It is the time of year when young people are returning to classes. Amid the excitement of new beginnings is also the opportunity to be defined by others: smart kid, not so smart kid, popular kid, not so popular, awkward kid, geeky kid, drama queen (not a compliment).  There are tests to pass and perhaps fail and a million ways not to measure up, a million ways to have ourselves defined by others.

For adults there are other issues that can make us forget who we are: anxiety about work, relationships, children if we have them, parents if they are aging, our own aging, finances.  How able am I to look at myself in the mirror for a long period?  How is my sleeping these days? Where do I feel I am failing myself? others? Where might I be trying too hard to show myself or others just how 'alright' I am?  While we don't have to endure name calling on the playground, we do seem to find more sophisticated ways to call each other names through denigrating others' politics, religious beliefs, actions and chosen lifestyles.

Last Sunday at the 9:00 a.m. service we blessed school backpacks and book bags.  While praying for these young people we sprinkled their packs with Holy Water telling them the water on their pack was a baptismal reminder of who they were: beloved people of God.  The water was a reminder that whatever they encountered at school, tests, names, judgments and the like, their baptism was what finally named them.  As well, the water was a reminder they were part of a community who stood by them; they were part of God who proclaims in baptism there is nothing that can separate us from the love of God- nothing.

While we adults don't have packs blessed (I suppose we could come up with a rite to bless briefcases and computer packs), we do have an opportunity to sprinkle ourselves each time we walk into the church.  The recently installed wall fonts (in the vestibule of the front doors and in the room connecting the Nave and the covered walkway to the parish hall) are filled with Holy Water.  They allow us to dip our finger into the water and make the sign of the cross on our forehead.  This ancient practice of of signing, of marking ourselves,  serves to remind us who we are: beloved of God.  It is a tangible way we remember the body, the community into which we are joined.  It reminds us that whatever ways we have defined ourselves or allowed others to define us, the water trumps all, the water offers the only and final definition that is true: "Bill, Nancy, you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in Baptism and marked as Christ's own forever." 

In the words of baptism, there is no judgment, only proclamation that we are God's, that God is ours and that we belong, all of us, one to another and to every person on the planet.  The water helps us to remember who we are.

Peace,

Todd Donatelli