Gotta Have Faith

On Monday night Bryan and I attended Baptism class at St. James. We chose this church with the hope that its proximity to our house would encourage our attendance, which we learned, is tracked through an envelope system. Not much has changed since I last attended a religion class. Our instructor was the classic CCD teacher. Wearing a lumpy winter white sweater, adorned with a religious pin above her heart, and a beneficent smile that surely could be cracked by a classroom full of rammy confirmation students, she handed out some typed and possibly mimeographed information about the baptism process. She also handed out a colorful brochure while going over the agenda for the class, which would conclude with a video. I turned more optimistic due to the graphics on the brochure and the fact that she used the word “video” rather than “film strip.” I chose a table for us front and center so that I would be forced to pay attention, but right before we began a girl we went to college with walked in. We waved her over to sit with us, so all I really wanted to do was chat with her rather than listen to the lesson. So really, not much has changed about me since my last religion class.

The teacher began with a metaphor (my favorite!) about baptism, saying that there is a difference between a stop sign and a brick wall. I naturally finished the metaphor in my head before she finished her explanation, seeing the baptism as the stop sign, a moment to give pause and reflect on your faith and the brick wall as not having faith at all. Once I came up from my literary head I heard our instructor say, “So baptism is that brick wall. You can chose to go through a stop sign, but you can’t go through a brick wall. That’s it, you’re done.” Hmm.

I became awash with religious memories. My grandmother pinching my sister’s lip with a sewing needle for talking during the televised mass one inclement Sunday comes to mind. So does Sister Mary Grace condemning all those who tuned in to “An Officer and a Gentleman,” on HBO the preceding weekend before CCD class as sinners. I did not need to hear my mom gossiping breathlessly about the film on the phone to a friend to know that she was probably a sinner. That’s the way I like her.

Nori and Charlie will be baptized. Somehow they will navigate the terrain between faith and fundamentalism to be good people. I have faith in that for sure. In the meantime, we say our prayers each day. Yesterday’s was, “teach me faith and caring, teach me wisdom, teach me sharing. Raise me up and make me strong. Be with me the whole day long.” Hopefully, with God and me beside Nori all day long, she will get that whole sharing thing.