A year ago I got so stressed about how to handle my youngest son's baptism that I couldn't get to sleep multiple times.
I worked through it which is good since the baptism is tomorrow. I came to terms with the paradox and contradictions with one key insight: I love my son and know he will be comforted by me baptizing him. It's that simple.
Now if I could only find a priesthood manual to check on the wording of the baptismal prayer. Seems I got rid of all those manuals. Lucky I have the Internet.
14 comments:
Seems like a good coming-to-terms to me.
He'll be comforted. For now.
(ha!! Just kidding! Go to sleep already!)
And I already know the prayer. It goes:
We are putting this water on you because we don't want you to die. You will not die and therefore we are putting water on you. Amen.
Now that must have been a hell of a quandary to work out.
I agree with Dr. Write--while the muckity-mucks in religion put high value in things like baptism and conformity to the rule of whatever church it is (LDS, Catholic, Episcopalian, etc.) parents mostly just want to express the hope that their child will live forever. Many faiths seem to be based on defying the one certain thing about human life: it ends.
Funny how Buddhism and Hinduism seem to take the opposite route.
Counterintuitive, Yes, I do like the "Last Supper" parallel.
Sometimes it's about you, sometimes it's about someone else, or in your case, nearly everyone else. As perhaps the lone voice, the last bastion of Christianity amongst the atheists' swill of commentary posted here, I say ritual has its place, as does stepping away from it all on occassion. It's not conformity, it's about doing something for your son and your family that will be a positive in the long run. Blessed are you, the peacemaker; you took one for the team. Sometimes there is more than one "right" reason for doing the right thing.
Human life will end, but spiritual life will go on for an eternity. God will be pleased you did this for the littlest of your family.
I agree there is a place for ritual, but I also believe that much of our ritual is indeed reductive, an attempt to somehow deny the, as SigNo says, one certain thing. Sometimes I think it might do us (parents and children) some good to face our own mortality, to look it in the eye for what it is.
I've had moments of transcendence meditating on the truth of mortality; they were as powerful or more so than those I had within religion.
Doesn't seem like anonymous is being very peaceful.
"Doesn't seem like anonymous is being very peaceful."
Boo friggin hoo! Cry me a river. Just defending my turf a little bit --- so no, not being a peacemaker and turning the other cheek (FYI, that's a Christian reference to tolerating pursecution and attacks). Someone dares to believe in God, or has a different opinion than some of the neo-nazi nonbelieving, left wing academic elitists -- Ooo scary...
Funny how some who don't believe are perfectly at ease criticizing those who do. Stop saluting to your poster of Madalyn Murray O'Hare, and be more like our friend and my neighbor, CI, and less judgemental/critical of others. Us "muckity-mucks" aren't perfect, but we're not standing on the mountain looking down on others' beliefs.
So why, anonymous are you saluting peacemakers on one hand and then being decidedly non-peaceful on the other? I don't really get it.
Aside from that, you know nothing about my beliefs. My comment was about religion, not about the existence of God. Religion very much has its elitists too. In many ways they are self-appointed and self-important.
And you are most certainly looking down on atheist's beliefs--well one should say ideas about the world, aren't you, anonymous?
Oh, I'm really really tempted to join the fray here, but I'll hold my tongue--mostly. All I want to say is that maybe religious people individually don't stand on the mountain ridiculing other's beliefs, but the institution itself very explicitly does (in the most literal sense possible by assigning "non-believers" to hell or to the lesser, more terrestrial kingdoms). Also, it's funny how disagreement with religious institutions is always seen as a sign of arrogance and "looking down" but disagreeing with atheism is seen simply as disagreement. You can't have it both ways.
A possible solution to the paradoxes and problems... Should you take some soap in there with you and wash his hands...
Years down the road when the child finds out that you didn't believe in baptism you can say, "I was just making you take a bath."
HH =)
HH, always the pragmatist. (and reliever of tension) Anon..sorry you were offended by someone expressing his beliefs. (which I think you did beautifully Theorris). But here I go ramping up the tension again. Sounds like this is already a mute point by now anyway.
I've struggled with these same issues CI as you know, only to a much smaller degree, (being the non priesthood holder and non-hot seat sitter). Maybe some J.Campbell philosophy might be appropriate in this case, he makes the point of how our cultural myths (ie truth to some, traditions to others, depends on your perspective) have a transcendant quality & open up an elevated social connection. I recently saw a documentary about a rite of passage in a country I didn't recognize, in which children of about two, were dropped from a height of 20 feet to the waiting arms of their father below. Seems absurd to us not to mention dangerous. They would probably view our traditions as equally absurd. (circumcision for example...WTF?!) What I think comes through is a need to connect this child to a sense of purpose greater than himself and social belonging to the community he will some day assimilate into. Maybe. Or maybe it's just something we do to avoid the punishment of nonconformity. (That's what it was in my case.) What is clear is that you deeply love your son and with your love, he's going to be just fine and he'll respect you now and as an adult when you can talk to him about your conflicting feelings surrounding this event.
btw....no offense intended to anon. I just don't see why you jumped so quickly into attack mode. What's behind that? Why the unproductive name calling? That is so second grade.
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