One year after I got sober … I called Reverend Noel at eight that morning and told him that I really didn’t think I was ready because I wasn’t good enough yet. Also, I was insane. My heart was good, but my insides had gone bad. And he said, “You’re putting the cart before the horse. So—honey? Come on down.” My family and all my closest friends came to church that day to watch as James dipped his hand into the font, bathed my forehead with cool water, and spoke the words of Langston Hughes:
Gather out of star-dust,
Earth-dust,
Cloud-dust,
Storm-dust,
And splinters of hail,
One handful of dream-dust,
Not for sale.
Did you feel that everything was sorted before you were baptised? Or did your sins feel like an obstacle? Give thanks that your sins are washed away, and that you are forgiven absolutely.
Reading from Anne Lamott Travelling Mercies. Some Thoughts on Faith (New York: Anchor, 1999), 52.
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