged one began with deliberate aim

To shovel debris and the well reclaim;

Working long hours at the arduous task

At last drew clear water and filled his flask.

“Old One,” said a thirsy pilgrim near,

“You are wasting your strength on this well, I fear.

Your thirsting will end as your life closes;

Don’t you know your work also soon reposes?

Soon you will drink your last from this well;

Why work so hard when it soon may refill?”

The well digger lifted his old gray head.

“Fellow Thirster, there are others seeking water,” he said.

“Seeking the Fountain of Life, and they cannot find it,

Because cares of this world so often hide it.

This well on life’s path I open for them,

With a prayer that a drink may point to Him

Who is Living Water. Taking Him, never thirst.

Drinking from Him, the blessings of Heaven burst.

That is why I labor, at the close of my day,

Pointing others to the Truth, to the Living Way.”

-Ethelene Dyer Jones

November 2, 1996

{Written, years later, to accompany my husband’s sermon, “Digging Again the Wells” based on Genesis 26:17-22. It was the sermon he preached on his day of ordination to the gospel ministry, July 9, 1951, at Choestoe Baptist Church, and several times subsequently during his 44 ½ years of ministry. But a special day, “The Aunt Dora Day” at Choestoe Church, Blairsville, was the occasion of his preaching the sermon again, to honor this gracious lady and my kinswoman and teacher in high school and in Sunday School at Choestoe Church, Mrs. Dora Hunter Allison Spiva. It is interesting, too, to note that the School of Education at Truett McConnell College (now University) at Cleveland, GA was named for Mrs. Spiva.) Grover Jones and I were charter students at that small Baptist School that opened its doors for students September 15, 1997. We graduated in the first (Truett McConnell Junior College) class in 1949. Through God’s grace and hard study, I was declared the valedictorian of that first class, 1949, and my address was “Making a Spiral Instead of a Circle.” Mrs. Dora Hunter Allison Spiva, my favorite high school teacher at Union County High, Blairsville (I a graduate, Class of 1947 from high school; valedictorian. Mrs. Dora inspired me to become a teacher, and I taught at Choestoe School in 1949-50. The school had dwindled from 2-teacher my 7 years there, to one teacher, and I was “it”! That year. Grover and I married December 29, 1949. And Mrs. Dora was there to congratulate us! Some autobiography! - Ethelene Dyer Jones 03.18.2018