Dear Ollie,
Here is a story about your oldest cousin’s baptism.
She was wearing a white and blue dress and it was the kind of dress that billowed out so that if she wanted to, if she could at the time, your cousin could’ve rocked a nice twirl, showing off her chubby legs. She wasn’t walking at the time, so she couldn’t partake in such a feat, although even if she could have, she wouldn’t. Your oldest cousin is not a twirler, and she doesn’t wear dresses.
Still, she had on this dress, and it brought out her eyes so that I thought they would kill me with their sparkly, joyous blue. It is not that I think her eyes mock me, but I look at them and from time to time I think, there is nothing of me in her. The blue in her eyes reminds me she is her own person, and though on that day I had this chubby, happy, baby on my hip, I knew she wasn’t mine. She is her own. I get to hold her for a little while. I get to help her walk, but I won’t always lead, and I can’t always follow.
We gave her to the pastor, your Uncle Jesse and I. He called the other children in the congregation up and explained what this all meant; what we were all about to promise to Hadley, and then there was water on her forehead, and then singing, and then off she went to the nursery while Uncle Jesse and I listened to the sermon.
Ollie, the sermon is my favorite part of church, and it became even more so after I’d become a mother. There was something oddly comforting about grappling with this most mysterious, ridiculous story of grace and love and suffering and sorrow – all of it so great there was no way I’d ever understand it all, and the only thing to do was to keep coming back again and again.
For 20-25 glorious minutes each Sunday, I wasn’t mommy, I was Callie, and it is so good to be yourself for a little while. Had I forgotten Hadley? No, I am always thinking of her, and her sister. They never leave my mind or my heart, but going to church, or the gym, or reading and writing, helps me be myself again, and that helps me be a better Callie for everyone else in my life. (Note I didn’t write, “Know myself.” To thine own self be true, Ollie, but don’t ever put the pressure on yourself that you must know who you are. Always be willing to be surprised.)
I tell you about the dress, and Hadley’s blue eyes, and my feelings about the sermon because on Hadley’s baptism day, when I went to pick her up, she was screaming and crying and reaching for the door, and I felt horrible that she was upset, and also, that it hadn’t occurred to me she would be upset. I’d never seen this side of her before. Hadley’s first phrase was, “Ba bye, Mama,” and she’d head for our front door. Of the two of us, it is I with separation anxiety. On this day though, Hadley caught a bad case of it, and I felt guilty for relishing in listening to the sermon, and also that I hadn’t been there for my daughter.
Ollie, you are so sweet and cute, and the best eater out of all of us, and we parents, we aunts and uncles, we grandparents all want to believe we know what we’re doing, but we don’t. I don’t know of anything so miraculous and haunting than a child, and I don’t know what else to do but surround her with others who don’t always know what they’re doing, but they’re willing to promise they’ll do everything they can to help her become the person she needs to be in order to love this world and those in it.
Another story: In Kindergarten, Hadley had a field trip to a pumpkin patch. The deal was you’d go on a hayride, walk through the pumpkin patch, and pick out a pumpkin to bring home. Weeks before the trip, Uncle Jesse and I offered to come along, but Hadley in all her 5 year old maturity told us, “Nah.”
Except the night before, Hadley had a change of mind and begged us to come along. Unfortunately, we couldn’t oblige – I’d signed up to chaperone Harper’s pumpkin patch extravaganza, and Uncle Jesse was keeping vigil on what would soon be called “Superstorm Sandy.” (Your Uncle hates the word “superstorm,” by the way. He prefers the media not add words to what has already been named. “Call it what it is,” he demands, as though he is Dumbledore insisting the power in knowing and saying a name is enough to give one strength to contend with it.)
So we sat with Hadley and explained that we couldn’t go but maybe if she told us what she was afraid of, we could help her through it. Was it the bus ride? Would she miss us? Was it the fear of not having a buddy to sit with?
“I’m afraid I’ll have to cut the vine and carry the pumpkin back all by myself,” she told us.
She explained further what she had planned, and we soon realized that Hadley had hopes and dreams of bringing home a pumpkin the size of a small couch.
“I don’t think I can do it all by myself,” she told us, teary-eyed but determined to bring home this pumpkin fit to be turned into a coach for Cinderella. Uncle Jesse and I did the dirty work of helping Hadley modify her big, bold plans – a job we find we must do frequently with your oldest cousin.
That night, I emailed Hadley’s Kindergarten teacher, and explained what was going on.
“I will help her,” she wrote back. “And she is never alone.”
No matter the size of our dreams, it is nice to have others along to help us out and cheer us on, and maybe steer us towards a smaller, though no less important, mission.
I don’t claim to be a great Christian. I came close to failing all my religion classes in college. Once, a professor asked if I enjoyed his class because judging from my work it didn’t seem like it. I gave him the finger. I did it under the table, but still, it wasn’t nice. (Don’t know what “the finger” means? Ask your Grandma Lewis.) So this might not be good theology, but I believe God’s love for us is so powerful, so encompassing, so completely gigantic that it seeps out of everyone whether they proclaim to be “of faith” or not.
Your Uncle Jesse and I baptized Hadley and Harper with the belief and the hope that the church will be a place they always return to – with their doubts and fears, and with their joys and gifts, and that there will be people who will be willing to remember the promise they made to babies years ago, and willing to support and encourage them as they dream, and try, and grow.
But we also believe and hope that this kind of attentiveness is outside of the church: in schools and on the soccer field, at the grocery store and in coffee shops. When we baptize you, it is not to protect you. It is to help you become, and becoming is at times scary, painful, confusing business. Many times, we don’t know who it is we are becoming. Sometimes we want our mamas. Other times, we question what they’re doing hanging around. Don’t they have any other place to be? Sometimes we have dreams so big, we are at first confident that we can carry their weight. We want to. We want to relish in the glory of achieving those dreams all by ourselves. Other times – most of the time – we realize our plans are too large and we confront the heartbreak of believing we have to let our dream go.
I hope though, that you will learn that the family around you, both inside your home and in your community, are here to help and support you as best we can, and I hope you learn the beauty of what a small dream can hold if you’re willing to attend to it.
This past Sunday in church, I got to be the person who reads before the sermon, which means I sit up front with the pastors and the choir. It also means I get to witness the flurry of activity from the lay people and pastors seconds before the service starts. It’s anxiety inducing for me. I like order. I like to know my place. I am terrified of being in the way. I am in a place in my life where I feel all these things constantly. I do not know what my place is, my life feels out of order, and lately, I’ve felt very much in the way of things. Standing in the hallway outside of the sanctuary was a palpable metaphor for my stage in life, and I share that with you because I think that, while many of us are baptized as babies without any clue of what’s going on, if we hear the story enough, if we have enough references of this promise in action, I think we learn to look out for help and support and direction as we get older.
One of the associate pastors, a friendly and wise man who I think would’ve been BFFs with Walker Percy and Flannery O’Connor, made his way to the line where we were all assembling and told me there’d been revisions that needed to be made with that morning’s sermon, and that’s why things were a tad more hectic than usual.
I rolled my eyes and said, “Writers.”
He laughed, and said he’s known of situations where the same sermons have been preached multiple times, but in a different order.
“Sometimes, the same story needs to be rearranged,” he said, taking a sip of water. “If you don’t know that, you haven’t failed enough.”
Later, he sent us off, promising us that we are among scattered saints, all of us broken and whole, and being transformed into an image of God.
Baby boy Ollie, may you have enough experience with failure to rearrange the story if you wish. May you always believe that you are among scattered saints, broken and whole, all of us transforming, and wiling to help you transform into what it is you are fearfully and wonderfully made to be. May you always be willing to throw yourself into the world, knowing you won’t have to cut that vine and carry the pumpkin – no matter how large – all by yourself. You are never alone. You always have a Host.
Love,
Aunt Callie
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