12-12-25 - Hitting the Highway

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's reading from the Hebrew Bible is here.

We are on a journey in this life – that’s a truth, if trite. We are ever on the move away from or toward home. Isaiah, in his prophecy about the return of Israel’s exiles to their homeland, writes of a royal highway on which no one, not even a fool, can get lost:  "A highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Holy Way…no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray."

For a people separated from their homeland, these were words of deep promise and hope – "Say to those who are of a fearful heart, 'Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God.'"

In our world right now an unprecedented number of people are exiled from their homelands – over 122.6 million forcibly displaced, according to the World Bank. This may not be our literal experience, yet each of has some areas in which we feel far from what we want, or who we love, or from the kind of peace and wholeness we crave. That highway is there for us too – and it leads to healing.

"Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then the lame shall leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the speechless sing for joy."

In the season of Advent we are invited to get in touch with what it is we yearn for; what – or who – we are waiting for. What is that for you? How do you fill in the blank,  “When I have….,” or “When I am…, then I’ll be okay?” 

Where do you want to get that you are not already?

The Good News is that this highway is already accessible to us, to bring us closer to our own hearts, and to the heart of the God who awaits us at the end of every road we travel. It is a highway for those who have been redeemed, set free, by the love of Jesus Christ for humankind. And it sounds like a mighty fun road, with joy and laughter –

"And the redeemed of the LORD shall return,
and come to Zion with singing;
and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."

What we celebrate in this season, what we anticipate, is that day when sorrow and sighing are gone for good. Even now we glimpse that day in moments, in bursts – it is coming; it is here; it is ahead on that royal road, that highway to heaven, right here on earth.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

12-11-25 - Streams In the Desert

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's reading from the Hebrew bible is here.

For the rest of the week, I’d like to turn to the portion of Hebrew scripture appointed for Sunday – a beautiful prophecy of restoration and hope from Isaiah 35. It speaks of the day when the travails of the exiles are lifted and they travel once again to their homeland. In the poetry of the prophet, the land itself joins in celebration:

The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad,
the desert shall rejoice and blossom;
like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly,
and rejoice with joy and singing.

Deserts are fascinating places – often rich with plants and trees, vegetation that thrives under challenging conditions – wind, sun, drought. Some seasons in our lives are like that. Sometimes one area feels arid while others seem more productive. One fruit of spiritual growth is knowing we can thrive under conditions that are less than ideal as well as during times of plenty.

• What feels dry in your life at the moment?
• What pains you these days? What are you anxious about?
• What are you anxious about?
• What do you yearn for that feels far off?
• What are you thirsty for?

Name those things – lay them before the Lord in your prayer.

Much of what we do in prayer is become aware of what’s going on within us, so we can invite God’s Spirit into those places. Another name for God’s Spirit is the River of Life – coursing through us, splashing into the thirsty spaces, cleansing, healing, refreshing, renewing, carrying away all the debris that holds us back from really living the life God has given us to live. Here is a promise:

For waters shall break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water;
the haunt of jackals shall become a swamp,
the grass shall become reeds and rushes.

Whatever in your life has become dry or brittle can be renewed. Ask for water - as the Spirit comes, streams of living water will break forth in you.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

12-10-25 - Greater Than John?

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Advent introduces us to John the Baptist – who he was, why he was the way he was, what impact he had. Some people in his day thought he was the Messiah, or an incarnation of the prophet Elijah – until Herod imprisoned and later had him executed at the whim of his step-daughter. John truly was a holy man, and Jesus speaks of him as such: “Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist.”

And then he says something even more extraordinary: “…yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.”

What was that about mountains being brought low and valleys lifted up; the “mighty cast down from their thrones” and the lowly being exalted? Here is Jesus, articulating again that equalizing quality of the Realm of God – that equalizing which was so challenging to people in his own day, and has remained so in the thousands of years since.

To say that “the first will be last, and the last first,” that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to “little children,” that the least “important” member of the household of God is greater than a saint like John – that’s radical. That’s a challenge to those who feel themselves to be important, and it’s an invitation to those who do not.

Can you imagine yourself greater than a prophet like John the Baptist? Can you imagine yourself as valuable, as worthy of honor? Because Jesus says that is true – that those who consider themselves “in the kingdom of heaven” are that valuable, that worthy, that remarkable, that beloved.

My spiritual suggestion for today is to simply sit with that idea, of being that important in the realm of God. No one is more important than you. Try that on. How does it make you sit? Walk? Talk? Think?

Write down some of the reasons why you are so valuable in God’s eyes. We need to know that, to claim it, not so we can become big-headed, but so we can give God the glory. That’s what we’re here for – to glorify God in how we live and give.

Of course it’s not a popularity contest or a competition. My knowing myself to be that worthy doesn’t diminish the importance of John the Baptist – he’s the one who said, as Jesus’ ministry grew more public, “He must increase; I must decrease.”

I can just imagine the smile on John’s face growing bigger the more we recognize our worthiness in the eyes of God. I can imagine him looking at Jesus and nodding. “Okay, now we’re getting somewhere…”

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

12-9-25 - Holy Leaders

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

What do you think a holy man or woman should look like? What are the markers of "success" for spiritual leaders? This is what Jesus asks the crowds about how they viewed John the Baptist. "What did you go out there to the desert to look at? Were you just spiritual tourists gawking at the latest guru? Did you think you were going to see a smooth-talking, well-dressed leader, get a little charge, and leave your life unchanged?"

Advent is a good time to examine our spiritual motivations, what is it we truly yearn for, why we engage or disengage from spiritual community. It is easy to become disenchanted with church and clergy, to expect little so we’re not disappointed – or to expect too much. Today, let's do a little inventory. When we can name our expectations, we can better manage them.

• What are your expectations of your spiritual community?
• When you are disappointed or disaffected, what causes it? 
• Do you communicate that, distance yourself, or engage more? Nothing is worse than walking without talking. 
• What are your expectations of your spiritual leaders? 
• In what ways do they bless you? How do they disappoint?

As you name these truths, ask how you want to respond. One way, I hope, is by praying regularly for your community and your clergy - they are a part of you, and you of them.

In some ways, the role of spiritual leaders can be described in the words Jesus used about John, "This is the one about whom it is written, 'See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way before you.'"

Clergy can be messengers of God's Word, God's love, God's call and invitation. At our best, we help to prepare your spiritual way, and help you walk it, without blocking your path. The more clarity you have about how you want to grow in faith, the better your leaders can help prepare the way. And whatever that “way” looks like, it should lead to Jesus.

The more you grow Christ-ward, the more you can help your pastors walk the way of truth and grace – and then our congregations truly become spiritual communities.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

12-8-25 - What Did You See?

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Last week we met John the Baptist in his prime, the vigorous prophet at the Jordan, calling people to repentance, focused and forceful. What a long way from there to where we find him this week, years later, languishing in Herod’s dungeon for the crime of having condemned Herod’s marriage to his sister-in-law. Speaking truth to power can get you burned.

Herod likes having him there – we are told he enjoyed theological conversations with John – but John is not free. And captivity can weaken even the strongest of people. Here we glimpse John in despair, perhaps wondering if he got it wrong. Among the most poignant words in the Gospels are: When John heard in prison what the Messiah was doing, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another? That’s a question John asks for all of us at one time or another, when suddenly we’re not sure, when too much time has passed without a sign of God’s power at work, when our prayers don’t seem to have been answered, or the walls have fallen in somewhere. Many may be asking it these days. "Where are you, Jesus? You coming?"

Jesus’ response is to point not to himself, but to his works, to the fruit of his ministry: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them. And blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.”

When our faith dims and our hope weakens, we can remind ourselves of the goodness of God which we have tasted. We can remind each other of answered prayers and amazing “coincidences” that led to even more amazing outcomes. We can sharpen our awareness of divine activity around us. We can focus our vision to see the Spirit at work in other people – often easier than seeing God's hand in our own lives.

This week, keep watch: where are you catching glimpses of God-Life, of the Spirit’s power, of Jesus’ presence? Write them down. Remind yourself. Remind a friend.

We all have moments like John's, even without the suffering he endured. And we all know people asking that question. Jesus answers us as well: "Go and tell what you hear and see."

I pray you will hear and see amazing things today, this week, and that you get really good at telling. For God is still doing amazing things in and through and around us, and there are a lot of people in captivity waiting to hear that Good News.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

12-5-25 - Water and Fire

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

John the Baptist drew a lot of attention – ordinary people who wanted the spiritual experience he offered, and authorities investigating whether or not he was someone they should worry about. But he knew he was not the main attraction, only an advance man for a much bigger show:  "I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

Water and fire – two elements that cannot dwell together, except in a Christian. John’s baptism was a way for people to enact repentance, to experience the water of cleansing. But the fire that Jesus brings, John said, is another force altogether, one that will do more than warm us: “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."

Unquenchable fire does not sound good. I don't like fire, unless it’s on a candle, in a hearth or cooking something. The unquenchable fire is one image of eternal damnation.

But fire is also one of our symbols for the power of the Holy Spirit. Our life in Christ begins with water, the transforming water of baptism by which we are made one with Christ and members of God’s family. And then God’s life is released in us as we are baptized with the fire of the Holy Spirit. That’s where we get the power by which God works transformation through us. We need water and fire.

I once heard a story from someone who had visited Pentecostal Christians in Indonesia. He was at a prayer service that was about the most intense he’d ever witnessed. A woman was leading the prayer, and she was calling down the Spirit upon them, praying fervently, passionately, inviting God to make himself known in power, calling down Holy Spirit fire. This prayer went on for quite a while, and then suddenly the woman went quiet and a silence descended upon the group for three, four, five minutes.

And then the woman spoke: “Fire is now.” And they were all filled with heat, like they were burning, but it didn’t hurt. Manifestations of the Spirit began to be seen and heard, and many were healed. “Fire is now."

If we want to open ourselves to a deeper experience of God’s love and power, we don’t stop with water – we move on to fire. Are you willing to ask God for a greater filling of Holy Spirit? There may be parts of your life you don’t want to see scorched - can you offer God access anyway? Are they keeping you from expanding your capacity for God-life, or do they help you make a way?

Fire is now. What happens if we let it burn in us?

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

12-4-25 - When Love Comes To Town

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

John the Baptizer was scathing toward “good people” who wear their religion on their sleeves but leave their hearts and behaviors untouched. Where would he place us? Need we fear God's judgment? Our culture says so; even Santa Claus, the legend most associated with gift-giving, is depicted as being the most judgmental:
He’s making a list, he’s checking it twice / Gonna find out who’s naughty or nice / Santa Claus is coming to town.

“Good” people can do bad things; can “bad” people do good? Is there such thing as a good or a bad person? Jesus once said that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor a bad tree good fruit. Judgment seems based on the fruit our lives bear.

John the Baptizer was making his audience aware of that judgment… and he wasn’t gentle: “Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”

I give thanks for the promise that, as members of God’s household united with Christ, it is his deeds by which we will ultimately be judged (whew!). Yet Jesus also spoke of a judgment and a sorting. So let’s do another inventory today – let’s look at the fruit we bear, the outward evidence of our life, the good and not-so-good. (Get out the journal...)

• What is the fruit of your relationships? Name some.
• What is the fruit of your work life? Name some.
• Your recreational life? Your financial life?
• Your engagement in activities that help people in need?
• What is the fruit of your spiritual life – what are the outward manifestations of your faith and prayer?

Are you a healthy tree, emotionally, physically, spiritually? Is any pruning or fertilizing needed? How might you become more fruitful?

Whether we’re singing, “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” or “When the Man Comes Around,” a Johnny Cash song based on Revelation with strong Advent themes (and not a whole lot of grace), I thank God for the greatest gift – freedom from the ax and the fire. God is an arborist extraordinaire, who tends the trees we are and makes us trees of love. In fact, today let's give Bono and B.B. King the last word - they say it all in "When Love Comes to Town."

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

12-3-25 - Changed Lives

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

When we are seeking reconciliation with God or another person, “I’m sorry” is where we start; making it stick is much harder. I can imagine the sneer on John the Baptist’s face as he sees the professional religious folks coming to be baptized by him: But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit worthy of repentance.”

Translation: "Who warned you to get your act together? Stop resting on your laurels as 'keepers of the law,' as inheritors of the promises given to your ancestors. What changes are we going to see in your lives?"

What does, “Bear fruit worthy of repentance” mean? That it’s easy to say “I’m sorry,” and a lot harder to make the kinds of changes that render our “I’m sorry’s” unnecessary. John didn’t want people undergoing his baptism for show – he wanted them to take a serious look at themselves and recognize the ways and times in which their behavior or attitudes damaged other people. In our times this might be analogous to folks who recite land acknowledgements at the beginning of events, but never examine the ways our privileges and opportunities come at a cost to our first nations peoples, or what we might to do extend those privileges to those historically denied them.

The call to repent and amend our lives is ever before us. One way to meet it is to undertake an inventory of confession, to get below the surface to the more stubborn patterns of sinfulness that persist in us. Here is a simple one you might try – and write down your answers:

• When did I last hurt someone I love? What did I do or say? Why did that happen – what “hooked” me?
• When did I last hurt people who are culturally different from me? Why did that happen?
• When did I last hurt myself in some way? (Include food and self-criticism…) How did that come about? 
• When did I last hurt the creation around me in some way, nature, animals. Why did that happen?
• When did I last hurt God – by ignoring or avoiding or defying? What happened?

For each thing you list, offer your regret and think about what would have to change in you to avoid doing that again. What spiritual practices and messages do you need to build into your life to bear better fruit? Invite the Holy Spirit into each one of those areas and ask God to release more life and love in you.

When our repentance is genuine, we’re more inclined to move into fruitful patterns of being and relating. And as we bear the fruit of repentance, the people around us will be sweetened with God’s love.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

12-2-25 - Leveling the Road

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

John the Baptist was a profoundly counter-cultural figure out there in the desert, but something about his message commanded attention. Matthew tells us, "Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan...”

His message was simple: repent and get ready – something is up. God is on the move: John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near." This is the one of whom the prophet Isaiah spoke when he said, "The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: `Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.'"

Even in his day John was linked with Isaiah’s prediction that a prophet would arise out in the wilderness crying, “Prepare the way of the Lord.” That prophecy says, “Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Making space for the life of God breaking into our lives means building a highway for Christ to travel, a straight and level road in the desert of this world. This “leveling,” the valleys being lifted and mountains brought low, the rough and rugged ground becoming plains, is a metaphor which has economic, political, even emotional dimensions.

When we start looking for peaks and valleys, highs and lows, we can see them everywhere: in our environment, in toxic slag heaps and crater-filled mining areas; in our economy, in the income gap between rich and poor, widening at an alarming rate in our times – for individuals and for countries. We can find disparity in our own moods, as we become hostage to pressure and stress from without and within. There is an equalizing element to this spiritual work, as we make space for the life of God, the love of God, the justice of God.

As you survey the world and your own life, what hills might be brought low and what vacancies filled in? A simpler way to ask that might be:

• What do you have too much of in your life (think spiritually and emotionally as well as materially…)?
• What do you not have enough of? What feels empty in you that needs to be filled?

If we can answer those two questions, we have some prayer work laid out for the season of Advent, as we keep praying into those “too-much-es,” and “not-enoughs.” Why is the “too-much-ness” there? Has the deficiency always existed? Is there an external, justice dimension to our personal issues?

Christ has come, Christ is coming, Christ will come again. How might we make a level road for him to walk - into our world, into our hearts?

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

12-1-25 - The Holy Grinch

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

In our first full week of Advent, we invite a strange figure into our lives and imaginations – John the Baptizer. Every December, as twinkly lights appear in our neighborhoods and tinkly music fills our stores, we church folk are confronted by this stark, uncompromising messenger from God calling us to repent and renew our commitment to God: In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near..." Now John wore clothing of camel's hair with a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey.

John was a man completely committed to his mission, to “make ready a people prepared for the Lord,” the purpose an angel predicted to his bewildered father Zechariah (Luke 1:5-25). He stayed in desert places, eschewing all but the most rudimentary clothing, chewing on locusts and wild honey – a diet high in protein and low in fat, if a bit stark. Other Gospel references tell us that he had disciples, but he did not seem interested in building a following or winning popularity. His message was focused and harsh, confronting the materialism and corruption of his countrymen, and calling people back to reliance on God alone.

It can be hard to reconcile John’s message with our cultural preparations for Christmas. I once wrote a sermon drama imagining John the Baptist on the loose in a shopping mall, decking Santa and confronting carolers; it ended with him baptizing the mall cop in the fountain. Where do you imagine this single-minded messenger of God might turn up in your holiday preparations?

Today, we might call to mind the image we’re given, the wild man in skins calling to us, “Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand!” Imagine John on your street or in your office, or anywhere that comes to mind as you open your imagination in prayer. What do you hear him call to you? What do you say to him? Do you feel you have anything to repent of?

How does it feel to hear, “The Kingdom of God is at hand?” God's realm is right here. Is it now. Are there any changes you want to make in your life in the light of that reality?

John is strange company to keep for a month, but let's let him in – he is an important companion and antidote to the materialism and stress that rise around us in this season. We can take him along as we shop or decorate – he won’t sap the joy. Just the superficiality.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

1-28-25 - Time To Wake Up!

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

The First Sunday of Advent usually falls on Thanksgiving weekend in the U.S., and it's a rude awakening. Just as the triptofan-laden turkey feast is clearing our systems, here comes the word, “Wake up! Get ready!  “Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour."

We may not know what the hour is, but St. Paul knew the time: “You know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep.” Some of us might relate to the rest of Paul’s comments too: “…let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” I don’t know if family quarrels or scarfing leftover stuffing qualify as “gratifying the desires of the flesh,” but be warned!

In Sunday's Gospel, Jesus also talks about eating and drinking – amid dire warnings of destruction: “For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away; so too will be the coming of the Son of Man.”

These are not words of comfort. I have always had trouble seeing the good news in Christ's impending return, though the state of our world currently gives me glimpses of the appeal. Today, just for the heck of it, let’s reflect on what might be good about Christ coming back to ring down the curtain and roll up the sidewalks on this earthly life of ours. 

• Do you fear that, or anticipate it? 
• What would you not mind parting with? 
• What would you miss very much?

If contemplating the apocalypse is not your fancy today, here’s a more “here and now” question to ponder: 

• What in your life do you think you need to wake up to? 
• In what areas are you kind of snoozing, coasting, not really conscious, and you sense it’s time to become more aware and intentional? 
• How might you become more focused in those areas? 

One memorable Advent 5 o'clock service in Bethany, we placed alarm clocks all over set to go off at random times, just to reinforce the “wake up!” theme of the season. It was fun, as well as highly annoying.

For better or worse, life presents us plenty of alarm clocks, and we can rarely predict when they’ll buzz or clang. What’s waking you up lately? Don’t hit the snooze button…

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

1-27-25 - The Seedbed of Joy

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

This week’s Water Daily has been somewhat “US-centric,” focused on the Thanksgiving holiday which Americans celebrate today with family, friends and too much food. When I first started Water Daily, my readers were local; now we’re an international group. I thank the non-Americans among us for tolerating this focus, and hope some of the gleanings are useful. Gratitude is universal.

I once asked a wise man how to cultivate joy, because I perceived I was lacking in that department. He said, “The ground of joy is gratitude.” That made sense – and it gave me something to do, to cultivate gratitude and see what kind of joy grew from that, like a garden of wildflowers.

As followers of Christ, we are invited to give thanks in all circumstances – in plenty and in want, in health and in sickness, at peace or not, employed or not. That is my prayer for you, that you find it easy to be thankful today – and if it’s challenging, that you will encounter God in the practice.

If you miss somebody today,
    give thanks for them and their life in yours.
If you're annoyed with someone today -
    imagine missing them, and give thanks.
If you lack something today,
    give thanks for what is before you and ahead.

Give thanks in all circumstances.
There's a good chance God is giving thanks for you...

And to those celebrating: a very happy Thanksgiving Day. 

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

1-26-25 - Ready For the Guest

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

What if you were hosting a feast, but had no idea when the guests would arrive? “Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour.”

Back when I was planning alternative worship every week, I wrote a lot of sermon dramas. One of the most fun – and elaborate – was at Thanksgiving one year, called “The Martha Show.” It depicted a TV cooking show featuring a famous Martha. Not Martha of Westport, though the character shared many of her attributes. This was Martha of Bethany, whose dinner party for Jesus got her so stressed out she became royally ticked off at her sister for not helping. (Chiming any Thanksgiving family memories?)

And in the midst of prepping for her Thanksgiving show, an unexpected guest arrives early. Not what our Martha wanted. She wanted to make a beautiful dinner for Jesus, not with Jesus. And she wants her sister to help, damn it! But Mary recognizes that when this guest comes to dinner, you need to stop what you’re doing and receive the gifts he brings.

We can get so busy preparing for Thanksgiving that we barely appreciate the time with our loved ones when it arrives. Same thing, in a broader way, can happen during Advent. In a season meant to help us prepare to receive the gift of Christ in our lives, we can get so busy preparing we miss the fact that he’s already showed up. Jesus’ words to Martha in the gospel story are simple and pointed: “Martha, Martha, you are worried about many things. Only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the best part, and it will not be taken away from her.”

If you are happy and at peace today, hallelujah – spread some of that peace to someone stressed.

And if you’re worried and fretting about anything today, stop and imagine Jesus walking into whatever place you’re in, and saying, “Hey, hey, you are worried and fretting. You don’t need to. You have everything you need – I’m here.” Try that on, in prayer, in your imagination today. One of God’s promises is peace when we pray, and presence, and power.

Wherever you’re spending Thanksgiving this year, and whoever you’re spending it with, invite Jesus to the table. That’s what it means to say grace – to invoke his holy presence. See if it’s different being aware of him there.

And don’t forget to pass him the stuffing – they didn’t have that in Galilee back in the day…

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-25-25 - Holy Preppers

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

We have a name for people who take readiness so seriously that they devote time, space and resources to being ready for disaster. They want to be sure they and those they love can thrive when the rest of the planet is being obliterated. We call them “doomsday preppers” – or just “preppers.”

This Sunday’s gospel reading – and many of the readings we will hear during Advent – invite us to live ready: ready for the end of days, ready for judgment, ready for Christ to show up in our lives. But what kind of preparedness is Jesus asking of us? I suspect that the One who said we need to give up our lives in order to save them is not advocating preparation for survival so much as preparation for Life – the Life of God that comes to us now, the Life that will be, the Life that will never end.

That kind of preparation involves being prepared to give our stuff away, not to stockpile it; to work for the security of all, not just safety in our own bunkers; to live so that everyone around us can thrive. For the “end of days” happens daily in someone’s life, sometimes in the life of whole communities and nations. And judgment comes upon us, ready or not, as we suffer the consequences of our own actions, or someone else’s free will. And Christ shows up in our lives all the time, in so many ways, not just when he “comes in glory at the end of the ages.”

Being alert means being alive to where Jesus is showing up, to what God is doing around us, to how we are being invited to participate in God’s mission to bring wholeness to all of creation in Christ. Being ready means having space and time in our lives for God’s new thing, having the mental, emotional and spiritual capacity to take on God's mission when it finds us.

St. Peter writes that we are always to “be ready to give an account of the hope that is within you.” (Î Peter 3:15b) That’s the kind of prepper Jesus is inviting us to be, bearers of hope, no matter what.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-24-25 - Getting Ready

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Next Sunday we begin the holy season of Advent, advent meaning “the approaching” – the approaching in-breaking realm of God, the approaching celebration of Christ’s incarnation, the ever-approaching promised Second Coming of Christ in glory to usher in the New Age.

It can be challenging for Americans to engage Advent before Thanksgiving, that huge cultural celebration requiring preparation of its own. Forget about readiness to celebrate Christ’s incarnation – we have to get ready for the turkey! For many Americans, this is a week of blessing and stressing like few others. If we're hosting, we have the scramble to finish work, clean houses and buy food; if we're traveling, we have to pack and prep. In other words, this will be, for many, a stressful three days followed by, God-willing, a relaxing three days, after which we plunge into the holy season.

We tend to prepare for things we either dread or anticipate – and Thanksgiving can have elements of both. How might we find ways to bring the Holy Spirit into our preparations? I believe Jesus wants to indwell and transform our every-day lives, not only our formal worship experiences. This week provides opportunities to experience God’s presence amidst the bustle and company of others, if not in serene isolation.

So… if you’re working harder than usual to cram five days’ work into two or three, may I suggest you set an alarm every hour or two. When it goes off, take three minutes away from your tasks to breathe, re-center and tell God what it is you’re working on, and where you’d like some help.

If you’re shopping and cooking, you might make a game of talking to Jesus in the kitchen or the store and remember why you’re participating in this ritual of food and family.

If you’re traveling, you might need extra grace and extra peace – so pack some along as you get things ready for your suitcase, as you clean up your house and commit yourself to the road or skies. Ask the God of peace to fill you and make you an agent of peace in any stress or frenzy you may encounter in trying to get from A to B.

And if your big plan is to hit the Friday sales… ask yourself whether that deal is worth the time and angst it’s going to take. If you love it, go for it (and remember Small Business Saturday…)

Let’s move through this intense week as children of God, beloved and bounded in time and space, not trying to do more than we can or should. Gratitude flows from a balanced perspective on who we are, who we are not, and how we are gifted. We can make this week more blessed than stressed.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-21-25 - The Power In Weakness

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

What’s the good of a monarch who has no power? Sure, she or he might be effective as a symbol, or as a focus of resistance, but in stories, unlike in tabloids, kings have ultimate power. We claim God does too. So what kind of God allows his son to die a horrible death, in utter defeat? A God who knows that weakness can provide the best cover for strength, vulnerability the best ground for true power.

This theme runs all through the Bible – over and over we see God triumph through the younger, the weaker – Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David. Again and again God gives victory in battle to the smaller, weaker forces – if they will follow his instructions. Gideon overthrows Jericho with just a trumpet; David vanquishes Goliath with a mere slingshot. Keep your armor and your weapons – the battle belongs to the Lord.

This principle is most powerfully displayed in the life and ministry of Jesus Christ, who had no earthly power or resources beyond his God-given charisma and absolute authenticity, yet built a movement that has endured for over two millennia. The theme recurs in the church's birth, as the Book of Acts shows us a small band of apostles able to spread the Gospel and plant churches through a vast geographical area in the face of persecution and hardship. It is from this experience that St. Paul speaks the insight he received when God told him, “‘My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.”

This caused Paul to go on: “So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”

This has helped me when I've felt daunted by some challenge or defeated in some endeavor in which I hoped to prevail; eventually I remember, “Oh yeah! When I am weak, it makes room for God’s strength. And this needs to be God’s work.”

Let’s uphold this principle now, as climate calamities becoming ever more frequent and people continue to refuse to prioritize saving the earth for our grandchildren; as poverty persists in a world of plenty; as gun violence grows ever more rampant; as political fault lines continue to deepen. What on earth can we do in the face of challenges so massive? Remember, when we are weak, God is strong.

Can God’s strength be made perfect in our weakness, God’s love revealed in our vulnerability rather than our militancy? Can we stand up to injustice without calling everything a fight? What does reconciliation look like in this time? How are we to be "ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us?"

God has given us strength, as individuals and as communities. Yet we are never so powerful as when we lay down our own strength and make ourselves vessels for God’s power and might. That takes faith, so much faith.

But those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up with wings like eagles,
they shall run and not be weary, walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-20-25 - Whose King?

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Christ the King Sunday can generate some cognitive dissonance in Anglican churches. On the one hand, we do what you do around royalty: dress up, parade around and sing grand, triumphal music – hymns like “Crown him with many crowns” and “Hail to the Lord’s Anointed.” But the gospel reading clashes with the liturgy, showing us a Jesus who couldn’t seem less like a monarch. Here he is, powerless, dying the death of a common thief or militant. And no one there seems willing to claim him as their king.

“Who made you king of anything?” is the attitude of the leaders watching Jesus die. An inscription hangs over him, “This is the King of the Jews,” angering the religious leaders who assert, “He is not our king! We have no king but the emperor.” The soldiers supervising the execution mocked him, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" Pilate interrogated him about his kingship, and Jesus only gave him cryptic answers like, “My kingdom is not of this world.” No one knew what kind of king this could be.

And Jesus is still not that kind of king, though risen and ascended and seated in glory at the right hand of the Father. He still exerts power through the frail and humble flesh of the likes of us. He doesn’t fix elections or football games; doesn’t bring down the mighty from their thrones the way we’d like (at least until we notice what we're sitting on...). What he does is bless, empower, illumine, heal.

Do we think of Jesus as king? Is he king (boss, chief, higher power…) in your life? Let’s imagine for a moment we live in a feudal, monarchical system – how do you feel about Jesus being the highest authority in your life? Are there any places, or topics, or people over which you’re unwilling to cede power to God? Why?

If you are willing, have a conversation with Jesus about that. I do believe he will listen and not make a grab for what you have not offered. He’s an amazingly patient king that way…

And if you are willing to acknowledge Jesus as King in your life, where do you find the blessing in that?

King of kings and Lord of lords… and the Holy One who wants to meet you for breakfast. That’s our king.


© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-19-25 - Paradise When?

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Popular culture tells us that, at the moment of our death, we will “cross over” to our eternal dwelling, where we are welcomed by those we have loved in this world. Bible interpreters might take a more sober view, citing many prophetic texts about the “Day of the Lord.” “Day of the Lord.” And then there are Jesus’ own references to the great sorting at the final judgment, and Paul’s eloquent depiction of the sleeping dead rising “in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.” (I Cor. 15:52; No, it’s not the zombi-pocalypse... it's resurrection.)

This interpretation suggests that at death we go into rest like the “sleep mode” on our computers, to be reactivated when “the trumpet shall sound.” And here is Jesus, confusing us all with this promise to the repentant thief dying next to him on the cross: “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”

It is a bit surreal, this recorded conversation among three men dying a ghastly, torturous death:  One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, "Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!" But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong." Then he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."

Some years ago I heard Charlie Grady, who runs anti-violence initiatives in inner cities, speak. He spent 27 years in law enforcement, during which he arrested some pretty dangerous criminals. One evening he was in a restaurant, and saw two men he’d sent to jail come in. Soon enough they spotted him and clearly recognized him. He began to sweat. Then the waiter approached and said, “Those guys would like to buy your table a round of drinks.” He accepted, and then raised his glass to them. At that point they came over and said, “We know you were just doing your job. We were the ones doing wrong – it was your job to catch us and put us away. We know that now; we’re not the same people.”

That’s pretty much where this thief is. Hanging there next to a man he knows to be good and holy gives him a true perspective on himself. And when we see ourselves clearly, we start to see a lot of things more clearly. That is the beginning of repentance – clear vision. It’s not everyone else’s fault, even if some have contributed. It’s us. And when we speak from that truth, we create space for grace.

Even on the cross, Jesus is able to extend that grace to a fellow-sufferer. “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” At the end of this day, all three of them will be dead. They will no longer dwell in this world. In the face of that, in brutal pain, Jesus promises not only paradise, but his own presence. What a promise.

Do you have a confession to make, or one to hear? Has anyone been trying to get your attention and let you know they have had a change of heart, they truly are sorry – and maybe you haven’t been able to give them a chance to show it? A risk, yes, but your forgiveness is a big gift to grant or withhold. As recipients of grace, can we extend it?

One day we will be with Jesus in whatever realm it is that we call Paradise. Whether that is at the moment of death, or at some other time in a realm that is timeless, we will know we are with him. As Gillian Welch sings, “I will know my savior when I come to him by the mark where the nails have been.”

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-18-25 - Where's the Phone Booth?

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

One of my biggest challenges as a person who believes that Jesus is Lord is when people who struggle with faith actually pray and do not experience the outcome they so earnestly desire. Now, maybe this is because they only pray in the most extreme circumstances, when things are already quite dire – but we claim that nothing is impossible with God. So why, if Jesus is Lord, do things go so wrong?

And they cast lots to divide his clothing. The people stood by, watching Jesus on the cross; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah of God, his chosen one!" The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!"

Jesus got used to that mocking question, “If you are…” in his time of testing in the desert. Those three big temptations were prefaced with, “If you are the Son of God…” All through his public life, people questioned his heavenly identity because of his earthly markers – how could someone who came from Galilee be the Messiah? How could someone whose family we know be the Anointed One?

And here, on the cross, stripped of his humanity, even his clothing, Jesus looks nothing like the Anointed One. The onlookers mock him; his own followers ache for him to show himself at last, for his sake, and for theirs. "It’s time for the phone booth, Clark – we know you’re Superman. Show yourself!”* And Jesus does nothing. Nothing, that is, but forgive his executioners, pray to his heavenly Father, extend salvation to a thief dying with him. Nothing much.

I have mentioned Martin Luther’s notion of the Glorious Exchange, in which Christ takes on our threadbare beggars’ rags and gives us his royal robes to wear. Here is that moment. As his persecutors cast lots for his cloak, Jesus puts on our raggedness, our self-centeredness, our capacity for cruelty, and allows it to die with him. But no one can see that’s what’s going on. Paul wrote, “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation…” The problem is, even as image he is invisible. He just looks like a poor sap who shot for more than he could pull off and is paying the ultimate price.

Are there times when you’ve joined that chorus? “Come on Jesus, I believe in your almighty power to transform all things, to make us all whole. Now would be a great time to show yourself.” That prayer haunts much of our doubt and despair. Even so, we are invited to persist in praying, in believing, in claiming, in rejoicing.

Think of a really challenging situation you are faced with right now. Invite Jesus to show up in it and reveal power and life. Is it more impossible than what Jesus did on the cross? Sure, it looked like death had won. Took a few days to find out something much deeper had happened. It might take more than three days for us to see what God is up to in our prayers. And some things we will never understand in this life. That doesn’t mean Superman is gone or defeated. It’s just that, for some strange reason, God has chosen to make us the phone booths in which Clark becomes Superman. So, give the man some space - and look out.

*I don’t want to assume everyone knows the same cultural references. So in case you don’t know the story of Superman, he is the alter ego of a mild-mannered reporter named Clark Kent who, when called upon to go into Superman mode, goes into a phone booth (also an anachronistic reference – before everyone had their own phones, there were public phones available for use, often housed in little glass booths to afford privacy...) to change into his costume. Sigh – I feel old!

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-17-25 - Father, Forgive Them...

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Next Sunday we celebrate Christ as King before we re-set the church clock and go back to the beginning of the story in Advent. In Canada this Sunday is labeled “The Reign of Christ,” which is less male and monarchical. But whatever we call it, the readings appointed for this last Sunday in the Pentecost season always show Jesus at his most humble, as befits one who said his kingdom was not of this world. This week's gospel shows him humiliated and degraded, dying a brutal death on a cross. It is an image we associate with Holy Week, not the week before American Thanksgiving. Yet, as the bitter divisions in our world become ever deeper, it fits all too well.

When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”

In our conflicted times, we need to get into the forgiveness business seriously and often. It is not easy; it means forgiving people who may not be sorry or care about the damage they do. When we reach across barriers of difference, we will have to ask whether we are forgiving prematurely, and risk being seen as condoning the unacceptable. Forgiveness is costly.

Are people who sow violence and division covered by Jesus’ prayer, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do?” How on earth do we forgive willful cruelty? We start by drawing on the power of Christ available to us. It's hard to associate power with the image of a naked, beaten, helpless man nailed to a cross. Yet that is exactly what Christian belief invites us to do, to see beneath the outward image to the spiritual reality. And that reality Jesus demonstrated in a gesture of incomprehensible generosity: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."

He recognized that the Jewish leaders seeking his death and the Roman leaders carrying out the unjust sentence were so caught up in systems of human control, they couldn’t see the larger picture or their own complicity. Having the power to forgive the unforgivable will require us to step out of our human systems as well, even if our intent is to bring justice. How are we also complicit in degrading the "Other?"

Each gospel writer stresses in the story of Jesus’ crucifixion those elements he thinks matter most. Luke, champion of the poor and outcast, who so often highlights Jesus’ compassion, puts this act of forgiveness on the cross front and center. This is the kind of kingship we are to follow – forgiveness for the unforgivable, even at the point of death.

I don’t want to have to practice this, but this world keeps giving me opportunities. Maybe I’ll get better at it.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-14-25 - An End To Violence

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's reading from the Hebrew Bible is here.

The portion of Isaiah we’re looking at depicts different visions of peace and security. It goes beyond human life to show peace reigning in the natural world, with an image dubbed “The Peaceable Kingdom.” “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox…”

In this vision, predator-prey relationships are completely overturned; in fact, there are no predators. Carnivores have become vegetarians – a return to life in the Garden of Eden, in which plants and trees provided all the food that was needed, in which there was no killing to eat, no killing to settle scores. All that came outside the Garden, after the first man and woman were expelled. "They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain," says the LORD. No one will hurt. No one will be hurt.

Every time I'm on a highway, I pass the carcasses of deer and other animals slain by humans moving too quickly to get somewhere that seems more important than the world around them. It is an awful counter-narrative to Isaiah’s. Oh, I realize that in part deer are vulnerable because predator-prey relationships have been overturned in other, less positive ways in our world; as wolves and other predators have been decimated, their natural prey have to go further for food, wandering onto our roadways. And I know that the natural order can also be fierce and dangerous. But my spirit takes a hit whenever I see a dead animal. I immediately pray for its spirit to be running free with Jesus.

So this image is powerful for me. It proclaims: “The order we call natural has been undone and remade by God.” I want the lamb and the wolf to hang out together – I love wolves, I love lambs. I want the lion to like eating ox food, not oxen. And yes, I want people to stop slaughtering animals and one another. Call me hopelessly naïve. I find this vision compelling – even more so in this week when we mark Veterans or Remembrance Day, as we remember the sacrifice of so many men and women and families in the human way of conflict we call “natural.”

What we do as people of faith is to call into being what is not yet. In Romans 4:17, Paul refers to God as the one “who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist.” If it already exists in the mind of God, it already is; what we do when we pray is invite it to be made known in the here and now. So God puts out this vision in Isaiah of a restored creation with peace and security for every living creature – we add our faith to it, and it will be. Sooner or later…Transformation happens.

I want to add my faith to this beautiful vision. What visions do you want to call into being? Where are your prayers leading you today?

Earlier in Isaiah, the prophet sketches this vision also, with a different ending: “The lion shall lie down with the lamb… and a little child shall lead them.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-13-25 - New Heavens/New Earth

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's reading from the Hebrew Bible is here.

For the rest of this week we will focus on one of the readings from the Hebrew Bible set for Sunday, a beautiful prophecy in Isaiah, in which God announces: “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth.” This promise is timely.

Many Christians express their faith and hope in God’s justice by working to ensure equality for all members of our society – people of all colors, genders, levels of wealth, sexual orientations, countries of origin, religious traditions. They see this as is a way of harnessing the power of heaven, to participate with God in bringing about that new earth. Isaiah gives voice to this yearning for peace and security which should be the birthright of every man, woman and child – and animal – on this planet. He articulates beautifully the hope of a restored creation living in harmony: I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and delight in my people; no more shall the sound of weeping be heard in it, or the cry of distress. No more shall there be in it an infant that lives but a few days, or an old person who does not live out a lifetime...

I think of families grieving the death of elders or infants who did not have access to affordable healthcare; women and girls who see protection for women being stripped away and now feel less secure; people of color watching the resurgence of unabashed white supremacy, afraid for their children; men and women who have lost children and spouses, brothers and uncles to ever increasing levels of gun violence – the sound of weeping never quite dies away.

I think of the promise of security and work and rest depicted in this prophecy: They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat…

This is true peace, when each person can live in safety in her own home, bringing up his children to thrive in trust. This is the world God says he is bringing into being. This is the promise we are invited to participate in making real. And that work is still before us. Perhaps the challenge is greater now, but the work remains, and we do not do it alone.

• What do you long for when you think of God making new heavens and a new earth? 
• What aspect of life in this world do you feel called to help renew? 
• Where do you want to put your energies?

Start by praying about that area, and imagining yourself making a difference, in the power of the Spirit. What do you see yourself doing or saying? Keep inviting God into it. I know I will keep working and praying for peace on our streets and honor in the halls of power. “They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD.”

I believe in the power of love to transform and convert the most evil heart. I have to, despite evidence to the contrary. The evidence is not more powerful than the power and the promise of God. God is creating the new heavens and the new earth – and we are here at the beginning. Every day.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-12-25 - Faith On Trial

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

We are invited to live by faith, and not by sight. To live by faith means to believe in God’s goodness even though we can’t see around the next corner. Faith is what Jesus is getting at in this talk to his followers. He is preparing them for hard times to come, when the structures of their faith are torn away and they face persecution from both Jewish leaders and Roman occupiers for their belief in Christ.

"But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name.”

He says they will be betrayed by family and friends and handed over, and, “some of you will die.” But there’s an upside: this will give them a chance to testify. Then he says something strange: don’t prepare.

“So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.”

Defending our faith is something few of us will have to face. I have heard testimony from African clergy who have known bitter persecution and bombed churches and death threats. But most Christians I know are more likely to be mocked than persecuted for their faith. “Why do you bother with that?”

And what would you answer? What do you say when people ask why you believe in Christ? As the old saw goes, “If you were on trial for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” Name some of that evidence.

We may not have to stand up for our faith very often, but there are occasions when we are called to testify in other ways – to stand for justice, to speak truth to those who have the power to change things. Every person of faith is called upon to bear witness to the power of love in the face of division and hate-driven policies, perhaps violence and autocracy. I don’t know what those confrontations may look like, but I know we can pray for the filling of the Holy Spirit to be ready to stand for love and justice, humility and peace. We may not know what to say, but Jesus, who has promised to be with us through His Spirit, will be right there – and he can be pretty persuasive.

After all, it’s not our job to represent God, or even to make other people believe in God. It is only up to us to make the introductions, to speak of the love and truth we experience. The Spirit can do the rest.





© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-11-25 - ...and I Feel Fine

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

It’s going to be great, or it’s going to be horrendous. The promise of a hopeful future or the demise of all we hold dear. In our polarized times, these either/or views often dominate our reactions to the news of the day. Maybe now’s a good time for that REM song: It’s the end of the world as we know It… and I feel fine.

Truly? Can we ever feel fine about worlds ending, whether it’s The World, or pieces of ours? I don’t know about fine, but we can attain a spiritual quality of trust and disentanglement that allows us to meet all kinds of circumstances with serenity. We could use more serenity right about now.

Some of the shock in what Jesus said about the temple being destroyed as a sign of the end (he doesn’t actually say the end of the world…), is that the temple was so solid and so central to his followers' identity. How can something so vital and real become as nothing? Even our grandest buildings, even the institutions they represent, even the hopes and dreams of those who are invested in those institutions, are among the things of this world which are passing away.

And – shock of shocks – so are we. We believe we have a future beyond this world, but our time here is finite. (Here are some photographic reminders of how small we really are in the grand scheme.) When we truly integrate that knowledge into our being, when we truly see each day as a gift to be received in full, not only as a step along the way to another gift tomorrow, we begin to attain that serenity that allows us to meet the darkest times. This is that spiritual quality of apatheia that the desert monastics of the second and third centuries CE spoke about, that holy equanimity that we cultivate as we learn to let go of our agendas and receive God’s life and dreams for us.

Are there things or people or situations about which you find it impossible to feel peaceful? Could you invite God to give you peace even around these matters? What would that look like or feel like? Try to imagine it…

St. Ambrose of Milan, a wonderful fourth century bishop, had a beautiful image for this in one of his sermons on baptism. He says the newly baptized are to be like fish: “Imitate the fish,” he says. “It is in the sea and above the waves. It is in the sea and swims on the waters. On the sea the tempest rages, violent winds blow; but the fish swims on. It does not drown because it is used to swimming. In the same way, this world is the sea for you. It has various currents, huge waves, fierce storms. You too must be a fish, so that the waves of this world do not drown you.”

Even in the face of devastation and loss of all we hold dear, our faith invites us to proclaim the love of a God who weeps with those who weep, who strengthens those who work for recovery, who invites us to look beyond what we can see to a reality of love and restoration we can only dimly glimpse. In Christ, we truly are fine. No matter what. No matter when.

Swim, my friends. Swim into God’s peace, into God’s purpose, into God’s future for us - which will be, whatever our news feed shows us. And click that song link – that’ll give you some moments of joy!

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-10-25 - EOTWAWKI?

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Right in time for our weather and geo-political cataclysms, here comes our Gospel text for Sunday – and it's the end of the world. (You know you’re going to get an REM link at some point this week…) Each fall, as if to match the gathering gloom of shortening days, our lectionary begins to drag scary stories out of our ancestral closet. This echoes an earlier time, when Advent was more focused on prophetic doom and gloom than it is now.

This week's conversation starts casually, as some of Jesus’ followers are admiring the temple and its adornments. Jesus is blunt: "As for these things that you see, the days will come when not one stone will be left upon another; all will be thrown down."

Now, we readers know that in 70 CE the Romans did in fact destroy the temple. But this would have been a shocking pronouncement to Jesus’ companions. Imagine that prediction made about a beloved cathedral, or the U.S. Capitol – or the World Trade Center in the summer of 2001. It’s inconceivable, yet they want to know when will it be, and how will they know.

Jesus’ answer is cryptic: "Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, `I am he!' and, `The time is near!' Do not go after them.” He suggests that some will try to gain a following by issuing dire predictions about the end of the world. We’ve seen that in our era – remember when the world was going to end on May 21 some years ago?

Why do people fall for this? It is natural to fear what we cannot control, and it’s hard to get bigger in the “you cannot control this” department than the end of the world as we know it. The end of THE world becomes a stand-in for our anxiety about the ends of our worlds – which actually come with some frequency, with wars and famines and pandemics; infidelities and job losses; diagnoses and mega-storms and losses of all sorts. Much of the time, we survive.

What are you most afraid of losing? Can you name that fear, sit with it, invite Jesus to join you in your imagination? What might he do with it? How might you invite his perfect love to transform that fear into something you can use?

It is true that in some ways our worlds are always ending. But that’s not the whole story - new life is always being born as well, sometimes in the ashes of the old world. God is in the business of making all things new – can’t help himself. Our job is to be open to new life wherever we find it.

(I’m going to wait on REM, but here’s a link to a fun song by a duo I like, Goodnight Moonshine. The song is “End of the World Blues,” and you can find it about 15.55 minutes into this concert on YouTube.)

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-7-25 - Is There Marriage After Death?

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Some wags might ask if there is life after marriage, but I wonder if there’s marriage after death. Finding myself with little more to say about this week’s Gospel passage, I’ll take the opportunity it opens to offer my own views of what “heaven” is and what our life in God will be like, aware that no one actually knows.

I find myself with little more to say about this week’s Gospel passage. But it does give me an opportunity to offer my own views of what “heaven” is and what our life in God will be like, aware that no one actually knows.

The question the Sadducees pose to Jesus about the legalities of marriage in heaven Jesus easily refutes by reminding them that “those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.” This suggests that marriage will not be a feature of our heavenly lives – something the church affirms in its wedding liturgy, with vows that last only “until death do us part.” These are time-limited promises; I would assert that the relationships they protect are also in a sense time-limited.

But wait, you ask, what about all those greeting cards and funeral homilies and songs like “Far Side Banks of Jordan” about being greeted by our loved ones when we “cross over?” Aren’t we going to dash into the arms of our beloveds who have gone before? We might – or we might not, because if we believe that eternal life in God means we will dwell in the presence of pure love, we will have no more needs or wants, only joy. And if we have no needs or wants, we won’t love one person more than another – for all is love, and love is all. Maybe we’ll see the ones we’ve loved in this life, but I don’t think we’ll love them any more than the mail carriers or barristas we knew in this life. We will love, for we cannot but love, just as the God in whose image we are made cannot but love.

And we won’t need those promises, for we will love all. We will be awash in love, dwelling in the one eternal relationship we begin in this life, the one with Jesus our Lord; with God our source of being; with the Holy Spirit who carries us in love. There won’t be less love – but more for everyone.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-6-25 - God of the Living

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

For the rest of the week, let’s turn to the Gospel passage appointed for next Sunday (the usual pattern for Water Daily…). This is an odd snippet of narrative, one which I’m usually quite happy to skip in deference to the All Saints readings. But if there is gold to be mined in any passage of Scripture, let’s go prospecting.

Jesus is approached by members of the sect of the Sadducees, who Luke tells us did not believe there would be any kind of resurrection after death. Since Jesus often spoke about an after-life, they decide to quiz him: "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her."

Is this a first century logic puzzle or are they satirically pointing out the inanity of life after death? Or are they playing a game of “gotcha?” I cannot discern a theological question here. But Jesus responds on a logical level, asserting the reality of resurrection, citing references to the “God of Abraham, Isacc and Jacob” as proof that the ancients believed in life after death.

Then he goes further, asserting that the activities we engage in in this life are not necessarily what we will be concerned with in the next. Some things, like marriage, are a fact of life in this world, not in eternity (more on that tomorrow…) He reminds them that God “is God not of the dead, but of the living.” Preoccupation with what will be in the heavenly courts takes our attention away from the life God has given us here and now – which may be a preamble to eternal life, but is very much to be lived.

And, as God is concerned with the welfare of all those with whom we share this earthly life, that is where we are to put our attention. That means we focus on those with us now more than on those we have lost. It means churches spend more time and resources focused on ministry and mission than on caring for our buildings or cemeteries.

These are good questions for us to consider now, while we remain very much enmeshed in our lives in this world. By faith we claim that death is not the end for us, though physical death still awaits us. Knowing that life and more life await us, how might we live as though this life is not all there is, is not even a fraction of the rest of our future? Might we hold our worries more lightly, engage in love with more freedom? Might we take more risks and step out in faith more boldly?

We have a lifetime to figure this out, and then eternity to live it out in the fullness of love.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-5-25 - The Golden Rule

You can listen to this reflection here. The gospel reading for All Saints is here.

It doesn’t get much simpler than this: “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” That’s how Jesus ends the Beatitudes. Most of the world’s religions proclaim some version of this, sometimes in the negative, as in the Talmud, "What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary,” and sometimes amplified, as this from Islamic Sunnah, “No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself.”

The statements in other religions may well derive from this most basic teaching of Jesus, called “The Golden Rule.” It is a statement of the obvious, of clear benefit to us as well as others. A community that lives this way is far more likely to be harmonious, productive and prosperous. So why don’t we?

Human beings seem to be hard-wired to focus on self first. Call it evolutionary advantage, call it original sin, call it looking out for No 1, most people, when presented with a group photograph in which they appear, will first look at themselves. Most of us will share food and belongings and money after we’re sure we have enough. Our sense of self may extend as far as our immediate family and sometimes clan and friends, but it has limits. We simply don’t see “others” at the same level as we do ourselves. If observing 2-year-olds is any indication, altruism is learned behavior.

Our natural focus on self can blind us to the fact that doing unto others as we would have them do to us is to our greater advantage. We build alliances and friendships of mutual support. We help to create the surroundings we need to thrive. And when we do unto others what is hateful to us, we help to create surroundings that impede our thriving, that cause us to expend too much energy and resources on self-protection and security, on guarding our things and our loved ones, and on dealing with conflict.

Looking at what is most advantageous to us may have little to do with morality or ethics or making sacrifices – but if most people in a system are not living this way, then those who do are at a disadvantage. That’s where sacrifice comes in. Jesus was the prime example of that, and he was telling his followers what they were signing on for.

And he was pointing them to joy and grace. He was telling them how to access the Life that really is life. If we can develop the habit, in every interaction, of first asking that question, “How would I like to be treated in such a situation?” we will be filled with a lot of that Life. And when that Life gets out and about, the world is changed.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.

11-4-25 - Blessing Our Enemies

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.

Conflict saps our energy. Sustained conflict can drain our spirits dry. Many of us live with high levels of vitriol on our social media feeds and airwaves. Even those who have pared their lists of friends or followers to the like-minded cannot escape the chasms of division that grow ever deeper.

“But I say to you that listen, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. If anyone strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also; and from anyone who takes away your coat do not withhold even your shirt."

The Way that Jesus invited people to walk was, and is, unnatural for human beings. It is natural to protect yourself and those whom you love, to punish or retaliate when attacked, to hold on to your stuff and decide when and to whom you are going to give your shirt. Yet followers of Christ are called to the super-natural. We are asked to give beyond our natural capacity – and so to ever expand our capacity for giving until we have no more “mine,” just “yours, God.”

What happens when we love someone who hates us, who desires harm for us? We bless them, and thus bless ourselves. We make a space for love where there didn’t appear to be any. We trust that someone will be touched and transformed by that love – maybe the self-declared enemy, or an observer, or we ourselves, even as we risk injury or death in the physical realm.

What happens when we pray for someone who abuses us? This is painful ground, and it cannot be rushed. When we can come to that place, though, we make space for freedom – in our own spirits, in our interactions. We might even create space for perpetrators to come to repentance and healing even if we have no further relationship with them.

But are we really to let someone hit us twice? Are we not to defend ourselves? Of all Jesus’ hard sayings, perhaps this has been most often twisted against victims of violence. I do not believe Jesus is talking about relationships here; he is talking to peacemakers and protesters and makers of justice. If in those contexts we refuse to engage in violence, we model the peace we are proclaiming. We subvert the aggressors and strengthen others to stand against injustice.

And when we give our shirt to one who steals our coat, we proclaim our confidence in God’s provision, and we say to that one “You are worth more than my possessions. And you are better than this.” Will that person listen? That’s not up to us. Our call is to bear witness.

Can I live like this? I don’t know. I appreciate diving deeper into a text I rarely examine, to remember that God has given us more than we deserve and forgiven us more than we can ever comprehend. And I know that with God all things are possible, even living this Way of Love.

© Kate Heichler, 2025. To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Here are the bible readings for next Sunday. Water Daily is also a podcast – subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.