Baptism & Christening 101

Deciding on a child’s spiritual direction
by Kim Gray
For The Calgary Herald

So I’m sitting in a Kensington coffee shop doing something I’ve never done before. I’m talking religion with a man of the cloth who happens to be the minister of our local church — the same church my family and several neighbours have begun to frequent each year on Christmas Eve.We’re questioning the relevance of organized religion in modern society; talking about how to cultivate conversations of meaning; and lamenting the loss of rituals in contemporary Canadian life.It’s this last point that has me thinking. Just lately, I have been exploring the meaning of baptism in people’s lives.I was never baptized because my mom was raised Italian Catholic and she fundamentally disagreed with the idea that children were born evil. Baptism, at least how she understood it, was a ceremony designed to wash away a baby’s inherent sins.

I respect her rebellion and quite possibly would have done something similar if I had her background and was raising my children in the ’60s. I think it likely took courage for her to make the decision she did. My dad is atheist, so my brother and I were not raised with any formal religious education.

In other words, church was not part of my upbringing. But I married a man who is the son of an Anglican minister. Not only that, I married him in a small mountain church and his dad, both progressive and sensitive to my beliefs, performed a ceremony that made sense to me. My father-in-law would also baptize my daughter when she was just a wee thing.

I won’t bore you with my arsenal of excuses but my son hasn’t been baptized. Yet. I suppose we’re looking for a ceremony and a place that feels right to us. Which has me questioning why I’d like him baptized in the first place.

For me, it’s not that complicated. There’s intrinsic value in it: a small public ceremony marking the entry of a new person into the world. It’s a blessing and celebration of sorts.

Or, in the case of my Irish neighbour, baptism was “a must” for her two children.

“I don’t know how not to be superstitious. I couldn’t not baptize my kids,” she confesses.

“My aunt baptized her own grandson with permission from the priest in a clandestine kitchen ritual with holy water that was secreted into the house — unbeknownst to my aunt’s son (the baby’s father). His refusal to baptize his own child sent a furor through the family and people set about to make things right with God. My aunt was literally beside herself worried about the destiny of this baby’s soul were it not baptized before death.”

Baptism, in the view of my coffee companion and minister, is not protection.

“It’s an invitation to life,” he says, suggesting that he disagrees with belief systems that reinforce the idea that if you’re baptized your soul will be saved.

Which brings me to a book I just finished and can’t recommend highly enough: U.S. magazine journalist Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestseller Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Journey for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia (Viking, 2007).

Witty, honest and intelligent, Gilbert writes brilliantly about her journey to learn about the pleasures of food in Italy, the art of prayer in India and meaning of love in Indonesia.

She travels to Bali where she learns babies aren’t permitted to touch the ground for the first six months of their lives because they are considered “to be gods sent straight from heaven.”

Since humans existed, people throughout the world have always known that the birth of a child is something to celebrate and something worthy of ceremony. In Bali, according to Gilbert, “if the baby lives to six months, then a big ceremony is held and the child’s feet are allowed to touch the earth at last and Junior is welcomed to the human race.”

If you ask me, welcoming Junior into the human race is something I can relate to — whether it’s by giving up his or her god status or by having a small public ceremony that involves sacred water.

Which is why my son will likely be baptized — and soon.

To me, a baptism is an intimate bon voyage to a traveller who is about to embark on a new journey. Does it have to be much more complicated than that?

Kim Gray is a journalist and mother of two; she welcomes your feedback as well as column ideas at modern

family@theherald.canwest.com.

© The Calgary Herald 2007