Monday, February 15, 2010

Go in de water? B-baptize? (Lent: Part 1)



The title for this post is stolen from the pleading, questioning phrase my daughter has been repeating lately. She began after the baptism of our friends' (Greg and Steph's) baby Elijah. the first time she saw someone get dunked, there were probably half a dozen or more sharing a horse tank in the gymnasium we used to call "church" (Abiding Grace Community Church, to be more specific). Life has drastically changed since then. Our daughter who was initially scared to death (so scared she could merely burrow her little head into our shoulders) the first time she saw some one go under, now has devised a plan: "My kick it? My splash it?"

Oh, God. The innocence and abandon with which little kids look forward to and anticipate life, love, food (not vegetables, though), toys. . .and maybe even God himself is stunning. I wish I had that sort of recklessness about life. There's a difference between recklessness and carelessness, I think. It's a subtle one, though.

Here we are at the beginning of Lent. We're not arms, legs, toes or even fingernails of the Orthodox Church yet, but we will be in 40 days, Lord willing. Here's hoping and praying we have the robustness, the fierceness it takes to sprint down to an empty tomb and find nothing but grave clothes.

From the morning prayers to our Lord Jesus Christ: "Help me now to love thee as fervently as I once loved sin itself and also to work for thee without idleness, diligently, as I worked before for deceptive Satan."