Raven Girl's Baptism

These last few days between the commemoration of Holy Prophet Elijah (July 20th) and Holy Prophet Ezekiel (July 23rd) have been very intense for me, and the burning heat only added to the heightened sense of being “in the desert.” A fire wants to flare out, but only carefully do I open the door of my heart, just a crack, just enough to let a few sparks escape without burning me.

On Friday the 21st, I saw the film “Lady in the Water” with my friend Brock. On Saturday the 22nd, I learned, after the evening service, of the death of a young friend, by suicide, his body having been recovered earlier that day. He jumped off a bridge…

Today I came home to an empty house, and I decided I would try playing a videotape of the baptism of my wife's younger sister Cynthia Lou. I hadn't watched the video in at least a dozen years. You sometimes find with family videos, that you shoot them, watch them once, and then forget about them. In some way, that can be good, for when you see them again, the experience and wisdom of the intervening years can reveal much.

Cynthia Lou, “Cindy” to most of us, having grown up in northern Alberta, found a home, both physical and spiritual, in the little town of Milk River on the Alberta side of the border, opposite Montana, about 1990. Cindy was “adopted” by the townsfolk, by the ranchers nearby, and into the local Native tribe. She adopted the name “Raven”, which definitely had Indian connexions, but not from her association with the Milk River band. It was a name she mystically took as a young teenager when she still lived at home in Edmonton. She was adding it formally to her Christian name, now that she had decided to be baptised. It would henceforth become her “spiritual signature” in much the same way as mine is “Romanós”—it somehow defines who we are, at least until we receive the white stone from the hand of the Pantokrator (Revelation 2:17).

On the 26th of July, 1992, she was baptised in the Milk River, and a video was shot of the event. I wish I had the technology to share with you some stills from the videotape. The baptism was beautiful, if unconventional. Here are the details.

The Milk River is a little like the Sandy River here in Oregon, except that its waters are not death to the swimmer. It is a slow moving, mocha latté colored tributary of the Missouri River, and its valley is the northernmost extension of the Missouri basin into Canada. The baptism was held in the Milk River park, which is known for its weird rock formations and for the paintings left by ancient Native peoples. The Indian band that lives there adopted “Raven Girl” into their tribe, teaching her the native spirituality of communion with nature, while revering the Great Spirit. (They are also Christians.)

Raven's parents (my mother- and father-in-law), her local friends—townspeople, ranchers, Natives—and the couple who would baptise her, gathered in a circle around a blanket covered with “sacred” objects, most of them Native, but for a large Orthodox icon of the baptism of Jesus, which was a gift from Anastasía and myself. The icon was propped up against a box, and eagle feathers were placed to emerge from behind it, as a form of veneration (much as we place blessed branches behind our icons at home).

The proceedings were, to say the least, very informal. The couple who would be the “ministers” of the baptism was a Roman Catholic priest and his wife… yes, he was married, naturally suspended and disgraced, and was not dressed in any way indicative of his priestly status. Among other things that were said, he explained that he and his wife were the facilitators, they would take Raven by the arms on either side and get her dunked. He expected the people present, who would soon be standing on the river bank, to say the words, "We baptise you in the Name of the Father… (dunk!) …in the Name of the Son (dunk!) …in the Name of the Holy Spirit (dunk!). This is, in fact, how Raven was baptised by an out-of-grace Catholic priest, by threefold immersion, as we Orthodox baptise. (Our family is, in fact, Orthodox by ethnic origin, though only our immediate family, and some distant relatives, are church members.)

Back to the ceremony. After introducing everyone to each other, Cindy / Raven gave her testimony. She held up her first and only Bible, given to her nineteen years before by her sister and brother-in-law (Anastasía and me). She said that as a young teenager, reading the Bible, she fell in love with Jesus, and wanted to follow Him. Problem was, she did not go to church, and so as she entered the “danger years” of 17 to twenty-something, she fell away from the Lord, and turned her back on Him, following instead her friends, falling for men, alcohol and drugs. How long this lasted, she didn't say. But three years before her baptism, she met a man in Christ who set her straight, and back on the right course. She didn't say who, and at the time of her testimony she was still a single woman. But now that she was back with Jesus, nothing would turn her away ever again…

After her testimony there was some music, and Raven Girl did what she called “the dance of Joy”, starting with her mother, and going around the circle of now standing friends, and giving many of them a twirl. Then, it was time to get serious. About a dozen people read passages of the Bible that Raven picked out, as well as a few Native poems. Then the Catholic priest said it was time to go down to the river bank. People were asked to pick up the “sacred” objects that were lying on the blanket. A white woman picked up the large icon, carrying it on her arm like one might carry a large book, her other hand balancing a wine glass, all with the non-chalance of one who has no concept of “the Holy.”

Next, there was Raven getting into the river in her white dress. (She had taken off her floral crown—just like the Orthodox wedding crowns!) the priest and his wife took her by the arms and led her into deeper water. Then, the people cried out, "We baptise you in the Name of the Father!" and Cindy lay back into the river… but she floated! She's a swimmer, and forgot to keep her feet on the river bottom! That time her face did not go under, but she definitely was in the water. Then, "We baptise you in the Name of the Son!" and she sank backwards into the gentle brown current like a stone. Finally, "We baptise you in the Name of the Holy Spirit!" and down under she went again. When she came up, after a bit of swishing around, the three of them, dunkers and dunked, dove into the river and swam about thirty feet upstream before getting back on their feet and wading to shore, where Raven was first wrapped in a white sheet, and then covered in an Indian blanket.

Everyone climbed back up the trail to where they started. Somehow, the icon of the Baptism of Christ had changed hands. Now a Native teenager, an extraordinarily handsome youth of about 15 years, was carrying the icon, exactly as it should be carried—flat against his chest, cradled in his arms, with reverence. He was a precious young man.

At the end of the path from the river, a basin of water was set down. Raven was crouching at the basin, wrapped in her Indian blanket and wearing her floral crown again, and she washed the sand off the feet of the priest and his wife. Then, she stood up, and the priest washed the sand off her feet.

After everyone had assembled in a circle around the blanket, the priest took a glass bowl of oil and anointed Raven for what we Orthodox call “the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit,” only he used spontaneous, non-ritual words, blessing each body part as he anointed it. After Raven was anointed (chrismated?), she turned to the person next to her and anointed the forehead of that person who, afterwards, took the oil and turned to anoint the next person in the circle. So, the entire circle was anointed with the same holy oil, each brother or sister anointing the one next. When it came time for the icon-bearing youth to “pass the anointing” he handed the icon over to the Native teenager he was about to anoint. That boy also held the icon with a natural reverence against his chest while meekly getting a cross traced on his forehead in oil by his brother who, as we now could see, was wearing a grey T-shirt on which was boldly lettered "There's Only ONE!"

When the anointing came to the camera man, Raven took the camera, and the priest gave a full anointing to him, as he had done for Raven, and you could hear what words he used in his blessing. You could also see close up, the spiritual anointing that was overcoming the camera man.

There were of course lots more things that happened at the baptism, but this is what I can remember, as significant. Anastasía and I were not there, and so they made the movie for us. I am glad they did.

What can I say in closing? This event speaks for itself. I wish Raven could be visibly “Orthodox”, but of course, there is no church anywhere close, and she would have a hard time fitting in. She wasn't then, isn't now, and maybe never will be a “mainstream Christian”. But then again, I'm not either, and yet for me, there's no question of not being in church.

The Church is a mystery. Yes, the Orthodox Church is what it claims to be. If you want to know what that is, check out any of the links in the side panel of my blog. But still, the Church is a mystery. I confess the Symbol of Nicæa, "Pistévo eis éna Theón…" and I still know that when Raven was baptised, “the Church was there.” When I sit down and literally break bread with my brother in Christ, just the two of us, I know we are Three at that table, for "Christ is in our midst”—and that is the literal truth, because He is the Truth—and that “we are the Church,” as we sit together at the lunch counter at Fred Meyer on our lunch break. What can be added to that? Christ is in our midst! He is, and always shall be! “Ho Ón kai ‘o Ín kai ‘o Erchómenos, ‘o Pantokrátor!” (Revelation/Apokálypsis 1:8 — “He is, He was, He is to come, the Almighty!”)

I greet you, my dear sister in Christ, Cynthía Raven, on completing your fourteenth year with Jesus. God grant you many years, dear sister!