Liminal Living

  Follow the Drinking Gourd: A Map Encoded in Song Tom opens with his love of astronomy and the Big Dipper, tracing it to the African American folk song "Follow the Drinking Gourd" — a secret map taught to enslaved people escaping north on the Underground Railroad. The stars, the rivers, and the mysterious guide Peg Leg Joe become an extended metaphor for the kind of liberation the Woman at the Well is seeking. Setting the Scene: Why Jesus "Had To" Go Through Samaria By the time Jesus heads north in John 4, he's already overturned the temple economy and rattled religious authorities. Tom unpacks why most Jewish travelers avoided Samaria entirely — doubling a three-day journey to seven — and why the text's insistence that Jesus had to go through Samaria signals something theologically deliberate, not logistically necessary. 700 Years of Animosity: The Jew-Samaritan Divide Tom traces the deep historical roots of Jewish-Samaritan hostility — from the fall of the Northern Kingdom in 722 BC, through Assyrian reset