There was a fifteen-year period of time when I would not go swimming for fear of being seen in public in a bathing suit. I think it's not much of an exaggeration to say that I put on a bathing suit on the last day of sophomore swimming and didn't put on another one until I was pregnant with Connery. Since then I've gotten over myself and gotten back in the water. Even so, I was not prepared when I walked out of our room at the Spa Hot Springs Motel in White Sulphur Springs to see the pool deck crowded with people in street clothes, evidently waiting for something while ogling the pool.
Turns out there was a real, full-immersion baptism in the pool yesterday.
The spectators were church members, gathered to witness the baptism of a man who looked to be in his late teens or early twenties. He was accompanied, I surmised, by his father. The preacher gave a little sermon and a guitar player appeared out of nowhere to lead a couple of songs. I never really imagined that I would be singing "Amazing Grace" in a swimming pool, but there we were.
While everyone in the pool area was singing, my father walked out of the dressing room. He had this look of mingled surprise and confusion that captured perfectly the sentiments of our little family group of wayward Lutherans, a recovering Catholic, and a five-year-old who is still pretty unclear about the connection between Jesus and the Easter Bunny. Who would take the baptismal for us?
The Simpsons - Homer Baptism Season: 7 - The funniest home videos are here
In the end, the preacher came out in his swimsuit and dunked the man and that was that. Did some of the salvation drift over to our side of the pool? Hard to know. But the next time someone asks me if I've been saved, I am going to say, "Yes, but only from the neck down."