You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Anyone remember New Years Eve, 1999? All the hype and fear surrounding the world’s passage into the year 2000 – you’d think we’d never entered a new millennium before. Well, of course, none of us had – nor had the world run on computer systems no one was sure would adapt to dates beginning with “2.” How many of us stocked extra water and flashlight batteries that week? And then went out and partied like it was 1999 – because, really, what else are you going to do? Things will work out, or not. Pop the corks and strike up the band.
We sure do like to know what’s going to happen next year, next day, next hour. And every once in a while something comes along to remind us how little control we really have over our circumstances. Maybe King Herod had such a moment in our story, hearing from foreign dignitaries of celestial indications that a king had been born for the Jewish people. In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.” When King Herod heard this, he was frightened, and all Jerusalem with him; and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired where the Messiah was to be born.
“But wait,” he might have thought, “I am the king of the Jews. Sure, I’m corrupt and despotic and completely at the mercy of my Roman overlords – but I AM the king… aren’t I?”
Herod’s unease was profound enough to infect his entire community – anxiety has a way of spreading into the systems in which we operate. And most of us, when we fear our well-being is threatened, will go into control mode: we will seek information and amass expertise and plan strategies, all to gain a sense of mastery over a situation we really can’t control. Herod gathered all the religious leaders and prophetic types and asked them to speak the unknowable, that which God had not yet revealed.
As we say goodbye to the year just past, a year of trauma and anxiety, gains and losses, achievements and challenges, death and life, what raises the most anxiety in you? What do you want to know that you cannot yet know, because the time for that has not yet come? A good New Years Day exercise might be to name those things and invite Jesus to sift them with you. Light a candle, and make a list.
And what are some changes you would embrace? How might you like to see your circumstances improved? It’s good to pray into those desires, inviting God to put flesh on your hopes and dreams as they align with God’s dreams for you.
The best prayer of all is this: What dreams is God inviting you to put flesh on today? And in this new year to come?
© 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.
12-31-24 - On the Threshold of Grace
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Here we are - for a moment. The wheels of time are about to spin us into a new year. A new journey unfolds, new destinations, new challenges, new blessings. As we rest on this threshold, we might adopt the outlook of those magi who traveled so far to see this king their study of the stars indicated had been born:
Here we are - for a moment. The wheels of time are about to spin us into a new year. A new journey unfolds, new destinations, new challenges, new blessings. As we rest on this threshold, we might adopt the outlook of those magi who traveled so far to see this king their study of the stars indicated had been born:
When they had heard the king, they set out; and there, ahead of them, went the star that they had seen at its rising, until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage. Then, opening their treasure chests, they offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road.
Like the magi, we’ve heard of Jesus. We’ve even met him. But we don’t begin to know him. So this year let’s follow whatever stars we discern can lead us to a deeper acquaintance, even intimacy, with him. What might that look like in your life?
And when we arrive at those moments of connection and knowing, let’s allow ourselves to be overwhelmed with joy.
And let’s frequently enter the house where we know him to hang out, and offer our devotion, kneeling because that’s what you do when you’re overcome with gratitude and awe.
And let’s open our hearts and wallets, giving fully of ourselves to this One who’s given everything for us.
And when we return to our ordinary lives – for these moments of grace-filled connection don’t last forever; our lives are a string that connects these pearls into a beautiful strand – let’s go back by another route. Not because we are afraid, but because God is always leading us forward into new gifts, new blessings, new landscapes and vistas, new uses for our gifts, and new companions on the way. Where will the road lead you this year?
Wishing you every blessing as the New Year unwraps its gifts for you!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
Like the magi, we’ve heard of Jesus. We’ve even met him. But we don’t begin to know him. So this year let’s follow whatever stars we discern can lead us to a deeper acquaintance, even intimacy, with him. What might that look like in your life?
And when we arrive at those moments of connection and knowing, let’s allow ourselves to be overwhelmed with joy.
And let’s frequently enter the house where we know him to hang out, and offer our devotion, kneeling because that’s what you do when you’re overcome with gratitude and awe.
And let’s open our hearts and wallets, giving fully of ourselves to this One who’s given everything for us.
And when we return to our ordinary lives – for these moments of grace-filled connection don’t last forever; our lives are a string that connects these pearls into a beautiful strand – let’s go back by another route. Not because we are afraid, but because God is always leading us forward into new gifts, new blessings, new landscapes and vistas, new uses for our gifts, and new companions on the way. Where will the road lead you this year?
Wishing you every blessing as the New Year unwraps its gifts for you!
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
12-30-24 - Star-Chasers
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
They knew their stars, these wise men, magi of scripture and legend, astrologers or astronomers from east of Judea (how far east? Everything’s relative…). They knew they had observed a new star in the night sky, and they knew how to interpret what they saw. According to their calculations, this one indicated a new king for the Jewish people – and this discernment induced them to leave home, undertake a lengthy journey of uncertain destination, find this new monarch and offer honor. Were they cultivating an alliance with a powerful new figure, or simply paying their respects?
They knew their stars, these wise men, magi of scripture and legend, astrologers or astronomers from east of Judea (how far east? Everything’s relative…). They knew they had observed a new star in the night sky, and they knew how to interpret what they saw. According to their calculations, this one indicated a new king for the Jewish people – and this discernment induced them to leave home, undertake a lengthy journey of uncertain destination, find this new monarch and offer honor. Were they cultivating an alliance with a powerful new figure, or simply paying their respects?
In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, “Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.”
Their predictions got them to the right region, if not the precise location where this new king could be found. And so, logically, they began their search in Jerusalem at the court of the current king, Herod. Bad idea – but that’s how great stories come about. More on that later in the week…
Today, let’s rest with these travelers. I am touched by their priorities, their attention to the movement of the heavens, their conviction that they’d read the stars correctly, their willingness to put aside their daily lives and duties to travel to a foreign land and pay homage to a monarch they’d only learned about through astrological charts and observation. They are models for us of faith in action, even amid our global crises that just keep coming.
Is there a star you are chasing? Another way to ask that is:
Have you discerned a movement of God in your life or in the world around you?
Has it included a call to action for you?
Have you explored this with wise people in your life?
Have you been able to act on your discernment?
Have you been part of someone else’s discernment, been a “wise one” for another?
What divine action do you sense around you at this point in your life, on the cusp of a new year? This is often a time when we pay special attention to new movements in the greater arc of our lives, as the magi scanned the heavens for changes in the stars.
We have an advantage over those eastern sages – we already know the king they were seeking, or at the very least, we’ve been introduced. We don’t need to scan the heavens – we need only seek the light of Christ in and around us, and move toward that. That Star will give us all the direction we need.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
Their predictions got them to the right region, if not the precise location where this new king could be found. And so, logically, they began their search in Jerusalem at the court of the current king, Herod. Bad idea – but that’s how great stories come about. More on that later in the week…
Today, let’s rest with these travelers. I am touched by their priorities, their attention to the movement of the heavens, their conviction that they’d read the stars correctly, their willingness to put aside their daily lives and duties to travel to a foreign land and pay homage to a monarch they’d only learned about through astrological charts and observation. They are models for us of faith in action, even amid our global crises that just keep coming.
Is there a star you are chasing? Another way to ask that is:
Have you discerned a movement of God in your life or in the world around you?
Has it included a call to action for you?
Have you explored this with wise people in your life?
Have you been able to act on your discernment?
Have you been part of someone else’s discernment, been a “wise one” for another?
What divine action do you sense around you at this point in your life, on the cusp of a new year? This is often a time when we pay special attention to new movements in the greater arc of our lives, as the magi scanned the heavens for changes in the stars.
We have an advantage over those eastern sages – we already know the king they were seeking, or at the very least, we’ve been introduced. We don’t need to scan the heavens – we need only seek the light of Christ in and around us, and move toward that. That Star will give us all the direction we need.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
12-27-24 - Witness To the Light
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
Many people are busy bearing witness to darkness, often in destructive ways, seeming to delight in pointing out just how awful this situation or that person is. And there are many who bear witness to pain and injustice and oppression, which is important to remedying such conditions. Often that is part of our calling as followers of Christ. But not without the even more important calling: to bear witness to the light. That was the vocation of John the Baptist, a holy man who came to bear witness to the coming light: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
The world badly needs more of us to testify to the light – the light that came into the world in the embodied Christ, and is ever coming in through his Body now, his Church.
Where do you find yourself called to testify to the light, to proclaim in the face of poverty or evil, illness or lies the triumph of God’s light – even if things still look pretty dark? If we want to be effective at offering that counter-testimony to so much of what passes for truth in our world, we have to be aware of where we experience the light of Christ, what darkness we have seen enlightened by the presence and love of God.
Today the light will last a little longer than yesterday now that we’re past the winter solstice; tomorrow, a little longer still. As Christ followers we are always living on this side of the longest night, as we participate in bringing more light each day than the last. In the midst of enjoying the twelve days of Christmas, take a little time to reflect on where the light of Christ is most visible to you. And then find someone and bear witness to that hope.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
Many people are busy bearing witness to darkness, often in destructive ways, seeming to delight in pointing out just how awful this situation or that person is. And there are many who bear witness to pain and injustice and oppression, which is important to remedying such conditions. Often that is part of our calling as followers of Christ. But not without the even more important calling: to bear witness to the light. That was the vocation of John the Baptist, a holy man who came to bear witness to the coming light: There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.
The world badly needs more of us to testify to the light – the light that came into the world in the embodied Christ, and is ever coming in through his Body now, his Church.
Where do you find yourself called to testify to the light, to proclaim in the face of poverty or evil, illness or lies the triumph of God’s light – even if things still look pretty dark? If we want to be effective at offering that counter-testimony to so much of what passes for truth in our world, we have to be aware of where we experience the light of Christ, what darkness we have seen enlightened by the presence and love of God.
Today the light will last a little longer than yesterday now that we’re past the winter solstice; tomorrow, a little longer still. As Christ followers we are always living on this side of the longest night, as we participate in bringing more light each day than the last. In the midst of enjoying the twelve days of Christmas, take a little time to reflect on where the light of Christ is most visible to you. And then find someone and bear witness to that hope.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
12-26-24 - Life and Light
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
In this week's gospel passage we read about life and light, light overcoming darkness. And last Saturday we marked the longest night of the year. We’ve experienced increasing darkness all through Advent –not only with the shortening of days. Now comes the promise that light will prevail: What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
I once had a very vivid dream. I was driving a car in a strange city, my parents in the back seat. In this city, all the hospitality businesses – hotels, restaurants, bars – were in one part of town, and we were looking for a particular hotel driveway. But there were no lights. Nothing. No car lights, no street lights, no lights in windows, nothing. Pitch black. We were hurtling through the dark, looking for this driveway, with no way to see. It was very scary.
And then someone in the back said, “Have you tried the infra-red lights?” And I flicked a switch on the dashboard, and boom! All the lights sprang out. Street lights, lights from cars, lights in windows. They’d all been there, but we couldn’t see them without the infra-red lights.
It seemed to me the next morning that this had been a God dream – but I wasn’t sure what it meant, until a few years later I learned how infra-red works, which I had not known when I had the dream. Infra-red vision works by detecting heat; it sees where life is, and that shows up as light. Life is light. “In Him was life, and that life was the light of humankind.” I gradually realized that this dream was about seeing with the eyes of faith, seeing what is already fully here but not visible without faith vision.
The life of God is here already, full, vibrant, but we need faith vision to see it. In Christ, we have been given that vision, to see the life that is coming, to see the life that is. As we become able to focus on this future that is already here, we can anticipate with hope, expecting blessing. We are able to believe that healing can come in the starkest of situations, conversion in the darkest of hearts.
And we come to see that what looks like complete darkness is in fact a beautiful night in a wonderful city – we might even say a city of blinding lights – lit by the Light of the World.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
In this week's gospel passage we read about life and light, light overcoming darkness. And last Saturday we marked the longest night of the year. We’ve experienced increasing darkness all through Advent –not only with the shortening of days. Now comes the promise that light will prevail: What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
I once had a very vivid dream. I was driving a car in a strange city, my parents in the back seat. In this city, all the hospitality businesses – hotels, restaurants, bars – were in one part of town, and we were looking for a particular hotel driveway. But there were no lights. Nothing. No car lights, no street lights, no lights in windows, nothing. Pitch black. We were hurtling through the dark, looking for this driveway, with no way to see. It was very scary.
And then someone in the back said, “Have you tried the infra-red lights?” And I flicked a switch on the dashboard, and boom! All the lights sprang out. Street lights, lights from cars, lights in windows. They’d all been there, but we couldn’t see them without the infra-red lights.
It seemed to me the next morning that this had been a God dream – but I wasn’t sure what it meant, until a few years later I learned how infra-red works, which I had not known when I had the dream. Infra-red vision works by detecting heat; it sees where life is, and that shows up as light. Life is light. “In Him was life, and that life was the light of humankind.” I gradually realized that this dream was about seeing with the eyes of faith, seeing what is already fully here but not visible without faith vision.
The life of God is here already, full, vibrant, but we need faith vision to see it. In Christ, we have been given that vision, to see the life that is coming, to see the life that is. As we become able to focus on this future that is already here, we can anticipate with hope, expecting blessing. We are able to believe that healing can come in the starkest of situations, conversion in the darkest of hearts.
And we come to see that what looks like complete darkness is in fact a beautiful night in a wonderful city – we might even say a city of blinding lights – lit by the Light of the World.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
12-25-24 - Use Your Words
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
“Use your words.” I never thought to compare the God who rules the universe with a pre-verbal toddler, struggling to make herself understood, but that’s what comes to mind as I think about the holy mystery at the heart of Christmas: And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth…
Why was the Incarnation of God’s Son necessary? In part, because of a communications breakdown. Because humankind could not understand the language in which God was communicating. We could not understand who God was. God had to use his Word – and give that Word flesh, and send that Word to “pitch tent” among us and sojourn with us for a time, so that he could make God known to us. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
Jesus himself is worthy of our interest and attention and devotion. But we miss more than half the point if we forget that all that love and power and mercy and holiness and desire for justice was revealing to us who God is. In demonstrating how things work in the realm of God, the Life of God, Jesus was showing us God, making God known.
Today we celebrate God made known in the most vulnerable of states – and yet powerful enough to command the attendance of kings and angels. And, I hope, compelling enough to command our attention and love, on this day when we celebrate his wondrous birth. Christmas has just begun.
A blessed Feast of the Incarnation to you. God has used his Word to make God’s love known. I pray that today, and every day, we will use our words to make God’s love known to one another.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
“Use your words.” I never thought to compare the God who rules the universe with a pre-verbal toddler, struggling to make herself understood, but that’s what comes to mind as I think about the holy mystery at the heart of Christmas: And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth…
Why was the Incarnation of God’s Son necessary? In part, because of a communications breakdown. Because humankind could not understand the language in which God was communicating. We could not understand who God was. God had to use his Word – and give that Word flesh, and send that Word to “pitch tent” among us and sojourn with us for a time, so that he could make God known to us. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.
Jesus himself is worthy of our interest and attention and devotion. But we miss more than half the point if we forget that all that love and power and mercy and holiness and desire for justice was revealing to us who God is. In demonstrating how things work in the realm of God, the Life of God, Jesus was showing us God, making God known.
Today we celebrate God made known in the most vulnerable of states – and yet powerful enough to command the attendance of kings and angels. And, I hope, compelling enough to command our attention and love, on this day when we celebrate his wondrous birth. Christmas has just begun.
A blessed Feast of the Incarnation to you. God has used his Word to make God’s love known. I pray that today, and every day, we will use our words to make God’s love known to one another.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
12-24-24 - Made Children of God
You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here.
People often say that Christmas is for children. It may be more accurate to say that it is a holiday best enjoyed by those whose capacity for wonder and enchantment is untarnished, who still believe in what cannot be seen, who love the anticipation of wrapped gifts and visiting family.
I confess my capacity for wonder is a little tarnished these days, given the state of the world. So what good news it is to hear that I have received power to become a child again!
People often say that Christmas is for children. It may be more accurate to say that it is a holiday best enjoyed by those whose capacity for wonder and enchantment is untarnished, who still believe in what cannot be seen, who love the anticipation of wrapped gifts and visiting family.
I confess my capacity for wonder is a little tarnished these days, given the state of the world. So what good news it is to hear that I have received power to become a child again!
He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.
Not everyone accepts the Light of the World; some have grown too accustomed to the familiarity of shadows. Not everyone wants light shined in dark places. And by our own strength, we cannot always turn ourselves toward the Light. The way John puts it is that Jesus gives us power to become children of God. We become God’s children not by virtue of lineage or procreation or our own will, but by the power of God which comes from outside us and takes root inside us.
How do we claim – or reclaim – our identity as children of God? How might that reawaken our sense of wonder and delight? Remember, children do not generally feel responsible for everything the way adults tend to. Can we remind each other that we’re not actually in charge of making Christmas, or the world, right for everyone?
And children don’t generally let life’s disappointments diminish their ability to expect good things. Remember when there was one gift you were so hoping would be there under the tree? What would that be for you now? Let yourself hope.
Tonight is a time for wonder – a church filled with worshippers, beautiful carols we love to sing, poinsettias and greens and gold ribbon everywhere we look. And that moment when we dim the lights and light our candles and sing Silent Night and the world seems to stop for a few moments. Maybe that will help us rediscover the joy of being claimed as beloved by the God who is Love, and let our “inner children of God” come out and play.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
Not everyone accepts the Light of the World; some have grown too accustomed to the familiarity of shadows. Not everyone wants light shined in dark places. And by our own strength, we cannot always turn ourselves toward the Light. The way John puts it is that Jesus gives us power to become children of God. We become God’s children not by virtue of lineage or procreation or our own will, but by the power of God which comes from outside us and takes root inside us.
How do we claim – or reclaim – our identity as children of God? How might that reawaken our sense of wonder and delight? Remember, children do not generally feel responsible for everything the way adults tend to. Can we remind each other that we’re not actually in charge of making Christmas, or the world, right for everyone?
And children don’t generally let life’s disappointments diminish their ability to expect good things. Remember when there was one gift you were so hoping would be there under the tree? What would that be for you now? Let yourself hope.
Tonight is a time for wonder – a church filled with worshippers, beautiful carols we love to sing, poinsettias and greens and gold ribbon everywhere we look. And that moment when we dim the lights and light our candles and sing Silent Night and the world seems to stop for a few moments. Maybe that will help us rediscover the joy of being claimed as beloved by the God who is Love, and let our “inner children of God” come out and play.
© Kate Heichler, 2024. 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.
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