I was half distracted while writing the post last night, I’m only an eighth distracted while I write this one. In the car on the way to church, or in the car on the way to anywhere has got to be one of my favorite ways to write the blog. In the back, with Robinia, singing songs and being silly and writing and listening to Bluey.

Today we’re on our way to Roby’s baptism. She’s wearing cute clothes and she’s got cute clothes to change in to, we’re listening to her favorite music (bluey) and dancing about in the back of the car.

I don’t remember my own baptism, I was much younger than Robinia, and I wonder if she’ll have any inkling of hers. I doubt it. My earliest memories are from when I was…three? Perhaps? It’s tough to say. When you’re a kid and you spend a lot of time at the same house, your house, the memories, I’m sure, can bleed in to one another. Roby goes to this church at least once a week, quite a bit more when she was younger. While she’ll only be ritually dunked in water the one time, I can imagine her early memories of Saint Jacob’s being fairly liquid (no pun intended).

It makes me wonder about cradle entry into a church.

For it to have always been there is something I’m only sort of familiar with. My grandparent’s Anglican & Roman Catholic Churches were both present as I was growing up, as I said, I was baptized in one of them. I took them for granted and also understood them not at all. The first one appealed very little because it was just some dude, a preacher, who set the rules, and the second one felt closed off because it was in a language I did not speak. Two languages I didn’t speak, and don’t speak. We also went pretty infrequently on the span of months and it was always a drag. We didn’t know anyone but our grandparents and everything that was going on felt useless, without context, contrived, and weak.

Going to Saint Jacob’s each week, and during Great Lent, twice a week, or perhaps even three times, is a horse of a different color. Especially when eery question can be answered by an impassioned convert and a loving priest who’s known Robinia since she was only a few months old.

I was always eager to know about church and faith but everyone I spoke to felt watered down, unconvinced, unconvincing, or convinced for reasons that make me very uncomfortable.

I’m hoping that we can be for Roby what I never had.

Not that I resent that lack. Truth be told much of an effort to convert me would have met with derision and pride. I grew up in a different time and in a different context and having secular parents who brought a great deal of caution to their cosmology was helpful.

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I wrote that on my way to Robinia’s baptism, which was lovely. 

Then we came home and took a little break and got to work on milling the wood for the apartment. I’ve taken time off of work to do this project and my father in law is visiting. Almost immediately my most expensive and important tool broke. I cannot afford a new one and I have no way of fixing it. Russel will give it a try in the morning while I go use a different one at a friend’s place, but it basically means I don’t get to do projects any more. 

Great fun. 

It was a good day, then I let my own attitude ruin it. 
Good job me.