Sunday, November 06, 2005

Sweet Jesus!

Today my mother is getting baptised. I only found out about it when I was talking to one of my sisters on the phone yesterday. I’d heard that she’d started to go to church with some people she had met through dancing. V had reported that Mum had said she’d been saved. Apparently, V’s reaction to this proclamation was that it was great for Mum personally, as long as she didn’t try to convert others.

V is reading a book which questions the assumption that God is a he.

I also knew from V that my other sister was very pleased about Mum’s revelation. F was born again 17 years ago. She had answered a share accommodation classified and met the friends of her new flatmate and then started going to church. F has since done a Bachelor of Theology at a bible college, where she met her husband. They have been married for 10 years and have a 3 year old daughter who, when she was only 2, said to me ‘Jesus loves me’. She also said ‘bocconcini’ and ‘artichoke’.

I went to F’s baptism in a small wooden church with stained glass windows covered in fine wire mesh. A board had been removed from the floor of the raised stage to reveal a long deep bath. F had worn a loose white gown and walked down some steps into the water. The pastor had crouched on the edge of the bath and pressed his palm to F’s forehead, guiding her into the water to wash away her sins. Two other adults were also baptised that day.

F and her family are driving to Brisbane to attend Mum’s baptism. Afterwards they will gather at V’s house. V said she would call me while they were there and give the phone to my niece so we can talk.

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