Through the waters of Life: Do You Remember Your Baptism?
Baptism as Solidarity in a Time That Demands Repair
As I read Diana Butler Bass on The Cottage, I cannot stop thinking about the waters of life we share and the solidarity we rise from.
Remembering the Waters
When she asked, “Do you remember your baptism?” something stirred inside me because I remembered mine.
I have had several baptisms in my life, both literally and figuratively. My first baptism was when I was about seven. We were attending a Baptist church, and when the preacher gave the altar call, I felt a stirring in my heart and walked up the aisle, much to the chagrin of my parents. I wanted to know Jesus. I wanted him in my life and in my heart in the way that the pastor was talking about. My parents thought I was too young to make that decision, but my great-grandmother and I argued that I had heard the call and that I needed to answer.
Looking back, it’s true I was probably too young to understand all of the ramifications of what I was doing. I just wanted to connect with that miraculous power that I heard about from the pulpit.
It wasn’t until much later in my life that I heard about baptismal vows. They weren’t a part of the baptism I had as a child. But there was something about the way those vows were connected to the prophecy that Jesus says he fulfilled from Isaiah that made me want to dance when I read the article. Something snapped into place. Something ancient and alive stirred again.
Baptism Through the Four Paths
As a practitioner of Creation Spirituality, baptism takes on a whole new meaning for me now.
We approach the waters in awe, wonder, and delight, which is the first path, the Via Positiva. We renounce Satan, the evils of the world, and open ourselves to love. That is the Via Negativa, the path where we learn to let go and open up. We are plunged into the waters where the old passes away and the new is formed. That is Via Creativa, the creative way where something new is born within us. We are then sent out into the world to love, do justice, and to be a creative companion to God, filled with the Holy Spirit and baptized into the life of Jesus. That is Via Transformativa, the transformative way.
Baptism is, at its heart, an enactment of everything that we believe in Creation Spirituality. It is an embodiment of it, where we physically go through the steps and stages, one path at a time, to be renewed.
These days, with everything that is going on, from the authoritarian takeover of white Christian nationalism, to neocolonialism, to the villainy and evil we see in our streets, we need to baptize not just ourselves, not just our hearts, but our culture and our society all over again.
That does not mean everyone has to convert to our way of thinking. What we need now more than ever is a renewal of our minds and an awakening of our hearts so that we can walk the path together. The solidarity we are meant to find in baptism is the salve that will heal our country’s broken heart and the broken ways of the world.
Baptized Into a Body, Not an Empire
Baptism unites us into the body of Christ. He is the head of the body, but we are the hands, the feet, the beating heart, the ones here in this world to bring about delight, justice, healing, and liberation.
The call of Christ is not for the conversion of damned sinners. That is something the imperial church made up so that it could have power over people. It is the root of white Christian nationalism. The call of Christ is to the reparation of the world.
Jesus called himself a physician and said that he went to the sick. That is the same calling placed on each and every one of us as members of his body.
Renouncing the Adversary
What does it mean to renounce Satan and his works?
Satan is the adversary, the divider, the tester, the one who puts our lives and faith to trials. In the book of Job, we see Satan making a case against Job and putting him through horrible torments to prove his faith a lie. To renounce Satan and his works is to remember that we are co-creators, working in solidarity with all life to make a better world.
We are not adversaries. We are partners.
As we come to see the world this way, we are not opponents. We are not the opposition, though others will oppose our good news. We are the constructive, creative power of God walking in this world to make it a better place. In solidarity with the oppressed, the crushed, the bruised, the wounded, and the healing, we rise up together and through partnership build something new.
That new building may supplant what was there before. It may push it out like light drives out darkness. But it is not here for us to tear down. God casts the kings from their thrones, as Mary says in her most beautiful prayer.
Renouncing Corrupt Power
When we renounce the evil powers of the world that corrupts, in the second vow, I am reminded of the temptation of Christ to command stones to become bread, which is extracting from the earth more than it has to offer. We do not take more than we require.
The second temptation was to cast himself down from the temple so the angels could bear him up, and Jesus says that we do not tempt the Lord our God. In our modern life this is easy to see. If there is medicine that will make us well, we take the medicine. We do not simply place ourselves in God’s hands, testing God to heal us. We rely on God for God’s power, but we also rely on the miraculous and wondrous creations of the earth to support us.
We do not need to jump to prove that God’s power is real. We need to cooperate with it.
More than any of that, the third temptation reminds us that we do not bow to the evil one for power, authority, and dominion over the kingdoms of the earth. We stand together with one another, arm in arm and hand in hand. Through that great solidarity, we build a better world now and for the world to come.
Walking the Path of Love
We walk the path of love, the third baptismal vow, remembering that love is stronger than any power in this world.
Love is not just a feeling or emotion. It is the great link that ties us together when we realize our unity with one another and stand on the ground of that unity, not allowing anyone or anything to divide us. Love is not a chain that ensnares us. Love is a gentle embrace, ever reminding us to be gentle, kind, and compassionate.
It is the awakened heart that allows us to see ourselves in the plight of others.
Baptizing Our Actions
I am torn over the actions we should take next. Part of me, the ritualist, wants to call all who practice Creation Spirituality to embrace the amazing power of baptism and the meaning that arises from it. But ritual alone is not enough to change the world. It is only a start.
What we actually need is to baptize our minds and our hearts anew. We need to baptize our actions and ask ourselves three questions in everything we do to ensure our actions in these perilous times are aimed in the right direction.
Are we renouncing division and the acts, words, and spirit that divide people, or are we bringing them together into greater solidarity?
Are we giving in to the corrupting and corrosive powers of anger, hatred, fear, and domination to fuel our movements, or are we moving toward love, righteousness, and healing?
Is love, that care, concern, and duty to work with others for a better world, the heart of every action we take?
If we can learn to baptize every action to keep it holy and true, then our movement will not fracture and break.
This does not mean we must do everything in overtly religious ways or constantly speak spiritual language. We must speak directly to the murders, the violence, and the hatred that are real in this world, and speak to people where they are.
No One Is Lost Forever
If we allow ourselves to say the other side is truly lost, then we are also lost. If we do not have the courage to go find the sheep that have wandered from the flock, the wolves will have them, and they will see the weakness in the shepherd and come for us all.
This does not mean we wait to do what is right until everyone comes along. But it does mean we must be careful in how we protest, how we speak, and how we act in this present climate. No one is truly lost forever. If we believe that, there is no purpose left in the work.
I was raised in white Christian nationalism. I believed it with every fiber of my being. Racism, sexism, and homophobia flowed through my veins. I fed on it like my mother’s milk. People did not give up on me.
Underneath it all, I still had a heart that wanted a better life for myself and my community. It was in that yearning that I broke free, when I saw those beliefs did not make the world better for everyone. They were walls that made me feel safe, secure, and morally superior.
If I was able to break free, and truly there is nothing special about me, then anyone can.
We do not abandon people to the dark forces that seek to divide and corrupt. We do not leave people trapped in lies that tell them they are superior to others. We work in love to bring about the greater world to come, where everyone has a place in the beloved community.