Baby Worship

I couldn’t help but sigh in frustration as I watched the back of my wife’s head bobbing up and down in the front of the church, her shoulders sagging, and her left hand dig around in her purse for more kleenex. I knew those jerky movements far too well, and even though she had a cold, I knew this wasn’t related to her congestion. The fountains had burst and were pouring forth. For my wife, this usually means it’s Niagara Falls for a good 10-100 minutes. The service had torn open her carefully wrapped up infertility wound, and she couldn’t just slap on another band aide and her fake happy face. She was done.

I’ve got to admit that as I watched from the back row, I had two or three good reasons for lining up to slug a hole in the church wall. For one thing, I should have known better than to have signed up to be a greeter on the morning of a baby dedication. I know. I know. We probably shouldn’t have even gone in the first place. But since we were there, I should have been next to my wife, consoling her with my hand on the small of her back. Maybe I would have even been able to distract her by whispering a joke or asking her for a mint (This usually requires that she dig around her purse for a good 3 minutes. We like to call her purse “the pit of despair.”).

For another thing, I felt like cursing at the leadership of our church for their promotion of the “baby idolatry hour.” Yes, we have many full quivers in our church, with many folks who are quite jazzed about babies, babies, and more babies, but this doesn’t mean we have to dedicate a whole Sunday morning service to the little bundles of joy. That’s right, the WHOLE service was given to the cult of the marvelously fertile couple standing before us. 

Finally, given that our church is so incredibly small, my wife’s sniffing and sobbing really did make a scene. For everyone else in the room, the church elders laying their hands on mom and dad and praying over “little José” is the pinnacle of joy. Big freaking smiles all around…and then there is my wife. I couldn’t help but pray. “God please help her stop. Make her stop. Please God. Please.”

But she didn’t. And dozens of minutes later when the service ended and my wife’s tears still hadn’t, we jolted out of the service to get away, to go out to eat, to try and pretend that this didn’t really happen, and that this really isn’t our life.