Confirmation

I had wanted to write about my confirmation in the church this past Sunday, but seem to have let myself get distracted.  It's the sort of thing you want to think of as important, but "no big thing" in the sense of epochal personal development - sometimes, it's too hard to contemplate the magnitude of the spiritual, and for me it is just too presumptuous.  It is hard enough for me to give myself up to guidance.  Harder still, when the power of my own emotional experience asserts itself - and my emotional assertion tends to take the form of attempts to control my life.

When I started to look for a church (my gracious, it'll be three years ago in spring), I was on guard against exactly the emotional experience I think some people hope for in this sort of a search.  Being a drama queen, I found I wanted something else to take me where I needed to be, rather than to turn this into A Very Special Episode in the mental narrative I tell myself as the story of my life.  In the end, it was fellowship and prayer which  bound me to my congregation, and the beauty and sense of comfort I felt in our sanctuary.

When the search for a leader yielded the Priest In Charge, getting to know her, I felt the blessing of her coming, and have been as grateful to know her as if I had been a "real" member of the church family.  So "getting my papers" now, so to speak, it is like a confirmation of something more than simple congregational validity.  And, to my honor, I was blessed by our Bishop on the same day she herself was named Rector.  We get to keep her; the ministry is hers, and that is wonderful.

Against those early wishes against being dramatically swept up in the moment, on Sunday I did feel a bit of that impulse.  The bishop's hands on my head as he prayed over me - a sensation I will remember, clearly.  And he meant it to be memorable - his hands were firm and direct, not avoiding really touching me.  His fingers moved, his pressure wasn't impersonal.

It was a little hard, this high-churchy-ness, on my mom.  A lifelong Baptist, there is a mild sense of her giving me over to another team, and as much as she wanted me to find a church home, she did hope I would find one more familiar to her.  The maternal dynamic of confusion at a child's rebellion was in play.  But she was there for me; as was a friend, my dear and generous B.  When the service was over, I got a "mazel tov" from her - and then from the priest.

Another step, and a blessing both in the religious, AND in the personal sense.  I am confirmed.  It feels good.