Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened . . .  Luke 3:21.

Until she was 19 months old, Helen Keller was like any child. She could see and hear. She learned to speak: words like tea and water. Then an illness left her blind and deaf, and she began to forget. One by one, the words slipped away into the dark silence that engulfed her, until just one was left, broken and mangled into two guttural syllables: wa-wa.

In The Story of My Life, Helen wrote: “We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Some one was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten–a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that “w-a-t-e-r” meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free!”

Water. It was the last word Helen remembered, and the one that set her free. A mere thread of a word: tether to the lost past and lifeline to a future where language would open to her like heaven, saving her from a life of crushing isolation and confusion.

For us, too, water becomes a strand of memory: the spider silk of baptism, dew-studded and stretching between us, warp and woof that knits us together, one Body. In remembering Jesus’ baptism, we remember who we were before the dark silence. We remember who we are becoming. Our baptismal vows remind us of our unity and how we are to live this new life with one another.

Epiphany is a time of recognition–of recognizing Jesus’ true identity as well as our own. Like Helen, water rushing over her palm, we may find it takes a certain fixed attention–a kind of eager surrender–for Mystery to be revealed. Eyes open in the darkness, ears straining through emptiness, may our souls awaken to the living Word.