You can listen to this reflection here.
Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain, which we’ve explored this week, could be summed up this way: Don’t put your trust in prosperity or well-being or what people think of you. Your strength comes from God, your reward comes from God; keep your focus on God. As it happens, in one of our readings this Sunday the prophet Jeremiah is singing the same tune:
Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord.
They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream.
It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green;
in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit. *
Years ago I went on retreat, and in prayer I asked Jesus what he wanted for me or from me. This answer formed in my mind: “I want you to let me water your roots every day.” That’s in part where the name Water Daily came from. Roots that dry up cannot sustain vibrant life in the plant. We need to stay close to the water of life flowing from the throne of God, and send our roots into that stream to soak up its nutrients. (We also need to drink more water each day – even mood issues can stem from dehydration…)
I was very taken with Suzanne Simard’s memoir Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest. Her research has shown that “trees are a complex, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own.” This network “heals, feeds and sustains the other members of the forest.”
When I first heard of Simard’s book, and heard her interviewed (On Being), I thought, “This is what churches are meant to be: a powerful network that heals, feeds and sustains the other members of the forest.” The applications of her findings to human networks and particularly to the mission of Christ’s church are galvanizing.
Just imagine what a gift to our current climate we bring when we are “do not fear when heat comes,” when “our leaves stay green” (supple, vibrant), when we are not anxious no matter what is going on around us, no matter how many good reasons there are to be anxious. Just as hatred and anxiety can spread through communities, so can love and peace. We are to be conduits of God’s love and peace.
What is the best way you can think of to keep your spiritual roots watered? (I hope Water Daily is one of them!). Keep doing that, and you will not cease to bear fruit that transforms lives.
*I like this passage so much I set it to music – listen here.
© 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.
Showing posts with label resilience. Show all posts
Showing posts with label resilience. Show all posts
11-26-21 - Alert!
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here. Scroll down for news about an Advent "Spa for the Spirit" December 11.
Jesus certainly paints a frightening picture of the end times in the portion of Luke’s gospel we hear next Sunday. Perhaps his mood was colored by what was coming next for him – betrayal, arrest, trial, torture and execution, suffering the full range of human capacity for cruelty. But the apocalypse he foretells is one all of his followers would face. Whether that prophecy was realized in persecutions wrought by the Romans, or whether it is a cosmic cataclysm still to come, he urge them to stay alert and prayerful:
"Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
The end of the world has come many a time upon people and families and communities and nations. It comes in natural disasters and in man-made horrors like war and famine. Haitian, Sudanese and Syrian people have been enduring it for far too long, to name just a few. Is there a final “end” for which we are to be ready at all times?
The early Christians thought so. They took Jesus’ words at face value and thought his return would be imminent. This assumption led some to religious rigor, and others to licentiousness – if the world is going to end any minute, why bother with rules? As weeks turned to years and then to decades, Christians realized they needed to focus on living in the now, releasing the power and joy that are our inheritance as beloved of God. So Paul, writing to the church in Thessalonika (in a passage appointed for Sunday), says:
"May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints."
This is another way to prepare ourselves to “stand before the Son of Man” – to learn to love more wholly, to train our hearts in the ways of holiness, to practice repentance and forgiveness, and excel at showing love and hospitality when it is challenging to do so.
We don’t have to wait for the end of the world to stand before Jesus, though one day, we’re told, this present reality will end and we will face him as judge. If we turn our hearts toward that relationship in the here and now, the “then and later” will become something to anticipate, not to fear, no matter how traumatically it occurs.
Practice in your prayer today. Stand before Jesus and say, “Make me ready. Make me ready for your life in and around me.” I believe he will answer that prayer in amazing and wondrous ways.
Jesus certainly paints a frightening picture of the end times in the portion of Luke’s gospel we hear next Sunday. Perhaps his mood was colored by what was coming next for him – betrayal, arrest, trial, torture and execution, suffering the full range of human capacity for cruelty. But the apocalypse he foretells is one all of his followers would face. Whether that prophecy was realized in persecutions wrought by the Romans, or whether it is a cosmic cataclysm still to come, he urge them to stay alert and prayerful:
"Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
The end of the world has come many a time upon people and families and communities and nations. It comes in natural disasters and in man-made horrors like war and famine. Haitian, Sudanese and Syrian people have been enduring it for far too long, to name just a few. Is there a final “end” for which we are to be ready at all times?
The early Christians thought so. They took Jesus’ words at face value and thought his return would be imminent. This assumption led some to religious rigor, and others to licentiousness – if the world is going to end any minute, why bother with rules? As weeks turned to years and then to decades, Christians realized they needed to focus on living in the now, releasing the power and joy that are our inheritance as beloved of God. So Paul, writing to the church in Thessalonika (in a passage appointed for Sunday), says:
"May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints."
This is another way to prepare ourselves to “stand before the Son of Man” – to learn to love more wholly, to train our hearts in the ways of holiness, to practice repentance and forgiveness, and excel at showing love and hospitality when it is challenging to do so.
We don’t have to wait for the end of the world to stand before Jesus, though one day, we’re told, this present reality will end and we will face him as judge. If we turn our hearts toward that relationship in the here and now, the “then and later” will become something to anticipate, not to fear, no matter how traumatically it occurs.
Practice in your prayer today. Stand before Jesus and say, “Make me ready. Make me ready for your life in and around me.” I believe he will answer that prayer in amazing and wondrous ways.
To receive Water Daily by email each morning, subscribe here. Next Sunday’s readings are here. Water Daily is now a podcast! Subscribe to it here on Apple, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform.
Advent Spa for the Spirit - Saturday, December 11
Taking the Advent theme of awakening, we'll explore how we can wake to the still voice in our own spirits, to the lives of others, and to the Life of God all around us.
We'll gather on Zoom at 9 and be done around noon. You can register here - more information and the link will be sent. Please invite others who may like to come.
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