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“I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” said the priest. It would have been more accurate to say, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the moth-wing, and the Holy Spirit.” The priest’s eyes squarely focused on our son, Emery, he failed to see that in his second scoop of holy water, he’d also scooped up a dead moth floating in the baptismal font.
Its wing stuck to Emery’s bald head when Father’s wet fingers grazed it. Seeing it there, a powdery fleck on his fair skin, I was intrigued what this could mean.
Foiled at the Font. Walking into church that morning, I mentally ran down the list of guests we had invited to brunch. I smoothed the wrinkles and straightened the pleats of Emery’s gown. I adjusted husband Jon’s tie.
During the service, I spoke a resounding “yes!” to all the promises to form Emery in the Christian faith. I imagined him as an altar boy, and I smiled. We would form him, all right. By eighteen, he’d be in seminary for sure. We were baptizing our son into our faith, and he’d grow in it like a well-watered plant.
But at the baptismal font, the moth wing stopped me. That speck soiling Emery’s otherwise angelic appearance—the appearance I’d worked so hard to achieve all morning—reminded me that I wasn’t totally in control.
I had only to look at Emery to realize that he was his own life now—dependent on us, but a separate being with his own will. I had only to look at him to anticipate all of the times we’ll fail him. What then?
If we really form him in the faith, we’ll trust in his baptism. We will trust that he has been clothed in Christ. In baptism, Christ will shine through Emery in a way we cannot begin to imagine now. And so, after the second scoop of water, I converted from an over-zealous mother to a vulnerable woman in need of Christ’s cleansing hope and love.
Planting and Watching. In the years since Emery’s baptism, I have converted many times from over-zealous mother to woman begging at Jesus’ feet. With crosses all over church and home, Emery frequently asks why Jesus is hanging there, who put him there, and when he’ll come down. Then he asks when he will get to hang on the cross. (That’s where I pray we haven’t gone too far with this topic.)
That’s when I remember the dead moth in the baptismal font. It reminds me that baptism is equally death and life. It is being joined to Jesus in the depths and the heights. So, as much as I want to tell Emery that he will never have a cross, I can’t.
Just as Jesus died of his own will, he has a specific will for Emery, which is beyond my control. As much as I want to be in on the growing relationship between Savior and son, I can only plant the seed. For example, Emery requests we end dinner with prayer time. But after his favorite parts—lighting the incense and blowing out candles—he wants no part. We don’t force him to say prayers, just that he stay close. I figure he and Jesus will work out how they will engage each other, in their own time.
As Jesus and Emery get to know one another, they give me a chance to renew my devotion to Christ. Emery’s challenges with faith challenge me to find ways to model my faith to him and to grow closer to Jesus. The best I can give to my child is my own surrender to Christ’s will for me.
Mari Carlson and her family live in Minnesota.
