Entrance Exam

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"There was the nicest man in the apartment next to ours in Hollywood," Mother went on. "He was a minister, so helpful, in a new place with a new baby." He kept asking, she said, when they planned to have me baptized.

"He was so kind, and it seemed to mean so much to him. So one morning we went to his church, and he did a lovely little service. It was an Episcopalian church, I remember. Such a pretty garden out front."

I put down the phone, absurdly elated at the denominational mesh. I'd not only been baptized, but in the very church where I now wished to be confirmed! The baptism of course would have been equally valid wherever performed. The coincidence was simply a little gift along the Way, like the bluebells planted beside Texas highways. I planned your path from the beginning.

What is confirmed in confirmation are the promises made on a child's behalf in infant baptism. That night 1 got out the Book of Common Prayer and read the Order for Baptism.

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior?
I do.
Do you put your whole trust in his grace and love?
I do.
Do you promise to follow and obey him as your Lord?

I do. I do. I do. Promises made for me long before I could promise anything.

It was not, however, the service in the cathedral with its solemn affirmation of baptismal vows that confirmed to me my new life in Christ - that life in heaven begun here on earth. That confirmation came in a casual conversation at Guideposts' office a few years later.

A friend from out of town, Jean Stone, had come to New York with a story suggestion. We talked it over, then she looked at her watch. "I have a train to catch."

I'll walk you to the elevator," I said.

We stood in the corridor, making conversation. "Have you been saved, Tib?" she asked. The same politely interested tone in which she'd just asked how the children were.

And for the very first time in my life, I heard the question.

Jean Stone is a mannerly, soft-spoken person. As she quietly posed the question, I didn't hear a formula. Didn't hear judgment or an agenda being pushed.

I heard saved as a dictionary definition gave it when I looked it up later that day: to guard intact. As Jean said the phrase that had once made me too angry to listen, it was an inclusive, not a divisive one. My name on a place card at a glorious feast. I heard the word saved, and it sounded like loved.

"Yes!" I said as the elevator arrived. "Yes, I have!"

Jean left. I walked back to my desk. My feet walked, that is, but my soul was dancing, turning cartwheels in heaven. Cherished, valued, guarded, whatever came, now and forever.