Babtism.

    She stood over her island in a flour dusted apron, the light made everything look like it had been brushed in butter.   She barely looked at me, shook her head as she bent and pushed the wood over dough, rolled it out and cut it through into long thin strips. "It's dead of winter Sarah." She turned from my mud soaked body to drop the white ribbons into boiling water. 

    We lived by a creek and the creek lived by a mud hole my father had dug out to make into a pond.  My friend Emily and I were fascinated equally by both.  My father walked us around the long circle of brown muck shaking his head and telling us he thought it would never fill. He had a way of making things out for the worst, just in case. Once I overheard someone say "That man is the most positive human alive when it comes to things of the spirit, but boy is he a pessimist about everything else." I didn't know what half those words meant at the time, but I was pretty sure he was suggesting my father thought God would likely raise up a dead man before the water in a pond.  Even still I believed every word my father said, and I would worry over it with him. I'd stick branches in the dirt a few inches above the waterline and wait for the two to meet, just to be sure he hadn't dug that hole for nothing. 

    The pond had been built like a giant measuring bowl with a wooded slope forming the lip on one side and the other a narrow rim that abruptly dropped  and disappeared into woods at the bottom of a steep hill.  This worked as the dam.   It was covered in zebra grass which grew so tall it blocked from view a footpath that followed a small stream to the mouth of the creek.  Emily and I would abandon our bikes in the grass and sneak down, leaving but a trail of socks and shoes.  

    The water was just wide enough that one could half heartedly cast a fishing pole without catching the bank on the other end.  It was freckled with large smooth rocks, connected by smaller stones that formed capricious trails from one side to the other. We would take off most of our clothes and drape them from low hung branches then pass the time leaping across the constellations of brown stones, made black with water. It did not matter the weather, as children have a  keen way of not feeling the cold.

    When we would become tired of not so accidentally slipping into the water, we'd spread out our bodies on the larger flattened rocks, finding Jacob pillows in the curves of stone and let our skin dry out.  The conversation always seemed to turn to that of God. Heaven and hell and what happened in the air between. I'd recall to her times my father had laid hands on men who turned strange when their tormented insides were exposed.  We'd shiver at the thought and whisper low about what might be happening all around us if only we could catch a glimpse.  

      On one such occasion, as we spoke of the greater things in hushed voices I told her I had asked God to one day see. Id like to witness the furious light of angels and even the darker parts of shadows, just to be sure I was really here with Him.  My skin prickled at the thought, unsure if what I had asked for was really such a good idea. We had both become quiet, reverently contemplating these things, when I saw a movement in my peripheral.  I glanced to the side, and slipping out of two stacked rocks was the face of a red brown snake. Its smooth angular head lifted to looked me square in the eyes, about a foot from my nose.  

    Now satan himself couldn't have startled me more than that serpent, and come to think of it, it was satan I thought I was looking right at. I was always told to become very still when seeing an animal you had no business being near, but after all our spirit world talk I was thoroughly convinced I wasn't  looking at just any old snake.  I leapt clean off the rock, grabbing Emily by her elbow and screaming the name of the good Lord Jesus as water splashed up our bare legs. The snake reared  and struck forward just where my cheek had been.  

    If someone had been watching they would have thought we were walking on water the way we moved across the creek and up the embankment.  Emily's eyes were as big as moons and her bottom lip was trembling. We grabbed our clothes off the branches  and ran towards the dam. I felt like there were snakes everywhere, sliding under foot and creeping through the legs of the pants slung over my shoulder. We found ourselves  bare-skinned and heaving, doubled over in the slanted grass.

    I stared at Emily, a reflection of my own awe and terror in her pale eyes.  "I saw the devil in that snake, and I don't want the devil inside, so I suppose you ought to baptize me."  

    "Well you'd better baptize me too then," she whispered, her bottom lip still fluttering.  

   


     Memories have a sly way of shrinking and deflating with time. They collide against the hardness of age, and the impact reshapes the way we remember.  My adult mind would like to suggest to my younger self that it was merely a snake sandwiched between two stones, but that  wouldn't be fair. The fledgling me that dwelled within a gangly, tangled haired girl witnessed something else all together.  I am beginning to think these robust, untouched memories of our youth might hold more truth after all,  depending on the kind of  truth you are searching for.  


    And so, this is what shall be remembered.....

    

     The bank that dropped into the pond was steep. We half ran, half slid down its side, powdery skin against black of dirt and roots. Our feet sunk into the mud, surfacing plums of brown mist that wrapped around our waists.  The sky was an ashen dome, its edges bowing to meet the contours of a watery nest. The heavens, all seated in a silent circle, watched  two tiny flecks of white move against the darkness.  

      If words were spoken, voiced prayers to consummate our intent I don't recall them. I can only see the pale yellow of her hair become translucent in the water as she lowered, my hands clinging to her body tilted. She disappeared and then returned, each strand fanned out around her like a crown of wheat.   Tiny rivets of muddy water slid down her face and caught in a pool beneath her neck. Shivering, she turned to me and placed a hand on my back, the other wrapped around my forearm.

 

    For that briefest moment I was nothing more than the stones underfoot, the silver branches grazing heaven. I did not deserve the breath I held, and yet I still received because that is all I could really ever do. I just hadn't known. God poured out the seas He contained in jars, and the pond stretched endless. Hands and feet and belly all there to accept the well inside the water, the life found only in drowning.   I can still close my eyes and feel the cold wet cloth that held me, forever giving back what was His to keep.  I am baptized again and again, filth washed from feathers, left at the bottom of a half full pond. 

 
   

A little story.....

When I was a child my legs grew up before the rest of me did. I was tall and straight with a tangle of mud water hair, dirty fingernails and black high tops that I thought made my brother proud.  My family and I lived on a farm with no animals, apart from a collection of stray dogs and some rabbits held in a pin behind the work shed. There wasn't a lock on the chicken wire hut, just a twig shoved through like a crooked finger. The stray dogs would circle the rabbit house til one of them could reach up their muzzle and wiggle out the branch.  Next thing you knew there would be nothing left but soft grey fur, catching in the taller grasses like dandelions when the wind blew. I'd cry over those rabbits until my father threatened to shoot the dog that killed them. I loved the mutts more. 

We didn't have the money or inclination to get the dogs neutered. They came and went so quickly, with a new one showing up just as soon as another disappeared.  On occasion one would end up pregnant with puppies. My father would tell me it was so by nudging the dog on its back, pointing at a long double row of transparent pink glands pressed outward.  One particular time, he told me I could come see the mother deliver. I watched that dog fervently, waiting for signs that she was going to have her pups.  When it came close, her stomach would sway like a boat, hanging so low I worried she might hurt herself on the wooden steps that led up to the house.  

It was mid February and still dark out when my father came into my room, the light from the hall a piece of pie stretching out towards my face. "Wake up Sarah, there's something for you to see."  

I followed him down the stairs to our small storage room. The space was dark, apart from the orange glow of a  kerosine heater. He pulled at the single bulb string and when light came I saw the dog, laying on its side on a bed of old towels. She was panting and her eyes were nearly closed.  I was nervous she was dying, but my father just nodded and whispered  "watch."  We knelt together and soon after she pushed out the first two of what would be seven puppies.  They were wrapped in a slick purple skin that looked as if it had been dunked in oil. I knew from conversations with my father that she was supposed to eat off this casing so that the puppies could breath. Instead she pushed them to the side with her nose.  Panicked I grabbed them and tore through the skin. Their wet fur matted around their mole like faces, and they hung limp in my hands, without a breath of life. 

Before my father could say as much as a word, I cradled them both against me and ran. Still in my pajamas, feet bare, I did not stop till I had made my way across the lawn towards the garden.  There was frost on the mounds of dirt and the strips of cloth that held up the vines of the pole beans were hardened with ice.  I stopped somewhere in the center of the rows and crouched, looking down at the dead puppies so small in my hands.  I closed my eyes and prayed. 

My father was a preacher, and I had read all kinds of books I found in his study.  When most kids were telling ghost stories, my brother and I were scaring each other reading books about demons and deliverance. I had read many things, but my favorites were always stories about miracles.  Traveling preachers of the past kicking dead babies back to life, or people in faith trying on shoes when they had no feet just to watch them be filled with flesh and bone.  

I prayed and I prayed some more. I whispered over their two little bodies. I stroked their backs, drying them with the cuff of my shirt. I prayed with all the faith in the world. I pictured them in my mind, breathing, and would look down, for a moment thinking I might have seen them move. I held them against my face and begged God to bring them back to life. I am not sure how long I was out there, but the sky had turned from black to grey with approaching morning and I never stopped, even as I heard my fathers boots cracking through the thin skin of ice over the dirt.

He said nothing, but reached out his hand, and in the other he held a small shoe box.  We walked through the garden together, my numb feet sinking into the cold earth. We passed the work shed and the empty rabbit hut with its wire door hanging limp until we reached the woods.  The two puppies were still tucked into the crescent of my arm, and I watched as my father squatted low, brushing aside the deadened leaves.  He began digging until he was able to slide the box deep into the earth.   He looked up at me, staring into my stubborn eyes, and reached out his two mud streaked hands.  

We shaped two little pebble crosses over the wet circle of soil, and we sat together, side by side amongst the trees until the sky lightened to milk between the black branches.  

I remember many things about that morning. But nothing over powers sitting with my father in the silence as the sky turned.  I have wondered since what would have happened had the miracle occurred?  I'm sure the story would have been told many more times, and yet I see another miracle, an act of love that might be even greater. My father coming out to help me put away what death had taken. Perhaps in faith the greatest leap of all is to  simply trust your Father.To let Him lead you out into the woods to bury what is gone, and to sit with Him, head against His chest until the light comes.

 He knelt in the cold of winter and dug with His bare hands a hole and  covered it over again.  His gentleness moved me to bend and place what had passed into the box. He knew it was time to bury that we might go and see what is living. Then He led me into the house and we sat, letting the heat thaw our bodies and witnessed the new life before us. 

Collecting Coins.

                                                                                                                          

God is good. If this is all that i know, is it enough?  Are these the words that will not only sustain me, but  give life and joy abundant?  And what of the time it takes, the time for it to sink in and become reality?  I do not understand God, not even a little. I see what I think is good, what I think is peace and right, and yet it seems so often not an option, not in His plan. What do I do with this, but again believe that He is good? He is good. He is good. He is good. I whisper this every moment that my heart and mind are bleeding. The words becoming a cloth to press against the wound. This is the hard thankfulness. the kind that I want to run from, and I would, except I know that there is no where to run that my heart will not follow. Perhaps God makes it hard to believe that I might know faith. Faith that what He says is indeed true. That my faith is in the Faithful alone.


A dear friend of mine lost her baby when she was just weeks from delivery.   I wrote her a letter and in it said this…"Why would this happen to those that have put such trust in you Lord?  And I do not know these answers. All I know is that from everything, through joy and sadness God whispers.  He tugs at us to continue believing no matter how deep the gash.  And when we believe in those moments, when our hearts are split open, bleeding all over every thing we once found valuable, deeming all else worthless, I do know this:  Cleaving to Him here seals our hearts forever to the Father.  There is no stronger bond that can be formed between you and the Lord. To trust completely, without even an ounce of understanding, and knowing there may never be an answer to why." He is good. He is good.  When mothers bury their beautiful, perfect babies, when love is lost and when all we see is the death, He is good. What do I do with the days that breathing seems the challenge?  When I think of calendars  and they bring a sense of panic, to think that I might have to continue existing inside each blank numbered square?  Whisper again, He is good. He is good.  It is the pain that binds me to Him.  His needle that sews my spirit to His is sharp and pierces through me, separating my own desires, my own dreams from myself until, in hope I pray I become knitted to Him. He is good. He is good,  a guttural moan in the night of my journey, a mantra that promises the glory of morning.  The Glory of light that blots out the darkness.  And the promise of joy immeasurable.

The path of His goodness is a dark and steep trail, and often I feel I am climbing blindly through, learning to grasp to the roots, jousting myself ever upwards with mere faith that I will climb to the top to witness the dawn. Each step is a labour but I must believe that the labour is good and the harvest will be plentiful beyond my understanding.

"No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. Make level the paths for your feet so that the lame may not be disabled but rather healed."  Hebrews 12:11

I sat outside a coffee shop in the rain tonight. The hopelessness of my circumstance dampened me deeper than the cold splatter of water on my shoulders. A woman walked out from the alley, asking for money to catch the bus. I had none to give her but she thanked me regardless and walked to the next group of stragglers. From a few people she collected change until she had enough.  I watched her walk away, sinking into the darkness and harsh January rain.  And then when I thought her gone, I heard her shout from the sidewalk somewhere far in the distance. "Thank YOU Lord! You gave me what I needed. Thank you Lord."    As I stood there listening to her yell out to no one but God and the storm,  I realized I needed change too. A change of perspective, a change in my vision, that I might walk the dark wet streets, thankful that I have collected just enough for the ride to where I need to go. And though my chest still heaved with the gravity of my sorrow, I pushed out enough breath to whisper yet again…He is good. He is good. And here is faith…that each time I whisper, hands open, that He is Good instead of dwelling on why I think He might not be, I feel the weight of another coin. A tiny token of change to take me there.