On Ceremony (cw - #2 in series)

As fires rage, with Covid, times of celebration and ceremony have often been stymied. For over four weeks I struggled with using a walker, and, at the wonderful weekend wedding celebration of Aspen and Kyle, I was in a wheelchair. This coming when a “hitch in my git-a-long” hit me out of the blue while gardening.  It was a struggle which had me wondering the “what if”s? What if the pain and crippled movement is permanent? I’m cause, again, to look at aging, at my aging.

 And now, I find that a dearly loved friend has discovered a reoccurring cancer with her life expectancy less than six months. 

 All of this has me reeling, while I also think about ~ or try to think about ~ ceremonies ~ think about the completion of the ceremony of life ~ where does it all fit in?

 As a result, I have been struggling with writing this blog, trying to sort through all the thoughts and emotions. First, to finish the story of that Easter Sunday of 1942. Then, in a few days, to write more about ceremony and what I have learned and am learning about its importance in a balanced life.

 Early that springtime morning in 1942 my family left San Francisco for the drive to Two Rock for our baptism and the Easter celebration dinner at my grandparents afterward. When it was time for the baptism ceremony, I remember feeling a little cheated, envious for the pastor held the babies including my brother, but because I was a "big girl", too big to pick up, he just touched my head with his damp fingers as I stood there with my parents. After dinner at Grandma and Grandpa’s we returned to San Francisco to finish moving our things from the small apartment on Van Ness to our new home, a first floor flat on Bosworth where we lived until the end of the war.

 Two important, life shaping ceremonies: the formal ritual of baptism as my parents and the congregation made promises about raising us children in the faith, welcoming us into the world wide community of the church, the other, informal; those powerful words of my grandfather as we entered the church, both introducing me to knowing I was part of a far larger family ~ where I belonged.

 I wrote the story of that so busy and life shaping Sunday a number of years ago. In the middle of the emotions of my current struggles, I am glad to have the words of these two blogs help me to remember that day ~ to remember how Ceremony ~ helped shape my life.