Christianity is about water. In her book, Traveling Mercies, Anne
Lamott writes
Christianity is about water. In her book, Traveling Mercies, Anne
Lamott writes
It's about baptism, for God's sake. It's about full immersion, about falling into something elemental and wet. Most of what we do in worldly life is geared toward our staying dry, looking good, not going under. But in baptism, in lakes and rain and tanks and fonts, you agree to do something a little sloppy because at the same time it's also holy, and absurd. It's about surrender, giving in to all those things we can't control; it's about willingness to let go of balance and decorum and get drenched. (Page 231).
I have gotten holy wet at three important times in my spiritual life and in between those times were daily sponge baths when the heavenly Mama encouraged me to clean behind my ears. These times were my sprinkling as a baby, my dunking in Dayspring Lake in my early twenties and my re-affirmation of baptism anointing service some eighteen years later.
Sprinkling
My baptism as a baby was largely my mother's idea. It was also her idea for me to have godparents and she chose Laura and Bill Shiflett whom she knew from a small group in the Church of the Saviour. I've seen pictures of myself in a white crocheted dress. I'm not a good judge of children's ages but I must have been near a year old. The way Mom tells it, when our minister Gordon Cosby was addressing the Church of the Saviour congregation about their responsibilities to raise me up as a Christian, I shifted around in her arms to look towards them. When he addressed Laura and Bill, I turned towards them. And when he sprinkled water on my head, I looked straight at him. Of course I was much too young to understand dying with Christ, and I think the water made me more wet than willingly committed to Christ. But it did serve as a sign of my parents' dedication to raise me as a child of God and it blessed me with the shepherding and mentoring of Bill and Laura, who proved to be faithful godparents over the years.
Dunking
My second baptism was an adult commitment at age 23. My faithful friend Martha who had befriended me through high school and college and who roomed with me after college was the one who pointed out to me the case for adult baptism in the New Testament. Raised Catholic, Martha had a conversion experience in her senior year of college and joined the Church of Christ. Martha told me that the word baptism means immersion. She showed me the stories of the baptisms of Jesus, of the Ethiopian eunuch, and of the jailer and his household. Martha hadn't read the Bible very much before her baptism but afterwards it came alive for her and she made it real to me as well. She also had a wonderful sense of humor. She once described our apartment dishwasher as a Pharisee because it washed the outside of the cup but left the inside filthy.
I approached Sonya Dyer and Fred Taylor, my pastors in the Seekers community of Church of the Saviour, about baptism. Because Church of the Saviour is an ecumenical church, there's a wide variety of teachings on some signs and sacraments like baptism. Sonya and Fred taught that baptism was a sign of dying to the old self and being reborn as a new person. At the same time I wanted to be baptized there was a young man named Skip who wanted to be baptized on his one year anniversary of sobriety from alcohol. He wanted to die to the old self who thought he had the power to stop drinking on his own. He wanted to be reborn as a powerless, vulnerable Christian able to stay sober one day at a time with the strength of God's Spirit. He also saw it as a way to rededicate himself as a husband and father.
So Skip and I were baptized in a lake at Dayspring, the church's retreat center. I held my nose. With Sonya on one side and Fred on the other, I went under the muddy water. For a moment I saw brown water. Then I came bursting back up lifted into the sunshine, sputtering. I was wearing white painters overalls and they were covered with mud. I think it's appropriate that I got sloppy and muddy -- it's a sign of how baptism is mysterious and messy and I still don't have all the answers. On the shore my clown buddies mimed planting a seed and bringing forth a blooming flower. I'm not sure, but I think it's possible the flower was a trick one that squirted me.
At the time of my baptism I was already in the early years of my struggle with schizophrenia, though I didn't yet have that diagnosis. I had already made several suicide attempts and had had a number of hospitalizations. I see suicide attempts as a serious sin and it was a sin I kept on sinning. Where was the death to sin? Where was the new life? I guess it's like that seed the clowns mimed planting, a seed that had to be watered and tended; later a seedling that had to be weeded and protected from birds and pests; some day to bear fruit, some day to be harvested.
Annointing
In summer 2001, with the help of pastors Mag and Bob Richer Smith, I celebrated six years of reprieve in hospitalizations and suicide attempts with a service of rebirth. My gathered friends anointed me with water symbolizing the waters of my baptism 18 years ago and my on-going commitment to Jesus. In my testimony I said, "I know it hurts God when I isolate myself and won't open up to the help I need. I think I sin against God when I try to stand alone, be my own person, listen to no one, obey no one, allow no one else inside me or beside me. I think I swallow the lies of the culture around me when I do that. I need God's help and my church community's help not to confuse being a responsible adult with being an isolated human being.
When my sin is isolation, God's grace is community. When my sin is giving up, God's grace is hope. When my sin is not taking responsibility for my health, God's grace is self-discipline. When my sin is feeling shame, God's grace is an ability to laugh at myself."
When the water was poured over my head and dripped down my neck, I giggled. I wasn't expecting to laugh. Mag and Bob say that often happens to people who are baptized. What a cleansing breath of the spirit that laughter was.
Margalea Warner writes from Coralville IA where she is part of a Mennonite congregation.
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