Angelic Water
Tonight was certainly an interesting evening. A couple of weeks ago, I got an invitation from one of my karate students inviting me to attend her baptism. I did that tonight, and it was really something.
To set out a bit of context, this was all happening at a mega-church a few miles away from where I live. Apparently, this church puts on a baptism ceremony once every month or two. It was all rather different than the baptism ceremonies I’m more familiar with, where you basically have a family or two holding their infant while the minister drips a bit of water on the kid’s head. This one was full immersion, families watched from the audience (or joined in), and the entire event must have had more than a hundred people. In the background, music played the entire time, people were singing, and anyone who didn’t know what was going could easily have been forgiven for thinking they’d stepped into a Christian rock concert rather than a church. But back to the girl.
I showed up at the church a few minutes early and wandered around a little bit to see if there was anything interesting there to see. I had driven past this place a number of times on the expressway, but had never been inside. It didn’t take long to discover that the only really interesting thing about the church was its central auditorium, which is where I would be sitting anyway. I found my way to where the girl’s mother had reserved some seats and joined the other people who had come to see her baptism. I think I was the only one who wasn’t a member of the church.
The ceremony itself was a rather long affair, as each of the 100+ people were individually set back into the water. I was a bit surprised by the ages of the people being baptized, which ranged from senior citizens all the way to the six-year-old I had come to see, with an average probably somewhere in the late 20s. The water level in the pool was set to come to about the adult hip, which put it right around the girl’s neck. It was rather fun watching the guy doing the immersion pick her up and turn her upside-down. It was a good way to wrap things up, though; she was right around third from the end.
I was glad that she seemed to like the little present I gave her; a bracelet with a heart engraved with her name. She opened it up and showed it around to everyone in her little group. I apparently gave her the same card as her school teacher, but she didn’t really seem to mind. Both she and her mom seemed thrilled enough that I even bothered to show up at all.
And, while the whole event was a whole lot more than I’d ever imagined, I’m glad that I went too.
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