Baptism by Fire

Clark needs to be baptized. I know. I know.

Let me start off by saying that I’m not opposed to baptism. All my babies  - all of them – are blessed or baptized.  For Emily it was a ceremony of faith, a  mission of sorts that I fought my then-husband over. Infant baptism is important, I argued. It’s Lutheran. It’s faithful. I insisted. She was baptized.

John and Drew were both blessed by the hospital chaplain, their little bodies sprinkled with Holy water. It brought me some peace.

I think this is the part where I explain my faith as best I can. I’m not a person who looks at life and says, “Bad things have happened and I don’t believe in a God that would allow bad things to happen to me. “

My heart instead says: “Bad things have happened and I don’t believe God loves me.”

I am forsaken. I cannot forgive. I have lost my faith – not in the existence of God, but in the idea of his enduring love.

So brings about the problem: I believe in God. I believe in baptism. I believe that it’s important. I am forsaken.

So the decision was one of compromise. My husband’s very Catholic parents, in acknowledgement of my status as a non-Catholic and the reality that Clark can’t be baptized in their church, decided that any old baptism would do.

Get it done.

So we’re having a casual baptism on a riverbank, near the covered bridge where my husband and I were married. Fifteen minutes of religion and water and then three hours of wine and paired foods chosen by me and shared with just about anyone who wants to stop by and sip and talk and laugh.

My brother-in-law gets to be a godfather, my son gets to be baptized, and I don’t have to walk into a church and feel like a fraud.

Let’s do this.