Dear Saints in Santa Fe, and other far-off places,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ, who was baptized by John.

May 10, 1959.

I came across my baby book a while back.  It is called “Log O’ Life” with a torch and light rays on the front cover made of leather and every part of my first few years of life inside.  Mom’s handwriting, small and cursive, documented my “firsts”—cry, smile, laugh, toy, accident (knocked out front tooth when I was 2), steps (11 months), haircut (strands of hair are in an envelope tucked between pages), and pet (goldfish, thankfully not tucked in the book).

Mom went to great lengths to document my early days even though I was the youngest of three boys and one might tire of such things by then.  But not Mom.  She wrote treatises about my early experiences, and they are invaluable to me now when my memories have faded, or to back up or refute the various stories I have been telling ever since.

Yet with all that attention focused on my youngest days, my baptism was marked only with a date:  May 10, 1959.  Nothing else.  I was just two months old.  I was told later that I cried and cried when Dad took me in his arms to place the waters of baptism on me and then I immediately stopped when he handed me back to mom.  That’s all I know.

Do you remember your baptism, or heard stories about it?  Did you cry?  Did someone ever explain to you what baptism means?  Do you still remember?  Do you care?

Baptism, one of our two sacraments, symbolizes being cleansed, made new, and being welcomed into the household of God.  How has this been working for you?  Martin Luther often said, “Remember your baptism!”  Do we, and what difference would it make anyway?

Try this then:  In a world profoundly broken by violence and all the harm we inflict on others; baptism insists that God loves us still and claims us as God’s own.  Baptism insists on this love amid fragmented and unraveled lives.  It doesn’t wait for us to decide if we want it or not, God gives it to us any way, for our own good, and for the good of the world.  Baptism reminds us that in the most difficult situations God is present.  When we lose a sense of ourselves God reminds us of who we are.  When we lose our imagination of what life can be, baptism reminds us of new beginnings, of better days, of not feeling alone because God decided long ago that we are worth it.  Worth the investment of love and compassion.  Worth staying with us.  Worth holding us when needed.  Worth loving us into eternity.

I didn’t know any of this when Dad was holding me, and the waters of baptism mixed with my tears.  But I learned it by being nurtured in a church community that kept insisting I am loved, allowed me to cry and not be embarrassed, to explore who I was without judgment, and who stayed with me no matter what I did or what challenges confronted me.

My “Log O’ Life” gives me the date of my baptism but I don’t think God requires the documentation, like a license before we are allowed to drive.  Rather, baptism reminds us that life is to be lived fully and deeply (yes, we can!) so that we become the persons God created us to be, not sometime in the future but now, in this very moment.

Grace and peace,

Harry