Growing Up Amish - Ira Wagler [53]
It was like swimming across a raging river, fighting the silent, hungry undertow of the waters. Fighting to stay afloat. And now I had crossed more than halfway. I was approaching the distant shore. It made no sense to turn back. There was only one path open, one way to swim—forward.
We slid from our bench and knelt. Chris—the bishop’s son—and I. The deacon approached, hovering off to one side, holding a small pitcher of water. The bishop stood before us and paused. All was silent. It was a holy moment. All in the congregation strained to see, to witness this event.
And then the bishop spoke. “Do you believe and affirm your belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?”
We repeated the refrain as we had been told to do that morning in our final class. I spoke first. Then Chris.
“Yes, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
“Will you remain steadfast to the church, whether it leads to life or to death?”
“Yes.”
And then a few more rote questions. We answered in the affirmative. “Yes.”
Bishop Henry paused again. “Before we go further, these two applicants have requested our prayers. Everyone please stand.” The congregation stood as we remained on our knees. The bishop intoned the short prayer from a little black prayer book, his voice rising and falling in an almost hypnotic flow.
Then the prayer was finished, and the congregation was seated. The bishop stepped up and cupped his hands over my head, and the deacon stepped forward, ready with his pitcher.
The bishop proceeded with practiced ease, the words rolling from his tongue, “Upon your confession of faith, I baptize you in the name of the Father . . .” The deacon sprinkled a few drops of water on my head. “. . . in the name of the Son . . .” Another sprinkle. “. . . and in the name of the Holy Spirit.” Final sprinkle. “Amen.” The bishop then flattened his cupped hands and wiped the water drops into my hair.
Then he stepped before his son. Repeated the refrain, while the deacon sprinkled water during the proper pauses. We were now baptized. The bishop turned back to me and extended his hand. “In the name of the Lord and the church, arise,” he said. I grasped his hand and stood. We greeted each other with the holy kiss. He did the same to his son.
We stood there, Chris and I, full members of the Old Order Amish church. Bishop Henry officially welcomed us. We were now no longer pilgrims and strangers, he proclaimed, but brothers in Christ, in the church of God. I was twenty-one years old.
I looked at him as he spoke to us. He was smiling in genuine welcome. If fragmented memories of my rough and wicked past flashed through his mind at that moment, he didn’t let on. The wild and wayward son, the wanderer, had taken the long road. But now, at long last, he was home. Safely in the fold. Safely inside the box.
I’m sure his joy was genuine and sincere. As it was for my parents. Dad would never have told me, but he was relieved and truly happy that I had actually joined the church. And Mom’s joy shone from her face as she smiled and smiled. I had put them through so much. But they gladly forgot the past, gladly forgave all I had done, and simply rejoiced in this moment.
I had done it. Gone all the way this time. But even as I stood and joined my brethren after the service, even then, a strange emptiness lingered inside me.
There had been no epiphany, no sudden explosion of light and awareness. Or joy. Actually, other than the stress of the ceremony, there wasn’t a whole lot of anything, except a nagging feeling that somehow I had just walked through a doorway into another place, a place from which it would be impossible to return.
I felt pretty much the same as I always had these past five years. Confused. Half-scared. Trapped. Resigned. And, deep down, desperately lost.
21
After Titus’s accident, he remained in critical condition at the Iowa City