An Angel

My three-month-old, radiant, angelic, miraculous bundle of joy has not quite two days left as a heathen. She’ll be baptized where her parents were married, a small church in a small town in the smallest state in the country. The rector there is on the funny side, not wickedly dogmatic; he didn’t flinch when we expressed our doubts about baptizing our sweetness at all. He did, however, have some interesting thoughts. Plenty of people, representing plenty of forces, will influence our daughter, he pointed out. Why not let a Church based on holy mysteries be one of the forces grappling for her favor? He pointed out that a christening can symbolize gratitude on the part of new parents to their Higher Power – for the incredible gift of this child. And lastly he mentioned that this is a means of introducing a new person to a community, one that is predisposed to kindness (except when it’s not).

We make it to Church once or twice a month. When they’re not begging us for half our salary or forgetting that they’re sinners like all the rest of us, we get a lot out of it. Even sometimes when every word uttered seems like a hammer on my one remaining nerve I typically leave a service seeing more light with my eyes than I did on the drive there. But enough with all this defensiveness – especially about a decision that is so truly personal. The real reason I want to baptize my precious angel is just in case we get to meet up in Heaven when all is said and done.