Thunder God

I had the most astounding phone call the other day. Last Sunday I baptised a baby boy for a young couple from the parish who are very marginally in contact with the Church. Their ideas about God are as vague and unformed as you could imagine. I went round to visit and explained the service and what it was about as I always do, at least when first children are involved. They were obviously slightly nervous and uncertain but doing their best to be agreeable, and the baptism service was a good occasion. It was, however, the Sunday when the weather turned dull and oppressive, and it was thundery, hot and overcast as I went home and left them to mill around outside the church taking photographs.

In the middle of the week I got a phone call from the baby's mum. She was stood outside the church, crying. 'I just wanted to have my baby christened,' she said, 'And we came out of the church and there was thunder. I know one of the godparents isn't religious. I need to know if Jack's going to be all right.' She couldn't say much more because she was so tearful, so we talked a little, in as understandable a way as I could make it, about her ideas about what God is like, about the fact that there would have been loads of christenings that day and thunder is a natural thing, and that God knows she wants the best for her son and will accept that and take it seriously. I said she should light a candle for him in the church, pray for him and encourage him to pray when he's old enough. I said these are the kind of thoughts that go around the heads of many people, but we don't all talk about them.

I felt both amazed that she was so upset by these superstitious thoughts and not able to brush them away like most of us do, and quite pleased that she felt the priest was the right person to talk to about them. At least she must have thought I wasn't likely to tell her off. And she loves her son.