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one year a christian

6 Comments

One whole trip around the sun. That’s how long he’s been a Christian.

A year ago we gathered with old and new friends, family from near and far. My mother and I dressed my six-week old son in the baptismal gown that four generations of my family have worn.

And a young deacon, an-almost priest we met as he journeyed through seminary, rolled up the sleeves of his alb, nervously took the squirmy baby from my arms, and plunged him deep into the waters of new life.

He came up wide-eyed and gave a small yelp. We all smiled.

Everyone likes when the baby cries, my mother whispered. That’s how they know the baptism “took.”

Last weekend we watched a baptism from the back of church while that same boy, now a year old and a thousand times squirmier, crawled around the gathering space. I listened as the pastor asked parents and godparents the old familiar questions we’ve heard a thousand times before.

What name do you give your child? What do you ask of the Church for your child? Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?

The priest chuckled at the last question, paused and turned to the congregation. “I always laugh when I ask parents that one. As if they have any clue at all what they’re getting into.”

I looked down at our boy. I thought about the letter I wrote him one year ago. Do I clearly understand what I am undertaking? Trying to raise him in this church, trying to raise him in any kind of faith when all the headlines scream that it’s becoming more unpopular by the day?

Not at all. Maybe none of us do.

But I’m trying. Deep in my bones I believe this is the most important thing I’m trying to do as a parent, to awaken my children to the possibilities of faith and a life lived for others.

And isn’t that what most mothers and fathers do – parent towards possibility? No matter our child’s age or ability, no matter their stage or situation, we always dream of the possibilities, what they might do and achieve and become. Baptism’s like that, too. We are welcomed into a community that has great hopes for us, called by God who dreams of all we might become.

But baptism also celebrates the simple fact of being beloved. Of knowing that we need not achieve to be worthy nor succeed to be faithful. My hopes for what he comes to believe about his faith rest between this tension: I hope it will inspire him to do and remind him to be.

When I think on my boy’s baptism anniversary of what it means to have smeared that chrism on his forehead and named him a child of God, I wonder what knowledge his own bones hold from that moment. None of us remember the first year of life. And yet he knows many things, deeply.

He knows he is loved. He knows the people he loves. He knows he has always been cared for. All of that will help him learn how he is beloved by God, no matter where he goes or what he does. I hope the memory of that belovedness is his lasting gift.

That will be how I know the baptism took.

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  1. Lauren L. says

    11 October 2012 at 10:37 am

    Amen! I love the concept of parenting toward possibility. What does that mean as we shape and love little ones? What does it mean for those of us without children who are yet involved in the lives of children? And how do we parent ourselves toward possibility?

    There is possibility surrounding us all the time. As an anxious person, I tend to worry a lot about what’s coming up. But looking through the positive lens of potential–now that turns things around a bit.

    Happy anniversary! No doubt the baptism took. And will have a lifetime of taking.

    Reply
    • mothering spirit says

      12 October 2012 at 10:10 am

      Love this perspective, Lauren. The idea is much broader than children we raise in our homes. I like how you frame this, that we’re called to help parent other children, and to “parent ourselves” toward possibility, too.
      A reader wrote to me in an email that it resonated with her ministry with youth in her congregation but also as part of the bigger call that all Christians share to parent the church toward possibility! That idea gave me goosebumps.

      Reply
  2. Melissa Borgmann Kiemde, Visitation Companion says

    16 October 2012 at 3:17 pm

    Breathtaking. I read this aloud last night to my husband, and wept –for reasons I couldn’t quite name. Like Lauren names above, the parenting towards possibility really resonates…

    And this section:
    “No matter our child’s age or ability, no matter their stage or situation, we always dream of the possibilities, what they might do and achieve and become. Baptism’s like that, too. We are welcomed into a community that has great hopes for us, called by God who dreams of all we might become.”

    Yes. This moves me.
    Loving a child, letting one go.
    Embracing all as Divinely made — and creating space for each to be his or her best self…That’s what I want for all humans, and I continue to celebrate the way a loving church supports this journey….(And strive for church to be this for all.)

    Reply
    • Laura @ Mothering Spirit says

      19 October 2012 at 9:31 am

      Oh, Melissa – your words touch me so deeply, knowing just a sliver about the love and loss you are immersed in right now. Your embrace of the church within your journey is an amazing testament to your faith and your understanding of God’s presence among us. Peace and prayers keep coming your way.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. the sound of sacrament « mothering spirit says:
    5 November 2012 at 6:04 am

    […] and me if we were ready to give ourselves to each other in marriage. When our pastor asked if we knew what we were doing when we brought each of our boys to be baptized. We speak these words often at church, whenever […]

    Reply
  2. the taste of memory « mothering spirit says:
    7 November 2012 at 10:56 am

    […] both boys’ baptism anniversaries a few weeks back. (Now you know why I’ve had baptism on the brain so much lately.) Their days are only a fortnight apart, so in the blur of busy […]

    Reply

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I’m Laura Kelly Fanucci. Mother, writer, wonderer. This space is where I explore mothering through writing. It’s where I celebrate how God shows up in the chaos of raising children. It’s where I love to build community with readers like you. Read More…

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Watch me try not to laugh while my kids are scream Watch me try not to laugh while my kids are screaming upstairs at my spouse while I muse on motherhood & creativity 😝

Check out @grottonetwork for thoughtful reflections on relationships, work, faith, and life’s big questions. And let yourself thank someone this week for the creative work of nurturing new life in you!
Pilgrimage update! I shared in my last newsletter Pilgrimage update! I shared in my last newsletter that we were able to add Chartres & Mont-St-Michel to our itinerary, plus an extra day in Paris. Three of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been, so I can’t wait to pray there with you on pilgrimage in October. Check out my bio for details.

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#pilgrimage #travelwithselect #holyplaces #travel2022 #france #thesacredway2022
For years these words hung on the wall of my offic For years these words hung on the wall of my office. A reminder to behold the beauty in the ordinary.

I took them down after grief tore apart my world. Normal days, what a joke.

But years later I pulled the words out again. Turned out they were true, of course.

I had always caught my breath at the line about war, barely able to imagine longing for boring days from bloody battlefields.

Today I keep the wise words before my eyes again, as a way to keep praying for Ukraine.

For all the places where war or violence make for (ab)normal days.

May the common rock of any ordinary day we’re given remind us to remember all whose earth is upheaved right now.
The sun came out for the first time in days (weeks The sun came out for the first time in days (weeks? gloomy where you are, too?).

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May today hold a gentle reminder to turn wherever you find the light, to let it warm and delight you. The spiritual practice of sunning ourselves (for a whole holy second!) is not trite or toxic: we are creatures who crave what is good and this is not wrong.

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Would it be joy? To hold happiness again, to have tears turned into dancing?

Would it be gain? To find what was lost? To have arms full again around the ones I love?

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Exactly what all who loved him found when they woke up on Monday morning.

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To see others in pain while you are in pain— To To see others in pain
while you are in pain—
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while others are grieving for you—
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What is he calling me to grieve? How is he calling me to change?

What might he see in us—our lives, our sorrows, our griefs, even our bodies—that we have not let ourselves lament?
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