"Water year to date (Oct 1-Mar 1)
- 38.22 2015/16 (as of 1:56 PM)
- 38.19 1998/99
- 37.96 1950/51
- 36.39 1995/96
- 36.06 1955/56
When it rains heavily I call it "California rain." It is the sort of rain when your knees are wet within a minute of walking outside. I hated it in grade school because when I would sit down at my desk I would feel the cold, wet fabric against my knees and the top of my thighs.
Usually the rain around here (Seattle) is more of a misty or drizzly rain. Just enough to eventually get you wet and be annoying but not enough to keep you from doing many things. I am sure this is a major contributing factor to REI's success.
And while most people wait for the rain to subside and look out for the rainbow afterward sometimes I wonder if we are missing a more poignant reminder. That of our baptism.
Working in Seminary we joke all the time about things like baptism and the Eucharist. There is a hyperawareness at my workplace of the concrete liturgical actions that permeate our everyday lives and most people haven't been sensitized to these moments. It is almost an industry secret that if people really understood how many sacramental and liturgical moments they go through in a day and actually were aware when they happened, well then pastors would be out of a job. You don't really need a pastor to help lead you through the exercise of what is sacred and what is profane if you are mindful enough. But many christians do not practice that sort of awareness and pastors regularly point out and reframe sacred acts from much that is taken for granted as profane.
I am reminded about the scene in Boondock Saints when McManus brothers first learn of their elevation and one "blesses" the cops sitting at their desks in the local precinct (It's 2 weeks to St. Paddy's, I couldn't resist).
via GIPHY
Though it is an example of mockery of Christianity in a movie that glorifies violence, it also shows how mindfulness and knowledge of one's practice allows for opportunities to insert the theological into the everyday. The line between mockery and subverting the profane begins to blur in a world where the profane rules and resists to any attempt to seriously sacralize the mundane. This scene is a bonding moment where a group of men who are nominal Christians (perhaps more than that even) realize that they have the shared experience of Eucharist, asperges, and perhaps even baptism.
A joke we might say if someone came into the office wet from a rainstorm is "looks like you just got through with baptism." A serious and subversive thing we might say to someone who is going through a rough patch and seems to be losing their identity as a child of God is "remember you are child of God, baptized, forgiven and adopted into God's family."
In a small, local parish the pastor would often know the name of everyone coming forward to receive the Eucharist and would say "Martin, child of God, this is the body and blood of our Lord, shed for you, for the forgiveness of sins" or some such. However one lenten practice is that everyone loses their name. Everyone is "child of God." Rich, poor, old, young, everyone. Being a child of God is normalized. It unifies. It flattens.
And that is subversive in today's culture. As subversive as choosing your child's religious path and committing them to the care of the greater community. As subversive as trusting God enough to let go of your child. As subversive as daily remembering your baptism and reminding other people of theirs.
Mindfulness alone is subversive thing. But what if every Christian in Seattle stopped and remembered their baptism EVERY TIME IT RAINED? What would happen to road rage on the 405 or the practice of smiling in the nameless crowds at Pike's Place Market or allowing someone in a rush before you in the fair-trade coffee shop line in the morning? And is that something I can build into my daughter so that as she grows she is comforted by the rain and by the fact that she was baptized accepted into and protected by a God and community before she could even have a voice to advocate for herself?
Extras:
Here is an artist I had in mind as I worked on this post.
