Let me share a delight with you: I’m reading Marilynne Robinson’s Pulitzer Prize novel Gilead. The novel is written as a memoire of an aging pastor to his seven-year-old son (offspring of a late second marriage—his first wife having died in childbirth). The Pastor, John Ames, has been diagnosed with a heart disease that could take his life at any moment; so he wants to give his young son some of his history and his life lessons from years in the ministry.

The book is a celebration of earthly existence with all its delights and mysteries—and even its sorrows, sorrows seasoned with grace, bathed in prayer, and lightened by the hope of heaven. Woven with humor and regret, guilt and goodness, it should touch the soul of every follower of Christ. One incident that Reverend John recalls is a moment in childhood when he and his best buddy (who also became a minister) baptized a new litter of barn cats. His description of using the Congregational form of baptism by “sprinkling” has to make you chuckle—as well as his comment about his friend who thought they should have been totally immersed: “Those cats should have been grateful I was not [a Baptist].”

When he tells his minister father what he did, he gets a reprimand: “The Sacraments must always be treated and regarded with the greatest respect.” John goes on:

We did respect the Sacraments, but we thought the whole world of those cats. I got his meaning, though, and I did no more baptizing until I was ordained. . . . I still remember how those warm little brows felt under the palm of my hand. Everyone has petted a cat, but to touch one like that, with the pure intention of blessing it, is a very different thing. It stays in your mind. For years we would ponder what, from a cosmic viewpoint, we had done to them. It still seems to be a real question. There is a reality in blessing, which I take baptism to be, primarily. It doesn’t enhance sacredness, but it acknowledges it, and there is a power in that. I have felt it pass through me, so to speak. The sensation is of really knowing a creature. I mean really feeling its mysterious life and your mysterious life at the same time. [Kitten image source]

John continues with some thoughts about water in the rite of baptism by quoting Ludwig Feuerbach, a famous atheist who nonetheless had a respect for many of the joyful aspects of religion:

Water is the purest, clearest of liquids in virtue of this: its natural character is the image of the spotless nature of the Divine Spirit. In short, water has a significance in itself, as water; it is on account of its natural quality that it is consecrated and selected as the vehicle of the Holy Spirit. So far there lies at the foundation of Baptism a beautiful, profound natural significance.”

KEY SCRIPTURE:
The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders; where morning dawns, where evening fades, you call forth songs of joy (Psalm 65:8).

This website is in large part a similar celebration of the sacred intertwined with material.  RBC’s Discovery Series includes five booklets on celebrating God’s natural handiwork: the broad celebration of the wonder of creation plus specific elements of creation: water, trees, soil, and wilderness. You can actually read these booklets online at this link, and you can obtain print copies of them to share with others or even to tuck into a backpack for trail side devotions.