Memory: Baptism

My dad baptized me on Feb. 27, 1983 in the Emporia Church of Christ. It's funny that I remember the date so precisely, but it seemed at the time like it might be the most important thing in my life -- a marker signifying whether I would go to heaven or hell someday.

The baptism came at a Sunday night service. We always went to church twice on Sundays, and usually went on Wednesday nights as well. The preacher that Sunday night didn't do a sermon, as per usual -- he instead gave answers to presubmitted questions. One was about how young was too young to get baptized. I don't remember his answer. What I do remember is that at the end of it, my dad nudged me and asked: "Do you want to get baptized?"

I did. 

I had asked, in fact, to be baptized a few months before. It had been judged that I was not ready. (By the time this particular Sunday night occurred, I was about a month short of my tenth birthday.) But my grandmother, in particular, had queried me from time to time about theological questions -- a test, I think, of when and if I would be ready.

My dad had been a preacher in the Church of Christ -- we didn't call them pastors. (I'm not speaking here of the liberal United Church of Christ, by the way, but a more fundamentalist non-denomination that didn't believe in instrumental music or letting women speak in church.) He asked this congregation's preacher if we could go ahead after the service. The congregation, which had been ready to leave, retook their seats. Dad and I entered the baptismal together. And then, after a few words, he dunked me.

And as my head went under, my foot slipped up and out of the water.

This haunted me for awhile after. The Church of Christ believed in full-body immersion -- and I had not been fully immersed. It seemed to me that my foot shooting up above the surface in the moment of baptism might mean I had not really, truly been saved. That, without that immersion, I might end up in hell.

But I didn't tell anybody. Instead, I lived with the fear.

A few years after that, my family left the Church of Christ. We'd settled into a largely Mennonite small town. It took me a long time to not fear that we had made a terrible mistake. But over time, at least, I stopped being afraid that my foot was going to keep me from going to heaven.