Non-Biblical Readings for an Infant Baptism
June 12, 2017 9:08 PM Subscribe
I'm looking for a reading for an infant baptism from a source other than the Bible. There will be at least one biblical reading, but I'd like to have at least one non-Bible reading. I'm open to both secular readings and spiritual or religious readings from sources other than the Bible. Possible themes: welcoming into the community, parents' responsibility to children, gratitude for the gift of a child, what a child brings to a family or community, things along those lines.
I've been googling, but it seems like you see a lot of the same suggestions over and over: "Your children are not your children," various supposed first nations blessings, children learn what they live, etc. etc. I'm hoping to find something that isn't the cliches you see on every suggestion list.
I have seen this question.
I've been googling, but it seems like you see a lot of the same suggestions over and over: "Your children are not your children," various supposed first nations blessings, children learn what they live, etc. etc. I'm hoping to find something that isn't the cliches you see on every suggestion list.
I have seen this question.
If it's a girl, Neil Gaiman's "Blueberry Girl."
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:39 AM on June 13, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 4:39 AM on June 13, 2017 [2 favorites]
One of my favorite quotations, from Rachel Carson, might fit the bill. It's just as much for the adults in the room as the child being baptized.
A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.
posted by Elly Vortex at 6:30 AM on June 13, 2017 [3 favorites]
A child's world is fresh and new and beautiful, full of wonder and excitement. It is our misfortune that for most of us that clear-eyed vision, that true instinct for what is beautiful and awe-inspiring, is dimmed and even lost before we reach adulthood. If I had influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children I should ask that her gift to each child be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, as an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantments of later years, the sterile preoccupation with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength.
posted by Elly Vortex at 6:30 AM on June 13, 2017 [3 favorites]
Maybe a bit from the groundskeeper Golly. from the TV show Monarch of the Glen, "You come into this world naked, wet, and cold. And then things really get bad."
posted by turkeybrain at 7:17 AM on June 13, 2017
posted by turkeybrain at 7:17 AM on June 13, 2017
Perhaps a bit short but Vonnegut?
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind."
posted by dismas at 7:47 AM on June 13, 2017 [6 favorites]
"Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies-"God damn it, you've got to be kind."
posted by dismas at 7:47 AM on June 13, 2017 [6 favorites]
I love Mary Oliver's work. Here are a few that might work:
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voice behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life that you could save.
Bone
1.
Understand, I am always trying to figure out
what the soul is,
and where hidden,
and what shape
and so, last week,
when I found on the beach
the ear bone
of a pilot whale that may have died
hundreds of years ago, I thought
maybe I was close
to discovering something
for the ear bone
2.
is the portion that lasts longest
in any of us, man or whale; shaped
like a squat spoon
with a pink scoop where
once, in the lively swimmer's head,
it joined its two sisters
in the house of hearing,
it was only
two inches long
and thought: the soul
might be like this
so hard, so necessary
3.
yet almost nothing.
Beside me
the gray sea
was opening and shutting its wave-doors,
unfolding over and over
its time-ridiculing roar;
I looked but I couldn't see anything
through its dark-knit glare;
yet don't we all know, the golden sand
is there at the bottom,
though our eyes have never seen it,
nor can our hands ever catch it
4.
lest we would sift it down
into fractions, and facts
certainties
and what the soul is, also
I believe I will never quite know.
Though I play at the edges of knowing,
truly I know
our part is not knowing,
but looking, and touching, and loving,
which is the way I walked on,
softly,
through the pale-pink morning light.
posted by Sassyfras at 8:35 AM on June 13, 2017 [3 favorites]
Wild Geese
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice --
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voice behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do --
determined to save
the only life that you could save.
Bone
1.
Understand, I am always trying to figure out
what the soul is,
and where hidden,
and what shape
and so, last week,
when I found on the beach
the ear bone
of a pilot whale that may have died
hundreds of years ago, I thought
maybe I was close
to discovering something
for the ear bone
2.
is the portion that lasts longest
in any of us, man or whale; shaped
like a squat spoon
with a pink scoop where
once, in the lively swimmer's head,
it joined its two sisters
in the house of hearing,
it was only
two inches long
and thought: the soul
might be like this
so hard, so necessary
3.
yet almost nothing.
Beside me
the gray sea
was opening and shutting its wave-doors,
unfolding over and over
its time-ridiculing roar;
I looked but I couldn't see anything
through its dark-knit glare;
yet don't we all know, the golden sand
is there at the bottom,
though our eyes have never seen it,
nor can our hands ever catch it
4.
lest we would sift it down
into fractions, and facts
certainties
and what the soul is, also
I believe I will never quite know.
Though I play at the edges of knowing,
truly I know
our part is not knowing,
but looking, and touching, and loving,
which is the way I walked on,
softly,
through the pale-pink morning light.
posted by Sassyfras at 8:35 AM on June 13, 2017 [3 favorites]
The creature gazes into openness with all
its eyes. But our eyes are
as if they were reversed, and surround it,
everywhere, like barriers against its free passage.
We know what is outside us from the animal’s
face alone: since we already turn
the young child round and make it look
backwards at what is settled, not that openness
that is so deep in the animal’s vision.
– Rilke
posted by 3zra at 9:09 AM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]
its eyes. But our eyes are
as if they were reversed, and surround it,
everywhere, like barriers against its free passage.
We know what is outside us from the animal’s
face alone: since we already turn
the young child round and make it look
backwards at what is settled, not that openness
that is so deep in the animal’s vision.
– Rilke
posted by 3zra at 9:09 AM on June 13, 2017 [1 favorite]
From the United Methodist hymnal companion The Faith We Sing: (Assuming the child's name is Emma Claire)
Emma Claire, God claims you, God helps you, protects you, and loves you too.
We this day do all agree a child of God you’ll always be.
Emma Claire, God claims you, God helps you, protects you, and loves you too.
We your family love you so, we vow to help your faith to grow.
Emma Claire God claims you, God helps you, protects you, and loves you too.
We are here to say this day that we will help you on your way.
Emma Claire, God claims you, God helps you, protects you, and loves you too.
And if you should tire or cry then we will sing this lullaby.
posted by 4ster at 7:22 PM on June 14, 2017
Emma Claire, God claims you, God helps you, protects you, and loves you too.
We this day do all agree a child of God you’ll always be.
Emma Claire, God claims you, God helps you, protects you, and loves you too.
We your family love you so, we vow to help your faith to grow.
Emma Claire God claims you, God helps you, protects you, and loves you too.
We are here to say this day that we will help you on your way.
Emma Claire, God claims you, God helps you, protects you, and loves you too.
And if you should tire or cry then we will sing this lullaby.
posted by 4ster at 7:22 PM on June 14, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by tully_monster at 9:36 PM on June 12, 2017