Religious Scholar

It was too warm to play outside today, so I went to church, something I rarely do in the summer. I thought there would be about five or six other people there, but when I opened the door, I fell back in surprise: almost every seat was taken. Then I noticed the babies.

My worst church-going nightmare is arriving for a service and finding out there is a baptism. The only thing worse is finding out that there is a guest appearance by a brass quintet. Grabbing one of the last available seats, I quickly looked at the program for signs of baptism. Yes, there was a baptism. In fact, there were FIVE! My heart sank, but I was stuck now: there was no escape!

Actually, the service moved along rather briskly, and there was enough air conditioning to make it tolerable. The babies were cute, of course, and our rector has a sincere love of little ones, you can tell by the way he tenderly cuddles them and gives them a kiss at the end. But FIVE? Any way, the sacrament also provided a lesson in the new names of today’s children:

Emma, April, Allegra, Francesca, and Lorenzo. The rector and parents carried the new baptisees down the aisle for all to admire, and actually, my curmudgeonly self melted away in their beguiling presence.

Add to this, the last hymn before dismissal was the Hymn to Joy based on the theme from Beethoven’s Ninth. I believe the Episcopalians are the only denomination that includes the syncopation at the return to the A section (it sounds awfully humdrum without it). The congregation sang robustly, and the choir director pulled out all the stops with the newly restored organ. All in all, I suppose there are worse ways to spend a warm Sunday morning.

(clip art courtesy of Google, not the service described above.)