Baptism

From Ann Glover O’Dell’s Midwifing the Soul:

Baptized once with water

ceremonially

or bathed in childhood

or perhaps alone with tears

or saved from certain drowning

or drenched with raging rain

some experience of water

has impressioned us

with grave importance

of the power it has

and when we hear the story

of those on whom the splashing

was accompanied by words

of cleansing to embrace new life

we wonder as we later ponder

other needed rituals of water     

and a wrestling then with life

to find a newness never found

not knowing where or even if

a new one could be had without

a certain rite in which

a cleric spoke convincingly

of purity and sanctity

that made us

not only know in mind

but feel in heart

a sense that some rare grace

indeed had come to take us

not so much from something old

as into something new

and being clothed

in fresh washed white

drink water as if holy wine.