Baptismal Regeneration

‘What do we normally do?’ I and Rick the verger ran around the church after the mid-morning service getting ready for our first baptism since March 2020. I thought there might be time to set up the card reader for donations but when I opened the box found a note saying ‘App needs updating’ so I abandoned that and made a joke about it instead. The family asked if I could read ‘Footprints’, and I realised I’d left it at home. In between looking it up on my phone and then accidentally shutting the phone down I ran out of data so had to rush into the church office, turn on the computer and the printer (which had run out of toner, and only still working because I had cheated it into believing it still has some), and get another copy. I knew the family pretty well and there were a number of familiar faces among the congregation young and old, but I was struggling to remember what I normally say at baptisms – not the liturgy, which is all written down, but the various routines I have worked out over fifteen years to explain it and to make unaccustomed churchgoers feel as much at ease as possible – and Baby Tom was moderately vocal throughout the proceedings. At one point he made a horrendous noise not very different from the one generated by our misbehaving sound system earlier in the morning. It is of course lovely to have celebrated a baptism service again, and it was possibly even more lovely to get home and lie down.