Baxter prefers to drink from the spigot in the bathtub. If I am not around to turn it on, he gives into a drinking session at the water bowl, but as soon as I return home, he jumps into the bathtub and looks at me. When he catches my eye, he lets out a scream, “Give me a drink!”, and he is persistent. He will sit there for a half hour waiting for me to crack the knob on the cold water to start a small trickle on water flowing. The tub is Baxter’s pub, the place he gets refreshment, some human interaction (with me), and where his idiosyncrasies are accepted and indulged. Like the old TV program, “Cheers”, the tub is the place where he goes and feels at home.
But I use the tub as well, not as my watering hole, but as my shower. Some mornings Baxter and I have a little tiff over whose turn it is to use the tub. He wants a drink, but I need to take a shower. I try to accommodate him for a while, but after the third or fourth repetition of jumping into the tub, staring, crying and turning on the water to a trickle for his laps from the puddle beneath the spout, I have had it. But I have learned the secret to get Baxter to make a quick exit. Blast the water. Turn the spigot full, and watch him jump and run for cover. He doesn’t want a shower, only a drink. He will tolerate a wet head to get to the puddle at the bottom of the tiny water stream, but a complete shower is out of the question. Baxter will tip-toe in the water, but he will never dive into it. He is too much of the fussy feline to get all wet.
In some ways we are the same. Not that we avoid a physical bath, I hope, but we do often avoid immersing ourselves in the waters of spiritual cleansing. We tip-toe in our baptismal commitments, rather than plunge our lives into the mysteries of our faith. We take Christ on our terms—Sunday Mass, confession once in a while, participate in friends’ and relatives’ baptisms, weddings and funerals, maybe volunteer for some ministry (as long as it causes me no inconvenience). We drink at the fountain of life, but we won’t allow it to mess up our appearance, our schedule, or our desires. We want what we want, when we want it, in the way we want it. We don’t think about what God wants for us.
He wants all of us; everything we are and do. There are no half-way baptismal commitments. Our baptism calls us to hold nothing back from God’s influence and reshaping. Baptism is a bath of grace that is meant to soak us and soak into us, so that the mystery of death and resurrection can cleanse us of all bitterness, dishonesty, pettiness, selfishness and hostility towards others. We can’t jump in and out of the baptismal font. We are marked by this bath for the rest of our lives, whether or not we want to be. We are children of God and heirs to God’s Kingdom. The only question before us after baptism is will we be loving children and worthy heirs. There are no part-time jobs for Christ’s disciples. We are called to live the life of faith twenty-four, seven, in every situation, with whomever we find ourselves. The life of the baptized is meant to drip with grace, no matter how miserable we may feel or how unsightly in the world’s eyes we may appear. It isn’t the temporary drench that matters, but the permanent cleansing that counts.
Baxter doesn’t like a full bath. He wants only a little splash on the head to get a drink. We have been bathed in the waters of our baptism in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Don’t be afraid of getting wet this way. It will save you.
