Icebergs in the Stream - on Baptism in Brooks

I feel, brethren (for speaking of what I am today, this need not concern the sex that is less-equipped for leadership) that I should share with you what I have learnt on the subject of brooks, and baptism therein.

For surely baptism in a brook is more challenging than in the carefully-dug well with which the Frisby Baptists have provided themselves. Even at this time of year when we have been blessed abundantly with rain, sleet and snow, and the brook therefore flows more swiftly and voluminously, like the oil upon Aaron's beard but with a lower viscosity.

But notwithstanding the added volume, and our choice of the gravelly stretch down by school lane, it was still a tricky task carrying out the baptisms. In essence, our candidates had to lay on their backs on the gravelly bed of the brook while I spooned water over them.

It is true to say that we are always blessed in our services. When they are well attended, God has blessed up with willing hearts and ears. When it is just me and the Trinity attending, I am blessed in my adversity. When the congregation's singing is half-hearted and they do not respond I am blessed in pouring myself out as a drink-offering that the undeserving might be edified.

But today I felt particularly blessed. I was delighted to see Edgar and Elinor turning their lives around, and washed clean (once we'd removed the residual water weed from them).

Maybe in the circumstances the 45-minute sermon was on the long side to be preaching outdoors. Edgar and Elinor had gone a particularly strange colour of blue by the end. Eileen and her Beaker Folk passed by as they were processing to the White Horse, and Eileen offered them a draft from her hip flask. "An old Luton remedy against the cold" she called it, so it seemed acceptable. I discovered afterwards that it was brandy. I really must have a word with Eileen - it seems reckless to go offering people ardent spirits when what they really need is the laying-on of hands for warmth. However I followed Eileen's advice that what they really needed was to be got into the Great House by the fire, with blankets, and now they seem much better.

A great morning.