The Journey Continues

When I did my first baptism as a priest, we had a minor crisis. As I poured water on the baby girl’s head, she began to cry. That’s when I realized that the water was cold. She did not stop crying until we were able to get a blanket over her head again and warm her up. At my second baptism, I tried to avoid the same mistake, and, because we were renting a community hall at the time, I heated up some water on the stove in the kitchen, and hoped that it wouldn’t cool off too much before the service. Just before the baptism, I checked the water, and it was a beautifully nice temperature. When I began pouring the water over the baby girl’s head, guess what? She began to cry. I decided that there were probably two explanations for this: 1) baby girls don’t like me, or 2) baby girls don’t like having water poured on their heads when they are comfortably resting in their mothers arms, half asleep. I prefer the second explanation.