Sunday, January 12, 2014

In and With


Last night Daddy and I drank a little too much.  This is never a very wise idea but it's even less wise when you have a five-month-old at home.  Lucky for us, Grandma Gail came to the rescue this morning and entertained you and your sister until 8:30 so that Daddy and I could enjoy our headaches in the daylight instead of the darkness of 7am.  But it was wonderful to have a night out, for the music to be loud enough to drown out voices and work its way into the shoulders and ribcage and hips.  Nice to shimmy.  Everyone disembodied a little in the packed crowd, close enough to exist only from the breastbone up: the hair, the eyes, the neck.  Frozen busts melted into motion.

We gave you over to the nursery workers for the first time today in your red Choo-Choo vest and brown knit pants.  You sucked on your knuckles and watched the other children orbit and send off sparks.  Your sister wore a dress my grandma made for my cousin Emily.  White with blue smocking across the front, tiny blue dots on the collar.  Thisbe paired this short-sleeved dress with a brown long sleeve shirt underneath (for warmth), lavender tights, and silver shoes (Grandma Dythe would have been mildly appalled).  During communion Thiz dropped her silver ring and then climbed beneath my chair to try to find it.  In the process (lavender legs in the aisle) she tripped about half a dozen people en route to the bread and wine.  She also knocked over my coffee mug.  I hissed at her.  She cried.  I held her on my lap.  We sang "Go My Children With My Blessing." A photographer snapped pictures of the acolyte on tiptoe extinguishing the baptismal candle.

It was baptismal remembrance Sunday so while Thisbe was in Sunday school Daddy and Grandma and I sat in the sanctuary and heard a little bit about baptism.  In the Small Catechism Luther says that the water itself isn't powerful on its own; its the word of God in and with the water that gives it the special mojo.

I like the phrase "in and with," the idea that God is both inside and beside us, internal and external, present and presence; God washing up against both sides of my skin.

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