In the Wilderness - Kim Barnes [48]
The newly warm air, the birds chittering in the greening trees, the smell of the meadow opening into tiny flowers, all added to the dreamlike feel of the day. I stood with my parents, savoring the sun on my shoulders, shivering in my crisp white dress and bare feet.
I felt it was expected of me, given my age, but I also remember thinking that everything was changing, that this ritual would be a fitting symbolic end to my life in the woods and my relationship with the people of the church, whom we would be leaving behind. And it would also mark the end of my childhood, both spiritually and, I thought with a shiver of expectation, physically. It was a rite of passage, and I was painfully aware of my nipples already rigid from the cold air. My prayers were forgotten as I considered how I would survive the embarrassment of having my wet dress cling to my chest, the shape of my breasts exposed for all to see in that moment before I could cover myself.
When Brother Lang called my name, I passed my glasses to my mother, then took the hand of my father, who gave me like a bride to the preacher. He stood waist deep in the frigid pool, solid as a stump against the slow current. I shuddered in the runoff of mountain snow, my eyes already closed.
“Sister Kim, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.” I felt his arm low at my back, and then his hand against my forehead. We dipped like dancers. The current caught my feet just as the water closed over my face, then I was lifted up and helped to the bank. My mother wrapped me in a blanket and cradled me against her warm shoulder. It all happened so quickly I didn’t have time to worry about modesty. I blinked in the light. It was beautiful, the way the trees and sky looked without my glasses, like a watercolor painting. The dome of blue blended seamlessly to green, then back to the lighter blue of water. Figures moved before me, dark against the sun.
This is the way it’s supposed to be, I thought. Like spring, everything reborn, everything whole. I closed my eyes and listened. Hallelujahs rose and I knew someone else was going under.
There is something about that moment when I stepped from the water into my mother’s arms that I want to hold on to. The sun’s warmth, my father’s steadying hand, the familiar voices praising God from whom all blessings flowed, and in every new leaf and birdsong a promise of everlasting life. Yet there are times when I remember myself silent, an observer, reflecting the ecstasy of others just as the water mirrored the sun. I could mimic their prayers, sway with them in my pew. Was I doing only what was expected of me, acting the role I knew would gain approval and praise?
Sometimes I think I never felt anything, only imagined the pure joy of absolute faith. There are times when I remember the peace that filled me at the end of hours at the altar, hoarse from calling on the Lord, exhausted and nearly incoherent. I felt emptied, purified by my physical weakness. Often, these were the times when I could feel the new language rise in my throat, feel the rhythm of the words suddenly come to me as I began to speak in the tongues of angels—a gift that each of us quested for, a gift that never came to some.
My glossolalia was guttural, the hard sounds low and deep in my throat. I felt I could speak it for days, my eyes closed, sustained and mesmerized by this thing that controlled my body and my soul.
That day at the creek, when the water closed over me and then parted, I felt the magic of the ritual. I could never deny the rapturous exhilaration of being renewed, knowing I had pleased both my people and my god. Stepping from the water into the warmth of my mothers arms, feeling my father lay his hand on my head as he had done when I was young