This is the only picture I could find (on the internet/my computer) of my dad and me.
I’ve sat looking at a blinking cursor for about five minutes trying to decide what to include in this post, thinking about the photograph itself, the event that happened when it was taken, everything before the event and everything after…It’s incredibly ironic that this is the only picture I could find…
For about five years of my life, I considered myself Christian though I didn’t agree with most of what I did and said when I was abiding by the Bible. When I started delving more into the metaphysical and simultaneously researching “the truth” in various religions, I realized that I’m much more agnostic than anything else, and that didn’t bother me. I’ve considered myself a spiritualist for about five years and it suits me just fine.
This past week I started reading The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs and I’ll be finishing it tonight. It’s an entertaining and quick read. I wasn’t really expecting the book to have a really strong influence on me, but I’m pleasantly surprised to find myself wanting to get back to the daily routines that have really helped me keep my head above water: praying, meditating, living in gratitude. It’s not that I haven’t been doing these things, it’s more that I’ve been sporadically doing them when I’m desperate or so completely overwhelmed, I have nothing left to rely on.
If you see me on a day where I’ve spent fifteen minutes meditating, you’ll be pleased to find a cheerful, calm, collected person, someone you wouldn’t mind spending several hours with. Catch me on a day where I’ve obsessed over the same thought for fifteen minutes (or more, as is often the case), and you’ll still see someone cheerful, but also uncomfortably bubbly, jittery, scattered.
Let’s get back to the origin of this post: the picture of my dad and me.
We’re sitting on a bench on the deck attached to my dad’s ex-wife’s employer’s home, overlooking Lake Altoona in Altoona, Wisconsin (right next door to Eau Claire). It’s about noon in late August and I’ve just had my dad’s birth mother (who was in town for a couple of days), baptize me in the algae-covered lake. As members of my church small group stood in the water with us, Grandma babbled about informed us on the purpose and meaning of baptism, recited a few Bible verses, and dunked me under the water.
The event itself was quick and rather lackluster, but it meant so much to me. Though I physically didn’t necessarily feel any different other than being soaked in algae water, I felt amazing. For the record: from the moment I had the idea to get baptized, I knew what it meant to me and what I would be getting out of it verses what it would mean to my family and friends.
Brace yourself, I’m about to start writing way more than planned:
A couple years earlier, I tried to drown myself in a bathtub. Clearly, I didn’t accomplish my mission, and thankfully, too. About a month afterwards, I got the desire to take a bath, but as I started to fill the tub, I just couldn’t do it. A few more months went by and I tried again. It seemed as though I’d never again be able to enjoy a bath for fear that something in me would take over and I’d never get out of the tub. After a very long depression battle, I somehow got interested in metaphysics and became much more aware of what I was doing to my body: nutrition, meditation, exercise (and lack-there-of). I vowed to myself that I’d never harm myself ever again and I wanted some way to make a binding pact. Somehow, I settled on baptism.
So I emerged from the water and saw my small group, Grandma, and other friends and family clapping for me. They don’t know it, but they were clapping because I just made a pact to stay on the earth among them until my real time came. They don’t know that I was saying: hey everyone, I’m important, I deserve to be here, I’m happy that I’m alive and I’m happy that I have each and every one of you in my life.
Okay. This post was supposed to be some sort of something about Father’s Day. I don’t have the greatest relationship with my dad, but I’m reminded each time I think about my baptism and every time I see this picture, that I asked him to be there that day and he was. I forgive him for the wrongs he’s done to me in the past and I do wish we had a better relationship, but things like that take a lot of time and there’s still a lot of healing we both have left to do.
Thanks for reading all of this.
