Take this Bread, Sara Miles, p.236-238

I was unloading groceries one Friday when I spotted Sasha standing out back by the baptismal font, as if she were waiting for someone. Sasha was a very small black girl, maybe six or seven years old, who usually came to the pantry with an impatient, teenage aunt. I’d never met her mother. Sasha’s hair wasn’t always combed, and this day she had a split lip. “Sweetheart!” I said. I was glad to see her again. “Want a snack? There’s some chips inside.”

Sasha looked at me, not smiling. “Is this water the water God puts on you to make you safe?” she demanded abruptly, in a strangely formal voice.

I put down my boxes. What was she asking for? Was I being asked to baptize her? My mind raced, flashing back to when I’d stood at the font for my own baptism just a few years ago.

Nothing about that water had made me safe. It had pushed me further out from the certainties and habits of my former life, taken me away from my family, and launched me on this mad and frustrating mission to feed multitudes. It had eroded my identity as an objective journalist and given me an unsettling glimpse of how very little I knew. I was no less flawed or frightened or capable of being hurt than I’d been before my conversion, and now, in addition, I was adrift in this water, yoked together with all kinds of other Christians, many of whom I didn’t like or trust.

How could I tell this child that a drop of water could make her safe? I had no idea what Sasha was going through at home, but I suspected it was rough. And baptism, if it signified anything, signified the unavoidable reality of the cross at the heart of Christian faith. It wasn’t a magic charm but a reminder of God’s presence in the midst of unresolved human pain.

I remember what Lynn Baird, [one of the priests at St. Gregory’s] had asked me, when I was contemplating baptism.

“Do you want it?” I asked.
Sasha locked her eyes on me. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I want that water.”

There was something so serious in her face that it stopped me cold. I dipped my fingers into the font, and Sasha turned her face up to me, concentrating. I made the sign of the cross on her forehead.

I took Sasha into the church and found Lynn...I told her what had happened, and we walked over to the small wooden shrine by the preacher’s chair, where Lynn asked Sasha if she wanted a special blessing.

“Yes,” Sasha said gravely. “I want that.”

From the shrine, Lynn took the small container of oil and showed it to Sasha. The girl stood up, very still, in front of Lynn’s chair. “I’m going to put my hands on you and pray now, if you’re ready,” Lynne said, and Sasha nodded.

Behind us, a crowd was circling around the Table, gathering up rice and beans and Froot Loops cereal. A bunch of other kids were dodging in and out, shouting and punching one another and eating snacks. “Jesus is always with you,” Lynn told Sasha, as she finished rubbing the oil into her skin, “no matter what happens to you, even when bad things happen. you’re not ever alone.” Sasha closed her eyes for a moment, then looked down directly at the seated priest, and I saw something flowing between them: the child, crucified, anointing Lynn with the power of her crucifixion, and Lynn, receiving it, anointing Sasha.

That Sunday, at church, I told some of the other deacons what had happened. [My friend] Lawrence got up suddenly and left the room, crying. “I ran into the bathroom, he said to me later, “and started splashing water on my face, and when I realized what I was doing, that I was rebaptizing myself, I cried even harder.”

Lawrence cleared his throat. He took out a handkerchief and blew his nose.
“Honey,” I said.
“Ah,” said Lawrence. “It just came to me how much I want God’s safety.”
“I know,” I said.
“I wonder if that water really does protect us,” said Lawrence. “I fear not. That’s not what it’s for.”

Two weeks later, Sasha came back to the pantry with her aunt, who was lugging another baby. She ran up to me, leaped into my arms, kissed me, and said, “Let’s go find Lynn. I want a special blessing.” We anointed her again, and again Sasha received the oil deliberately, with great attention, listening to every word of our prayers. Then she corrected Lynn.

“It’s not AH-men,” Sasha said, “it’s A-men.”
I asked her what amen meant.
“It means thank you,” Sasha said.