THE DUNKER

I love to baptize.

I mean REAL baptize not that hootie tootie stuff some Preachers do these days.  

I mean REAL baptize.  The kind John The Baptist did.  The kind Charlton Heston did while PLAYING John the Baptist in that movie.   

I mean baptize from the Greek word: Baptizo.  Which means to dip, to plunge, to immerse. 

I mean the DUNKIN'-GO Baptizin'. Like a strawberry in chocolate.

I love it.

There is something about the whole process that I find thrilling.  Of course, there's the spiritual aspect, but let's face it: it just feels good to do.  Especially in the summertime.  Or after a tough game of Capture The Flag.

I'm talking about how it feels to have those waders on, dip somebody backwards into the water, then just hold them down there for a while, as that cool, refreshing baptismal water slowly funnels over the edge of your waders and down into your shoes then slowly filling everything up to just above your clip-on cell phone.  

Talk about refreshing.  Talk about exciting.  Talk about wet.  And they say church is no fun.

What other activity slowly douses every part of your body on the way down so perfectly - shirt, tie, pants, underwear, even my pocket flannel graph Disciples can't escape the "Baptismal Flood" that unleashes itself in my waders.  I come out lookin' like I've been skinny dippin' in my Preachin' clothes and SOUNDING like I'm stompin' grapes.  

Accountants have no idea what I'm talkin' about.  And movie stars?  Please.  This is a "Preacher Thing," girlfriend.  And by "girlfriend" I mean Gidget before we were married, of course.

Most Preachers foolishly try to avoid this "situation".  They think it's undignified.  That somehow if you come out of a baptism lookin' like a rain-soaked groundhog you did something wrong.  Not me. I welcome it.  To me, it feels like a summer storm on parched ground - in waders. To see a Preacher wetter than the person he just baptized means he really LOVES being a Preacher.  And playin' in water.

Over the years I've had a number of baptizing adventures.  I got hypothermia baptizin' in a frozen lake in Colorado.  I nearly drowned a lady who refused to put her hands over her nose so that I'd have an "arm-handle" to pull her back up with (so I was forced to just grab her by the throat and body-dunk her.  It wasn't pretty). I lost a "big guy" on a river one time right as I laid him onto his back.  Big guys WILL float on ya.  He nearly made it all the way to St. Louis.

I used to preach in a Car Wash.  You'd think that'd be GREAT for baptizing.  It is not.  Oh, you might get a nice sprinkling in.  Maybe a light waxing.  But a good, old-fashioned "dunk the drunk baptize" is tough to pull off.

When I baptize I like to hold 'em down there for a while.  Make sure I get full coverage.  Oh sure, they struggle for a little bit, at the beginning - that's natural.  They're usually a little skittish 'cause they think they're gonna die.  Or that you are TRYING to kill them.  But they calm down once they start to lose consciousness.  

There IS a danger of holding them down there too long though - in which case - they get to heaven quicker.  I guess.  So...no harm, no foul.

The biggest trouble with baptizing is that you never really get enough of them to do.  It's kinda like Snipe huntin'.  Everybody talks about HAVING DONE it, and HAVING SEEN it, but most of the time I just end up runnin' around in a cornfield, twirlin' a flashlight in my pillowcase over my head and yellin' "Whoop!  Whoop!  Whoopy- whoop!  Snipe-y, snipe-y, Whoop, whoop!"

That's only worked twice.  For snipes, not baptizing.  

I love baptizing.  

As together we stand and sing.

BP