Photo by Ryan Loughlin on Unsplash
Baptism is a practice, an action; it doesn’t suddenly change a person into someone else; the water is not magical. Baptismal font water is tepid tap water from the same pipes that flush the church toilets; the practice of baptism doesn’t really “wash our sins away” as it washes away smears on porcelain bowls. Thankfully, we get to keep those – our sins I mean. We get to feel them, examine them, try them, learn from them, and say goodbye to them when we are ready. The ritual of baptism isn’t a symbol of perfection or cleanliness but a symbolic practice to celebrate the divine and human ability to choose. And then, as my friend from the Exponent Retreat taught me, choose again.
Baptism doesn’t suddenly change a sinner into a saint, in fact, according to Jesus, it is the sinners who interest him most. These imperfect humans steal his heart – “I have not come to call the righteous, but the sinners,” (Mark 2:17) he says. Why? What does this mean? I think it means that sinners are precious, that maybe another word for sinner is chooser: someone who makes choices: a human.
Rachel Held Evans’s refrain always sings within me when I read the above verse: “When Jesus said he came not for the righteous, but the sinners, he meant he came for everyone.” Everyone. So, through the practice of baptism, we accept we are sinners, we accept that Jesus chooses us, and we accept that we are choosers who fail and thrive and have the miraculous ability to choose again.
At least, this is what I told myself and my eight-year-old son when he chose to be baptized.
My older girls avoided baptismal interviews with their bishop, but their little brother willingly bounced into the bishop’s office. My son accepted the invitation to pray but stumbled over the words, “Dear, dear, Heavenly . . . Dear, uh, Heavenly, I mean . . . ” His sweet little voice, which had prayed confidently in his own way many times, started to lose confidence. I have never coached my children on “the right way” to pray because I don’t believe there is one. However, we all learned the benefits of conforming that day when a little boy, instead of feeling safe enough to commune with the divine as he usually did, panicked about not knowing how to do it “right.”
I said the prayer instead, in the right way, and sweated through my shirt as I watched my son continue to stumble, unable to answer questions he had never heard and didn’t know the answers to. I didn’t either. The bishop’s ideas didn’t align with mine; he talked a lot about priesthood power, being perfect, and going to church. Nothing about the divine power within my little boy. Nothing about Jesus or who Jesus saves or sees; nothing about what baptism means to us. I had grown used to being my own authority, my own meaning-maker, and was completely surprised that this man’s church was not mine.
Because of COVID, I have been the main spiritual resource for my children. They don’t know the levels of heaven, they don’t know the levels of priesthood, they don’t know the rigid practices of this church that often errs on the side of being “right” than being real. They don’t know because I haven’t taught them. All I have had for my children is fluidity. All I have to give is choosing and choosing again. When my son asked to be baptized into this church, I thought of my church, the one that exists within me, the one I have been creating with my experiences and understanding, the one I’m giving to him. The one that makes room for him to find meaning and prayer in his own ways.
However, occasionally, my church snags on the barbed scaffolding of the patriarchal church that exists all around me too. The one I often ignore. My son is unsure how to open a prayer in a bishop’s office because I ignored what I didn’t like, what confined me and suffocated me, and found what I love in this church.
This church has so much beauty, it also has so many rules and practices that make little boys forget how to pray. Can I have one without the other?
I don’t know. But my precious eight-year-old son chose the songs for his baptism from the church’s primary songbook; in the opening song, we sang, “We are as different as the sun and the sea . . . we learn from problems and we’re starting to see . . . we reach together for the best we can be . . . I love you and you love me, and that’s the way it is supposed to be.”(263)
I love this!
I am an agnostic who isn’t sure about God – let alone about Jesus Christ and the Atonement. We haven’t been back to church since COVID hit, and I pretty sure that we won’t be actively going to church (for a variety of reasons).
The best I could give my children was “Hope in God” and “How to identify and make Good, Sustainable choices (general primer)”. It hurt me too much to teach pretty much else from the organized teachings of the church. One the one hand, I know that the church would see me as a “failure” for the many things I don’t do that they expect me to do. On the other hand, I did not teach my children to be bitter about the church or to hold onto bitterness in general.
I think it is more universal than not that every individual and family has to figure out how to blend the “church teachings” with the “meaningful teachings” absorbed from mostly non-church environments. Officially, the church wants to have the unified monopoly on “meaningful teachings” as an authority bid on their members. Unofficially, the church leaders do not have a unified monopoly (church history from sources shows reams of disagreement and compromise-making), and non-church environments continue to make scientific and practical counter-claims in the fields of medicine, history, social justice, trauma, relationships, human development (in general), faith transitions, etc. that decrease the relevancy (and authority bid) that the church has in the lives of the members.
To answer your question of whether you can have the meaningful church of the soul you have created and the institutional church, “Maybe? I am hopeful for you.” [in a literal sense].
Thank you for commiserating, Amy. I too am unable to teach my children practices that hurt me. And I agree that church leaders cannot control or monopolize meaning-making even if they believe they do.
I love that you have taught your children the real basics of the gospel of Jesus Christ as it makes sense to you rather than all the trappings of the LDS Church. I wish we were more accommodating about varieties in the practice of religion. I get annoyed every time a child or youth is praised for “coloring within the lines” as far as church orthopraxy goes. Some of us with the strongest testimonies of Christ and Godly love and of doing good in the world don’t behave as typically expected for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and I don’t think that is a bad thing. However, it is a lot more difficult to be seem as a fully accepted member without following all the rules and practices.
Yes, thank you, Lori. You see me.
Love this for so many reasons. My kids pray differently too! Even from each other- one of them opens his prayer “Dear Jesus God” which I love so much I am not correcting. And the other switches between Heavenly Parents and Heavenly Father. We haven’t been to church in months and if/when we return, I’ll probably have to teach them “the right way.”
Also the idea of teaching what you love and ignoring the rest is what we’re doing too. I worry how accepted my kids will be though when/if we return.
Lastly, I’ve never heard that song, just looked it up, and the lyrics are fantastic!
Thank you, Laura. Finding and talking to the divine IS a personal endeavor! I love that all of your kids pray differently?. The clash that I experience between self directed spirituality and patriarchy is painful and difficult. Perhaps these rigid, “right way,” traditions given to us by ancestors, these traditions that served them well, should be put aside as we find traditions that work better for us and our children. Good luck maneuvering this struggle, mama. You are amazing.
This is both heartbreaking and beautiful. You are teaching your children such a beautiful way to view their relationship with God and its sad that it snags on the barbs of heirachy and authority and perfectionism in the church.
Thank you, Katie. My feelings exactly.?
I think the problem with buying into correlation is that it empowers many members, especially men in leadership, to believe that their personal version of the church is the right version. And because they have authority, there’s no challenging them.
I agree, ElleK. In a system that functions on authority, authority is the only way to enact change. I forget that a lot of the time.? Thank you.