Ann Lamott on baptism

I really liked this quote from "Traveling Mercies" by Ann Lamott. (p.231-232) A very very funny, honest and quotable book. Hilarious and yet she's a beautiful writer and has some really interesting reflections. She gets on this topic of baptism when she is complaining about how she fears the weather because it messes up the hair she spends so much time perfecting.

Can you imagine the hopelessness of trying to live a spiritual life whne you're secretly looking up at the skies not for illumination or direction but to gauge, miserably, the odds of rain?...Because Christianity is about water: "Everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." 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 wordly 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 that's 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 a willingness to let go of balance and decorum and get drenched.

There's something so tender about this to me, about being willing to hav eyour makeup wash off, your eyes tear up, your nose start to run. It's tender partly because it harkens back to infancy, to your mother washing your face with love and lots of water, tending to you, making you clean all over again. And in the Christian experience of baptism, the hope is that when you go under you come out, maybe a little disoriented, you haven't dragged the old day along behind you. The hope, the belief, is that a new days i upon you now. A day when you are emboldened to take God at God's word about cleanness and protection: "When though passeth through the water, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee."

a year later

This time last year I was stressing and freaking out about the reality that I would be heading over to Mongolia—a place foreign in both culture and the inconceivability of the climate. There was a sense of adventure stirred in with this fear of the unknown as well as just trusting that this is what I was supposed to be doing.
A lot has transpired in a year and yet here I am in the same physical place at the same job. Strange to think that I went all the way across the world to find out what I should be doing, to find God, to find myself and then I came back to familiarity.
I remember thinking about how cold I felt here even though I had hand warmer packets in my pockets and a thick coat over my body. I remember when I got off the plane in Mongolia and it was so cold it hurt, it was a strange sensation. It was an intense shock after being in Thailand for a solid month, contrasting snow with tropical sands. I recall feeling lost in Thailand, not knowing how to prepare myself for what was coming. I felt a little like I was closing myself off.
I have seen a lot, learned a lot but I do not feel much farther from where I was a year ago. Part of going on that trip was self discovery, learning how to lean on God and find what I can do to be pleasing him by helping people. If anything, I feel even more lost because I do not have this to look forward to. I need to see a way out, rather than assuming this sinking is inevitable. I have always counted on something to rescue me by giving me purpose. What do you do when you look ahead but cannot see or even imagine the future?
This Christmas I will not be with my nuclear family as I always have been, but get to spend time with my love and relatives. Although things feel and seem familiar, I can taste something different in the air. Opportunity, to travel and get quality time with my girl, to fight and laugh on the long open road. These are enough to ignite hope and excitement for what is to come when it is so overwhelmingly the same.

prints

The clouds have descended
Layering the earth
I wonder if this is what it is like
To live in the sky
I see a flurry of prints pressed in
Going this way and that
The marks, in single file
Forging new paths with each crossing
To feign the presence of more
Each step, a longing sigh
For that day
When two prints at a time
Replace the one

Anywhere

The car is parked
You are shivering
So I hand you my jacket
And you hide beneath
I sit on my hands
Not sure what to do
Looking out the driver’s side
I swear we have been here before
Maybe that is just it
This road we know so well
Seems so right, so familiar

I don’t care
if we take the long way there.
I don’t care
if we take the long way there
If you are with me

You ask me
But I say I’m not cold
Right now
I just want you to stay
We’ve taken a wrong turn or two
But unveiled new things
Along the way
Remember that old tree we climbed,
worn and off the common path,
with a view only for two?

Though a sigh lends to questions
Though a silence stands between
You are still here
And I don’t want to be anywhere
But here, with you

I don’t care
If we take the long way there
If you are with me

Abraham

Patriarch of the stars
Father of the sands
Won’t you hear my plea
To intercede for your descendents
For the smell of sulfur in the air
Is beginning to remind me of Sodom
The injustice
The gluttony
The idle hands
The poor ignored
Is beginning to look like Gomorrah
The ash, I can taste it in my mouth
We distance ourselves from these fabled cities
For we were founded on freedom and truth
Our ignominy tells no tales
Is there a righteous man
Even one?
Patriarch, oh that you were here
To plead on our behalf
That the righteous might rise up
And be heard before it is too late
For our transgressions
Are the catalyst
In which we’ve been dousing ourselves
Before the city is lit ablaze
Patriarch of the stars
Won’t you forgive us
For treating your children
As grains filtered one by one
As the sand of time
Falling
As we watch
With able hands, each life
Waste away

Righteous man, rise up
Save your city from destruction
For the cry of the forgotten
The rumble of the empty stomachs
The voicelessness of the downtrodden
Is beginning to sound like the haunting chant
The chant of justice, of judgment

Father of many
Righteousness was credited to you
For faith in an unseen covenant
As fools we have disgraced your blessing
Ascribed to us
For our “sin so grievous”*
I fear, is a piercing outcry
That will not be ignored
Father of many
Won’t you rescue us
So that the righteous
Will not be swept away with the wicked? *


*Genesis 18:20
**Genesis 18:23
Concept impetus: Ezekiel 16:49