The Archive

Christ Almighty

I have now renounced the devil and pledged to never rebel against God.

Really, I have. I stood up in church and, through gritted teeth, pledged to raise my new Godson (yes, I am a Godfather. I can barely believe it either.)

I have to say, the whole experience was most discomfiting for a number of reasons…

1. The vicar, pastor or whatever the hell she was had no gravitas at all. She came across like a cross between the Vicar of Dibley and Alan Partridge (“For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever A-HAAA!)

2. Renouncing the devil AND having to repent my sins. Oh please.

3. The ceremony. It’s really rather sinister, what with daubing the child with signs and sigils in oil and declaring ‘this is the mark that means you are one of us for the rest of your life’. As another guest pointed out, if it was the Moonies doing it, you’d have qualms.

4. The gift. I know a silver spoon is traditional, but have you ever seen anyone using their spoon, or really getting any value out of it whatsoever? Exactly. I wanted to get the tyke something useful. I hovered over the silver zippo for a while, but couldn’t see the mother going for that idea too strongly, so settled for a silver money clip and a bottle of port to be opened at a dinner with the uncles in eighteen years time. Then I kept the port.

5. The responsibility. It may come as a surprise to you all that I’ve spent a great deal of my life running away from responsibility. Then suddenly there’s this small bundle of sick and poo who, in some small way, I am now responsible for. It’s quite scary, but kind of cool too. On balance, I think I like it. (or, to put it another way, hey ladies, I like babies and I’m single, come and get me)

So, overall it was an interesting thing to do of a Sunday afternoon, but I don’t think I’ll be dropping into the church any time soon.

Oh, and finally, if you slightly alter the pronunciation of Christening to pronounce the 'Christ' part as you would his name, you end with with a very sinister sounding word. Something like the Quickening in Highlander.

"Ah, I feel the power flowing through, and my head is a bit wet. This must be the Christening coming upon me."


Oh my goodness, I almost forgot the weirdest part of the whole thing.

Somewhere in the ceremony there was a prayer, which included the unusual statement, "We pray especially for those who have trouble relating appropriately to children."

There was a pause as we all looked at each other thinking 'maybe she means people who are a bit awkward with kids and don’t know how to talk to them.'

But no, subsequent conversation revealed the consensus that we had, in fact, just said a special prayer for paedophiles.

Nice.

posted by Peter The Great @ 10:44 AM