PeekabooNWA

Forgive Us Our Sins

Posted on 28. Nov, 2008 by admin in After The Bubbly

Shortly after we moved to a small Texas town, thanks to my husband’s job transfer, we decided our eighteen-month old daughter needed saving– as in baptism. We visited several congregations before finally settling on a quaint Episcopal church. After a respectable period of near-weekly attendance, we asked the rector to perform the rite on our youngest. He agreed, but not without a price: Father Bob wanted to talk.

If letting kids overdose on TV is the original sin of parenting, DVDs have pushed us into a whole new depravity. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve always imposed strict limits on video games, sugar cereal, and television, but when I need to buy time for some worthy task – like chatting up the priest – I rely on kid-friendly movies.

On a cool December evening my husband popped in Shrek and joined me in the living room with Father Bob.

“Eggnog?” I offered.

Father Bob hesitated. “I’d better not.” Bob was a forty-something ex-computer guy from Silicon Valley with a wife and three long-haired sons. I had expected him to be cool like the martini-sipping-tai-chi-doing priest who’d baptized our son in Seattle. Wrong. I had also expected small talk. Wrong again.

“Baptism is permanent,” Father Bob began. “It symbolizes our union with Christ.” From the family room came:

“Look at me! I’m a flyin’ donkey!”

Giggles exploded in the next room, but Father Bob ignored the interruption. He was unphased. “In Baptism your daughter will be washed clean of sin.” My husband joked that we should wait until after college then. This made Father Bob shift in his seat. Then he spoke of water and oil for what seemed like eternity. “She will be sealed in the mystical Body of Christ,” he said.

I emptied my eggnog. “We were hoping for sometime in January?”

“Spring perhaps,” said Father Bob. Then he continued to speak of holy things. I counted to ten inside. It’s not like we hadn’t done this before. We knew the drill: pray-sprinkle-pray-eat. Done. What was keeping this guy from penciling in a date? After another twenty minutes of reverence I was about to reach for his calendar myself. But I heard Shrek’s blaring guidance:

“Relax, Donkey!”

Nothing affected Father Bob. He resumed the deep thoughts, but my husband and I had no more energy to mm-hmm and ah-ha. I doubted my daughter would ever be baptized. We sat listening until an especially ill-timed moment of silence sealed the deal. In Dolby Stereo, the hero proclaimed his noble intention to rescue Donkey:

“I’ve got to save my ASS!”

Tight, closed-mouth smiles circled the room. It was apparent that our daughter’s mortal soul was clearly in danger and only Father Bob could help. “Next Sunday?” he asked. And just like that, the gates of paradise opened, despite our many, many sins. With happy, occupied children, I refilled my eggnog and said goodbye to Father Bob, who had our name on his calendar – in ink.