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It's a hazard of ministry, and something I'll have to learn to get past, but I can't stop thinking and worrying about the young woman from the previous post. The most awful part of the encounter was when I asked when the baby is due. Rather than give an immediate answer, she counted down on her fingers. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8...early April. No day, just "Early April." Why is this so awful? If you ask an expectant mother when her baby is due, the answer is usually immediate because the birth is looked forward to with happy excitement. The date is enshrined in the parent's hearts, only to be displaced by the baby's actual birthday. Mothers-to-be whose lives are stable and safe can look forward, both practically and joyfully, to the arrival of a baby. I asked if she'd picked any names and she said no, as if I'd asked a ridiculous question...and perhaps, in her context, I had. In a stable life parents pick names long before the baby is born. Partly this is practicality - the child is going to need a name and you don't want to leave it till the last minute. The first name off the top of your head is probably not going to be the best one. But it's more than just practicality; naming an unborn baby helps us claim the child as fully human. It helps parents focus their loving anticipation. Naming an unborn baby moves the child from "it" to "him" or "her." Here I'm drawing conjectures about this woman's life, but I doubt she has any such luxury. It appears that her world has calloused her, worn away the tender parts and left only the mechanisms of survival. Life has become meaningless, even the introduction of new life. Without meaning life is just a series of unconnected and often brutal events. She doesn't do things; things happen to her. That's the essence of extreme poverty - a lack of control and an absence of choices. I'm not sure how much of this had filtered through my thinking at the time but as the young woman left St. Bart's I wanted to offer her child baptism. I wanted to invite her to bring her child to church, Sunday or Tuesday or whenever, to be baptised. Why? Because I'm Christian, and baptism is the initiation of a person into the body of Christ. Baptism offers saving Grace. Baptism is also rich with meaning. It's a series of simple actions that carry deeper truths (which is the definition of sacrament, really) and meaning is something this woman needs. Baptism brings a person into the body of the church. Once that bond is forged it opens the possibility of us helping this woman, connecting to her, in a more meaningful way than if she drifts in and out. She would meet us and know us, and we would have the opportunity to become family. Baptism unites us in community. Maybe if we reach out, offer our most treasured gift, we can provide some of the context and stability that her life (and the life of her child) might otherwise lack. Perhaps we can help her make meaning in a meaningless world. Of course there's a certain Pollyanna quality about this scenario. I know that. Behind my hopes there is a realist who knows - the offer might be refused. She might not be Christian. The offer might be accepted and never acted on; imagine us all ready for a baptism one morning, water in the font, bulletins printed and cake decorated, but no mother or child. It may be accepted and acted on and then forgotten, like so many baptisms of children in stable homes. Still, I retain the right to hope. If I don't believe that baptism has the power to radically change this family's life then how can I believe that it matters at all? If the sacraments carry no power then why practice them? They're just one more set of meaningless symbols. But I do believe - I know - that God works through the sacraments to change lives. I know it from my own experience, I know it from seeing others changed and I know it from faith. That makes it all the worse that I didn't make the offer. Partly I worried what the church's rules might be - does St. Bart's have a strict requirement for baptism preparation? I doubt the mother could make that commitment. Partly I didn't want to be perceived as trying to evangelize - that's not what outreach is about. And partly I didn't want to be refused...which is childish, of course. So I've committed myself, should this young woman come back to breakfast, to making the offer. It's the Christian thing to do. |
