Remember Your Baptism

The beginning of a new year invokes a call to look forward and to make resolutions for new behaviors. In my church, we often look backwards in a service that invites us to remember our baptism. Many of us were so young when we were baptized that we do not recall the actual event. Remembering goes beyond the individual events. It draws upon the images of water and its powers of life and death. We recall the primal images of water and the biblical stories that use them in order to find and reclaim meaning for our lives. Remembering energizes us and moves us forward.

Remember Your Baptism

Drove to church on a foggy Sunday morning
Vowing to pay attention, to remember, to be thankful
To put together again hope and love
And celebrate a God-claimed identity.
The gray day teases a promise of rain.
Blue and green cloths splash over the altar.
“Use these colors” said our pastor,
“To help us remember water, life, and growth.”
I remember.  I love blue and green.
 A primal energy flows through the colors,
Precedes the biblical stories of water,
Puts them together again in baptism.
Is remembering living in a promise?
Be thankful. Rain ticks on the window.

RESTORATION

I experience the process of writing as a process of discovery. An insight, image, or idea emerges that I did not know about until I wrote it. I wrote “Restoration” during the holidays, and discovered an odd little juxtaposition between the technical tools I use and the natural world.

Restoration

Revving up my laptop took over an hour.
Today I start the restoration.
Clear viruses and malware from the machine.
Check it to see if it works.
Use the programs I pay for.
As with most things in life,
Restoration requires a bit of structured thought and process.

A cold front blows in.
Wind bends the heavenly bamboo.
A hard line of rain whitens the view.
Hard to believe I saw a rainbow this morning.
Rising sunlight broke apart the bands of color
Curving in the approaching wall of rain.
The rainbow came and went so quickly,
Almost a flash,
Like time or hope.                                                  

Looking over the top of my computer,
Watching weather through the window.
The year has turned.
Sun teases out the world’s colors and
The deep blue of unclouded sky.