The well as a metaphor for life; the encounter with another person as a challenge, but also as an opportunity for growth: these are some of the stimulating reflections that Barsotti, with his engaging language, draws from the episode of the Samaritan woman narrated in St John’s Gospel.Constantly comparing the pages of the Gospel to everyday life, the author throws a new and original light not only on themes which concern the encounter of man with God, such as faith, conversion and eternal life, but also on existential aspects: the discovery of another person, the roles of man and woman, the sense of life as a moment of transition, summarized in an exemplary way in the title of one of the chapters: “We reap what we have not sown, we sow what we shall not reap”.