Baptism By Fire

This past Sunday, while in worship, Psalm 139 was read aloud and the woman preaching asked for people to share reflections. I am not very familiar with the Psalms, so their words do not come to mind readily. However, when I read through the 139th, I was deeply moved by the verses. They are beautiful words in their own right, but they hold particular significance for me because of an intense experience I had this summer past.

During my last shift of being on-call at the UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center, I received a page from a social worker. A patient was undergoing an operation to evacuate her fetus. And the patient and her family wanted the child to be baptized after the procedure was completed. I could have passed the task off to one of the Catholic priests who were present for Mass that day, but I decided that there was no need to do so. I was just as capable as they to perform this ritual and since I was the on-call chaplain, it was my job. It was an awkward service to arrange. None of the staff had ever had this done before. This was my first baptism ever, let alone in a hospital, so I certainly had no protocol suggestions. Finally we figured everything out, I got the child’s name from the mother in the recovery room and then entered the staff-only area to perform the baptism. The family would not be present. Although I made room for the staff to join me, they opted to not be present either. Understandable. A nurse placed the child on an instrument table in an operating room. She asked if I needed anything else and I requested some water for the baptism, which she quickly retrieved. Due to the type of abortion performed, there was no discernible human form. I never opened the translucent container. The nurse took her leave, and closed the door behind her.

I was very anxious up to this point. I felt that I could perform the ritual, but my anxiety was nearly tangible. I had to start by praying that the Holy Spirit fill me with peace and courage. I prayed this most earnestly for a time. I cannot describe to you how each moment seemed to stretch to infinity, yet melted away instantaneously. Indeed, even now I am tearing up as the stretches of time between now and then vanish. After feeling sufficiently emboldened, I finally truly beheld the child before me. My entire being became focused and I felt a terrible loneliness well-up inside me. It was not I who felt lonely; but inexplicably I felt the child of God before me was. I broke down and wept. After a time I collected myself and reached for the sterilized water that stood silently by, though more water seemed redundant at this point:

“Angel, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

At this moment, despite my rational eyes telling me that there is nothing human before me, I experienced the most profound humanity. It was a tragic beauty that the very core of my being recognized. In response to being so grievously touched, from the deepest parts of everything I am, manifested words that I cannot claim as my own because I did not think of them nor realize what I said until after the fact:

“You will never be forgotten, Angel.”

I was transported to the most authentic parts of myself, while also transcending every aspect of myself. I felt that I was absolutely nothing and yet positively everything. Time telescoped and took me back years to when I was on the brink of self-destruction because of how far into the utter abyss that is Doubt I had fallen. At that time, I was being swallowed up by the Infinite and felt there was no way out. As I hurtled deeper into that darkness and was dashed upon the conclusion that there was nothing left, I felt a voice assure me:

“David, you are not alone.”

And my life was saved. I was brought back from that precipice only by an ontological, experiential truth that I cannot deny, but also cannot adequately explain. And as I stood before Angel, that irrefutable Presence that kept me alive years ago was palpably present once more. I addressed that Presence, that Being, when I commended Angel’s spirit unto God for safekeeping. And though my tears before were due to the tragedy of our fallen existence as frail creatures, the tears I shed now were due to the beauty of our redeemed existence as beloved children. I did not feel any judgment. I did not feel any redemption of the tragedy to which I was bearing witness. There is no redemption or silver lining to be found. The loss of human life is terribly absurd. It is the work of the living to remember and honor that loss. And Angel, I assure you I will never forget.

For it was you who formed my inward parts;

you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

My frame was not hidden from you,

when I was being made in secret,

intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.

In your book were written

all the days that were formed for me,

when none of them as yet existed.

How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!

How vast is the sum of them!

I try to count them—they are more than the sand;

I come to the end—I am still with you.

Psalm 139: 13-28

Liminality

This is a concept I have been wrestling with for some time now.  My first wrestlings with it were in the framework of marriage, but now it is for the issue of ordination.  Basically, my question comes down to What is Ordination?  You can pretty much substitute any rite of passage into the question (What is Marriage?  What is Graduation?  What is Initiation?) and the question remains.

Liminality refers to the idea of a threshold.  I’ll use the rite of graduation as an example.  Before you go through the graduation ceremony, you are a non-graduate.  However, at some point (debatable when it is, which is part of the problem), you officially transition from the state of non-graduate to graduate.  The moment of transition is called the liminal moment.  Liminality has fascinated me ever since being somewhat cursorily introduced to it in undergrad particularly because of its critical place in religion.  Every religion has its various rituals to move someone from one condition to another.  Conversion is probably one of the biggest and most salient examples.  At one point you are not of a faith tradition and then, usually after undergoing a proscribed ritual, you are a part of that faith tradition.

I find this to be an incredibly important concept.  We have liminal moments at so many points in our lives, but they often pass unmarked (or marked in curious ways).  When we turn 18, we can now vote, smoke, and join the armed forces.  When we turn 21, we can drink, which people often (un)ceremoniously welcome.  When we hit puberty, we enter into manhood/womanhood (many cultures understood/understand puberty as the coming-of-age process into adulthood and had/have elaborate rituals to commemorate it).  And then there are innumerable social rites that have liminal moments: initiation into a fraternity or sorority, seeking and obtaining a job, earning a degree, etc.  There are also the more momentous liminal moments of our lives such as birth (abortion debates, perhaps without realizing it, often revolve around the question of liminality), marriage, and death.

For me, I really personalized this issue when I began to wonder aloud if a relationship is qualitatively different before a marriage ceremony than after.  As in, the relationship of the fiancees the morning before before the wedding is fundamentally different from the relationship of the wedded couple the morning after.  Or, to make it all the more momentous and pointed, are the bride and groom qualitatively different from one moment to the next even though they haven’t moved from their places at the altar (unless you put a lot of stock in the consummation of the marriage, then we’d have to wait until the wedding night- hence the big deal about virginity like the presentation of bloody sheets, etc.).  Is there a conferment of a different relational quality at a particular point during the ceremony?

At that point in my life, which was my 2nd year in college, I felt there was not.  I thought the ceremony was a social celebration and social contract of a relationship already committed to such a degree.  The relationship the morning before and the morning after is not qualitatively different because (I’ll speak from my paradigm since this was a personal questing) the couple have already sought God’s guidance and, through discernment, have determined that marriage is the course their relationship is to take.  Therefore, the ceremony is nothing more than a social convention.  In fact, I thought it rather silly to think that a couple would be relationally different from one day to the next, as if the couple had not been as in love, or as committed, or whatever the day prior.

I have since, probably through more serious study and just life experiences, come to a different understanding of liminality.  I find myself feeling there is more to our liminal experiences than mere socio-functionality.  This is me speaking, however, from within religious contexts now.  I don’t really feel inspired to talk about whether a college graduate is qualitatively different due to society’s collective response changing towards that person.  Granted, some will say that’s exactly what is happening regarding religious rituals as well.  That each and every ritual is socio-functional.

But I cannot help but disagree.  In fact, it troubles me that liminality seems to be an under-appreciated aspect of my faith tradition.  I don’t hear it stressed very often in the various rituals we have people undergo.  It genuinely troubles me that there seems to be no qualitative difference between those who are within the Church and those who are without.  But I get ahead of myself.

Qualitative difference.  This is a loaded phrase I keep throwing around.  Let’s take the liminal moment of Conversion to talk about this phrase.  If a conservative monotheist is asked whether someone undergoes a qualitative change during conversion, they would answer unequivocally “Yes” because the convert is now saved.  Their soul went from a state of peril to a state of salvation.  And this is the most important liminal moment a person can undergo!  Because if they have not been made right with God, then their soul will not transition from damned to saved.  They will not experience that liminality and therefore will not experience life eternal.  This is an example of qualitative difference.  The eternal condition of a person changes when they convert (according to this perspective).

The simultaneously fascinating yet frustrating thing about liminal moments, and religious conversion illustrates it perfectly, is that they’re usually invisible.  A relationship that undergoes marriage might have indicators attached to it: you may now kiss your partner, Facebook Relationship Update, rings on the fingers, etc.  But the immaterially tangible thing we call a relationship is invisible.  The soul of a person (whatever that is…. I don’t know really) goes from a state of damned to saved.  We don’t see that.  We can’t objectively test that (sorry Science).  And that’s frustrating.  In fact, it often leads people to just throwing metaphysical liminality out.  What’s the point in worrying about it?

And that is precisely what brings me to this question again and again.  We pass through liminal moments and then what?  For example, when someone tells me they are saved because of their faith in Jesus Christ, but act exactly like the next person who does not profess any particular faith, I just wonder: so what?  The quarreling, the hardness of heart, the lack of grace, the narrowness of mind, the limitation of scope, the tribalism of acceptability.  Again, I cannot lay my finger on criteria, but I find myself unable to escape expecting visible fruits of one’s conversion.  And that can be of innumerable sorts: the young woman who turns vegetarian, the older man who commits to losing 60 lbs., the teenager who won’t be like her abusive mother, etc.  All of these people, I would hope, would bear fruits of their respective conversions.  When the mind and spirit commit to something, I feel that the fruits borne should speak to the efficacy of that conversion.  Therefore, there is visibility to invisible liminality.

But it’s exactly that invisible quality I’m trying wrestle with.  It’s that metaphysical quality that intrigues me.  It’s that inexplicable sense of communion with something greater than one’s self to the point of recognizing a new self has been created.  Just before death, a man has a revelation and repents of all his wrong-doing and professes belief in God.  The 18-year-old is now a new entity in society: instead of the usual title of “Minor” the teen is now legally an “Adult” and has many of the responsibilities of the status conferred upon/opened to them at that moment.

Perhaps therein is a key point.  Responsibility.  Perhaps I am frustrated at the lack of responsibility people seem to acknowledge is bestowed upon them when these liminal moments are passed through.  It should be a huge deal to render one’s life unto Christ.  It’s a life of service.  A life contrary to what usual human nature aims for.  Instead of orientation towards the Self, we must orient ourselves to God and to the Other.  This is a massive responsibility that, I feel, should change how life is lived.  Maybe I’m too biased by my own conversion experience years ago that wracked my life into despair and darkness for a time, which made the experience of Light too profound to not have it affect my life.

And the final issue with this I’ll raise is the issue of gatekeepers.  Who possesses the authority and power to preside, oversee, administer the liminal rite?  Who has the ability to determine who can pass through and who cannot?  And should these powers and authorities become too Self-oriented, at what point can you ignore the conventional and/or traditional mediums?

Or, for my current quandary:

Is God involved in ordination in such a way that there is a qualitative, metaphysical difference between me now and me after being ordained?

Is there a conferring of spiritual authority upon an ordained minister that s/he carries with him/her that would not be present otherwise?

Is the Church, a Church, necessary for that?  If not, how can such a liminal moment occur otherwise?  If so, how is that ritual of liminality performed so as to convey adequate respect and reverence for such a grave responsibility?

And how much weight should societal recognition play?  In other words, how important is the title of “Reverend”?