Seven years ago today, I was baptized into the community known as the Calvary Baptist Church.  Each year since then, on this date, I have taken time to reflect on that day and all that has followed, and generally, I’ve written something maybe meaningful, maybe…and shared it with all of you.  I really thought that I would let today pass without mention this year, but apparently that will not be the case. If there is any lesson that comes with living a few years, it is this — that what we think to be constant and solid in our lives almost always proves to be as transitory as the dust from which it is made.  A promise made to a person, or to community, may not stand the test of time.  Even the promises we make to God suffer from the ephemeral nature of our own incarnated selves.

Last year, on this anniversary, I adopted the way of the pilgrim, because I found myself, for so many reasons, without a worship community other than the ever-changing one that is the seminary where I have studied and where I now work.  This year, I find myself taking a little rest on that pilgrim’s way as I have begun to worship more regularly than not at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in my neighborhood.  My faith practice is still, well, uniquely mine – a mishmash of the Presbyterian, Unity School, Baptist, Buddhist, and Episcopalian traditions that I have experienced along the path of life.  That mishmash seems to be quite okay there and so, for a while I rest.  I rest while I continue to study, and to grow, and learn, and to be formed by everything around me.  I rest, because 2016 has been a difficult year.  I rest, as I recharge my faith for the path that lies ahead.

And so, in the tradition of that place, today I stop to remember my baptismal vows. For Baptists, the ritual of baptism is not a sacrament (Baptists have ordinances, not sacraments), and its meaning varies from community to community.  Therefore, there are not really any vows to remember or re-affirm as you reflect on the day of your baptism.  I rather like the vows in the Episcopal Church.  I can’t imagine what they mean to a child who says them, but I do know what power they have for those of us looking back on that day when we entered the water in the name of the Lord.

I will always remember the first time I read these vows.  It was at one of the early worship services during my time as a student at the seminary, in fact, it might have been at the opening Eucharist. That day, we sang “Great is thy Faithfulness,” and we heard these words together:

Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?
Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?

If the questions are not moving enough on their own, what took my breath away was the simple response, as written in the Book of Common Prayer:

I will, with God’s help.

With God’s help –not the help of a particular group of people, not with the rules and guidelines of a particular denomination, not with any human intervention at all.  Just that I will do my best, with God’s help.  These are baptismal vows that I can embrace for a lifetime, whether or not I become a full member of the Episcopal Church or any other.

And so, today, in the manner of my temporary home, I affirm my baptismal vows.  I am far from the place of that baptism, I am far from most of the people who witnessed it and applauded it.  I am far from many of the beliefs and much of the understanding of faith that took me to that moment when I, someone terrified of the water, allowed someone whom I trusted to place me fully beneath it and raise me up to new life. I will, with God’s help, reconcile hurt where I can and lift up in love what I cannot.  I will, with God’s help, continue to form myself and others in the life of faith.  I will, with God’s help, live in love and not in fear.  And I will, with God’s help, see just where this pilgrim’s road takes me in another year.