From chaos to joy: An unexpected baptism in West Central

By Kris Christensen

A couple of week ago, I had one of those moments. My brain was on overload. My heart was exhausted. I just wanted to catch a break.

In spite of the promise of a successful September fundraiser, we (West Central Episcopal Mission) have a current funding crisis. Meanwhile, the paint on the chapel’s south wall is falling off because whoever painted it back in 2007 didn’t prime the bare wood. Although I was desperate to get a newsletter sent in hopes of inspiring donations, a new contact management system and a new email service had me on a technological hamster wheel. I was also scheduled to meet with a group of English as a Second Language students at 6:30 p.m. to show them the resources available at the mission and, I guessed, to let them practice their English on me. And it was the fourth Wednesday of July. Dinner Table would be full of hungry, overheated guests.

At 6 p.m. a volunteer informed me the St. Lawrence House air conditioning was down. Because… of course. When I went outside to look at the unit, I discovered a quarter-inch of frost on the piping. Inside the unit, the whole works was iced up. My formation for the priesthood did not include a course in heating and air conditioning, but I was pretty sure ice on your air conditioner during the dog days of summer when it’s pushing 90 and the humidity is in the 20s is not a good thing.

For the next 15 minutes I ran up and down the stairs from the air conditioner to my office asking the Great Google how awful this really was. The possibilities — including a compressor failure — punched me in the gut. No money, a chapel wall shedding paint like so much dandruff, and now this. I could cry. Instead, I offered a one-word prayer: Seriously?!?!?!

Then a volunteer called: “Kris! T. needs you.”

Aaaaand a pastoral situation. I still need absolution for the next prayer I fireballed to the divine.

“He looks really rough,” the volunteer said. “He wants to talk to you. He’s at table two.”

I put a clamp on my emotions and headed across the street to the dining hall.

Underneath the party lights strung the length of the hall, we had a good and, given the heat, surprisingly happy crowd. L. stopped me for and hug-and-how-are-you. J. grabbed my hand in a firm handshake. Then I spotted T., and he spotted me, cocked his finger at me. I returned the gesture.

It took about 20 minutes to repeat the conversation we’d had numerous times: it was time to for T. to get sober. In the middle of it, the students showed up. I nodded to one of my neighborhood peeps to take care of them and turned my attention back to T. I told him—again—he wouldn’t get sober until he was ready to feel the pain he was anesthetizing. I also told him he didn’t have the right to deprive the world of the good that was in him by burying it under addiction.

As he was leaving, I spotted our chaplain Holly talking to a young man with a guitar. I didn’t know then that she’d already done one suicide intervention that night. Fourth Wednesdays. She caught my eye as if to say: a little help here please.

The young man wore all black. He was too thin, with skin a pale contrast to his dark hair. His fear was palpable. “N. has been having a tough time. He’s been jumped a bunch of times and had almost all his stuff stolen. He’s also been seeing demons.” Holly told me. “I’m wondering if we have any holy water.”

No, I thought, but I can make some. “Sure,” I said.

“I think that would help me,” he said. “Don’t you think it would? I’m seeing so much evil. Evil. It’s just all around me.” His eyes were anguished. A demoniac condemned to live among the tombs, tormented and ostracized from the living.

“Have you ever been baptized before?” I asked.

“No,” he said.

“We can do that,” I said. “Right now if you want to.”

“I do,” he said, his anxious eyes looking deeply into mine. “I want to.”

From the sacristy I grabbed the asperges bucket and filled it with tap water. I found the chrism. I was out of baptismal candles so I grabbed a small vigil candle. Almost forgot the lighter. Prayer book under one arm, I carried all the baptismal accoutrement back to the picnic table.

N. affirmed the baptismal covenant, watched intently while I blessed the water. Then I asked him to stand. Right there under the ornamental plums, in the grassy courtyard, in the middle of a Fourth Wednesday, I baptized him in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. When he lifted his head, the grief and terror were gone, replaced with rapture and joy.

I traced the chrism on his forehead. “N. you are sealed by the Holy Spirit in baptism, and marked as Christ’s own forever.” I paused and looked into his eyes. “Do you know what that means? It means even if the darkness comes back, it can’t have you. You belong to Christ now. And nothing can take that you away from him.”

He stood there for a moment, then asked, “Hey, you know what I want? Do you think . . . would it be OK if you dumped that whole thing over me?” He pointed to the asperges bucket.

He leaned forward and I doused him with all the holy water I had.

He lifted his head, laughing softly, blissful as a child, water streaming down out of his hair, over his cheeks and down his chin, his face the nearest I’ve ever been to glory.

And then he played a song for us. But for one line, I can’t remember the words. It was a song of thanksgiving, of celebration. My eyes welled with tears. Because this is how God gets me every time. How he keeps me in this gig with all its tragedy, with all the stress of keeping the doors open and the lights on. He throws a little redemption my way. “Do you believe in destiny?” N. sang. Yes, I answered silently. Yes, Abba, I do.

When it comes to urban poverty, we want stories of worldly success. How many get jobs? How many are in school? How many did we house? How many are clean and sober? We have those numbers, and they matter. But these small moments—moments when God’s unfathomable love breaks through and rearranges us—don’t these small moments say more about God’s Kingdom?

And what if these moments are the real measure of our success in West Central, the Kingdom measure? Because it’s not just about our programs, but our presence.

God is alive. The peeps know it. People who would never have come to chapel before are asking, “Can we do church  more?” It’s not because we preach at them. It’s not because we teach them doctrine. It’s because we love one another — not always patiently, not always kindly. But we love.

We talked with N. until the sky turned that impossible blue that says night is near. We invited him to come to St. Lawrence House in the morning. It’s a safe place, we said. A peaceful place. It’s a DMZ—a neighborhood de-militarized zone, we explained. “That would be so awesome,” he said. “A place where I don’t have to worry.” And he has come, and played his guitar.

In the gloaming I prayed: Nice one, Abba. Forget what I said before. And I might have heard God laughing, with love, at me and with me.