Baptism - It's Not Just For Weirdos

Since last I wrote, I've moved house back to Brixton; an area I love despite a branch of Foxton’s moving in since I’ve been away (yes I’m one of those people who love up-and-coming areas but bitch when things get too gentrified). I haven’t exactly unpacked yet, but the bin bags containing clothes are at least in the vicinity of the wardrobe . . .

I’ve also spent some time in Leeds to celebrate a very close friend’s birthday and baptism – the start of a new chapter in several different ways. 

This friend became Christian not long after I did when she was a guest on an Alpha table I was ‘helping’ on. I say the word ‘helping’ dubiously, as we bonded over my asking more numerous and difficult questions than the guests I was meant to be looking after. That and a mutual love of The Wine. 

We’ve shared many of the same struggles with trying to reconcile our modern world views and cynicism with newfound faith, so I definitely wanted to be there to witness the occasion of her baptism. I hadn’t considered it would be so powerful though.

As she read out her testimony she spoke with such articulate, painful honesty that the energy in the room changed.

She spoke of her brokenness.

She spoke of words of knowledge and healing declared over her.

She spoke of coming to know Jesus as loving and kind, and not the God of punishment she had always pictured.

She spoke of finding freedom from harmful behaviours.

She spoke of learning the truth of knowing joy regardless of circumstances.

Believers and non-believers alike started wiping their eyes with tissues. Something holy was happening. 

As worship music played in the background and she descended into the baptism pool, people started openly weeping. I cried so much that the church leader paused the ceremony to see if I needed the towel intended for my friend (embarrassing).

I felt struck by the knowledge that God weeps at our pain, combined with his overwhelming joy at one of his children stepping out in faith and being restored to Him

Sometimes God transforms us overnight. Usually though, it’s such a slow process we can’t even see it at the time. This baptism was a wonderful marker of what God had done for us, reminding me: “Remember when you both travelled down to the Alpha weekend away rolling your eyes at the thought of ever being one of those people singing along to worship music? Remember when you thought a person’s self worth was only ever tied to how you looked or how successful you were, and you felt how little you measured up? Remember when you thought this life was all there is and the future scared you? Did you ever think you’d be here? Look how far you’ve come!”

It was a visual signifier that when Jesus promises to heal, restore, redeem and transform, it is real. 

God’s true revelation of Himself is in Jesus. In this life we can never know everything about the mysterious, superlative God. As Paul so rightly said in one of the most beautiful verses in scripture: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known”. 

How can we know the character of a God too big for us to comprehend? Jesus simplified everything: “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father”. You want to know what God is like? Look to Jesus. It’s that simple.

It's The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

I have decided that the best way to ensure you DON’T do something is to tell people that you’re going to do it. Preferably publically. 

Mwahaha! Happy Halloween!

By this point I’d hoped to have started reading the Bible in a year, but it’s proving to be trickier than anticipated to find the time to do so (and yet, I’ve still found time to catch up on ‘Gilmore Girls’ and ‘Scandal’. Bizarre). My study guides and reading material have all arrived and are sat in a fat pile on my floor looking intimidating but sadly neglected and unloved, whilst I flit around doing other things and pass them over for a Neil Gaiman novel, like a now bored lover who’s moved on to greener pastures.

And like that bored lover, my excuse for not calling is that I’ve been busy. I was in bonny old Scotland for a week to celebrate my Granddad’s 100^th birthday, and to generally eat, drink and be merry with eighty of my Granddad’s closest family and friends (EIGHTY PEOPLE! I couldn’t get eighty people to come to my birthday if I tried, and yet my wee Granddad, who pretty much shuns company, has people lining up to celebrate with him!).

My granddad is, I have to say, pretty awesome, and made his grand entrance to his 100^th birthday party doing the conga. The Queen and Prince Phillip (my costumed uncle and brother-in-law) made guest appearances to personally present the birthday telegram to my Granddad (“One hopes one has a very happy birthday, and that one’s Annus is not Horribilus”) and make lots of racist remarks (Phillip, obvs.), whilst us commoners stood and chorused a belting rendition of God Save The Queen. My own personal Damascene moment was when I realised that I had the exact same dance moves as my Granddad. So good for one’s self esteem.

We’d barely touched down back in London when I was launched into pretty much my favourite week of the year – Halloween and Bonfire Night! Now, I know that some Christians don’t approve of Halloween, and I do understand the thinking behind that sentiment, but I love Halloween not out of any worshipping of the occult (definitely Team Jesus here), but because I love fancy dress and anything a bit spooky and scary. As the nights draw in - all darkness and fog - I can totally imagine how and why, before the invention of electric light, people thought that ghosts walked this time of year, and that the vale between the two worlds, that of the living and that of the dead, was somehow thinner than usual.

On Halloween after work, I slipped into a bloody surgeon costume and went with a friend-turned-vampire to Phobophobia at London Bridge. This basically involves descending into the tunnels under London Bridge and making your way through an assortment of scary scenes, with actors dressed as axe murderers, clowns and zombies jumping out at you to make you shriek. Favourite bits included a strobe lit corridor of hanging severed heads, a claustrophobia walk where we had to squeeze through inflatable walls that pressed in on us, and a spinning tunnel of mirrors. It was all super fun and just the right level of scary (adrenalin pumping screams and laughing rather than widdle-yourself-with-terror type of scary).

The following evening me and my housemates had an autumn themed drinks party in honour of the fact that we’re all moving out of our lovely flat. We garlanded the house with dried leaves and candles, carved out pumpkins, cooked a ton of food, mulled hot cider and handed out sparklers. An assorted biscuit box of lovely guests came, and getting to catch up and hang out with them was what made it a really great evening.

To bookend such a fun week was Bonfire Night. There’s nothing like the bright explosion of fireworks against the night sky to make you feel sentimental and reflect back on the year as it approaches the closing stretch of its old age (“So, what have I achieved this year? Erm, don’t think about that just now, drink your mulled cider instead”). 

"Ooh, Ahhh" etc

I do have one very pressing question: just what the flippin’ heck has happened to bonfires? I’ve been going to the Battersea Park fireworks display for years and the bonfire has always been a thing of beauty – flames twenty feet high, like a beacon of warmth and light in the cold autumn darkness. This year it was piddling – so small we didn’t even see it until we tripped over the fencing area that cordoned it off. Has the dreaded Health and Safety struck again or did someone just do a piss poor job this year, because I’ve started bigger fires with my toaster.

ANYHOO, now that my liver and my blood sugar levels are righting themselves, it’s time for me to start clearing my stuff and packing boxes as I’m moving house next week (I’m under strict instructions by the house-moving-angel who always assists me that she won’t help me move anymore unless I cut down the amount of books I own by a substantial amount. My life feels like Sophie’s Choice right now). The move concluded, I’m planning on lying in a darkened room for a couple of days. I’ll get round to the Bible In A Year soon. Life just keeps getting in the way.