My dog, Toby, is having a lump removed from his chest today. We've been watching it for a year, but the vet said it had grown enough recently that it should come out.

Oh, poor Toby. I hope it goes easily for him (and you). Do they have any idea what it is, Stephanie?

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The vet just called. They have cleaned his teeth (since he was going to be under anyway) and are getting ready to take out the lump. They asked if I wanted it sent to the lab and I said yes, so I should know in a few days if it's a cyst or some type of tumor. It seems very contained, though, so his overall prognosis is good.

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My dad discovered that my sister's church practices full-immersion baptism (his Methodist church is into the sprinkle and pray kind), and he's kind of quietly horrified. I'm sort of in the camp that whatever version makes you feel closer to your God should be kosher. So to speak. But he sees it as a thing.

A lot of the churches that do Believer's Baptism baptize via immersion. It's how I was baptized. I mostly prefer it too, but refuse to get dogmatic over it, one way or another. My kids are little, but they do all believe, so we had them baptized on Father's Day, this year. Because they aren't infants, our minister came over for lunch, a few weeks before and talked to them about it, to ensure they were choosing to do it, and that they had at least a basic understanding of the significance. Because our church generally baptizes infants, they'll still go through a confirmation class and ceremony, when they're of age.

They were sprinkled, because our church doesn't have a baptismal pool, but the minister would have made arrangements with the local American Baptist Church to use their pool, if we'd been particular. I'm not, because I'm not thinking Jesus is fussy about it. I have seen great arguments in favor of both ways.

I'm curious, does your dad say why he objects? Is it because infants are then not baptized, or does it have something to do with the immersion method, do you know? I'm just curious because when details are given in the NT on baptism, those details indicate immersion. I promise I won't smack your dad. I have bigger fish to smack fry.

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I was old enough to run away and hide behind statues when I was christened.

My BiL was three. He had *just* learned to say, "G-ddammit." He blurted it out at the dinner table and everyone just looked at him in shock. He grinned. But later that night we heard DH's father yell the same thing from another room and we knew exactly where he picked it up. MiL went white with anger and hissed at FiL, "If this child says that in the church, you're getting your ass kicked."

My dog, Toby, is having a lump removed from his chest today. We've been watching it for a year, but the vet said it had grown enough recently that it should come out.

I hope it's just one of those benign growths dogs get. Mac had one taken off a few years ago that was nothing but a lump. Still--freaky. And my dogs always get weird when one of them is gone to the vet. It's the pack mentality and they hate it when someone is missing.

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I'm curious, does your dad say why he objects? Is it because infants are then not baptized, or does it have something to do with the immersion method, do you know?

Well, both my sister's kids were baptised via the sprinkle method as infants (before my sister's family joined their current church), so I guess that's not Dad's main problem with baptismal stuff. He hasn't really gone into detail. He just says, at irregular intervals, "Did you know your sister's church practices full immersion?" I respond with something along the lines of, "Yep. And?" He then says something along the lines of, "Why? I just don't get it." And he shakes his head with a world of, "That's just not right," in his expression. I think he sees it as another, fairly significant, rejection of the church both my sister and I were brought up in.

But then my Unitarian Universalism conversion (with attendant worship of deity as "Goddess" and pagan issues) doesn't seem to bring the same reaction. Either he's saving his head shakes over me for when my sister's around, or baptismal methodology is more of an issue than the divinity of Jesus and the name and form of the Creator. Which I find kind of confusing, but then Dad's always been pretty complex.

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I think he sees it as another, fairly significant, rejection of the church both my sister and I were brought up in.

I understand that, better. That's a personal thing.

But then my Unitarian Universalism conversion (with attendant worship of deity as "Goddess" and pagan issues) doesn't seem to bring the same reaction. Either he's saving his head shakes over me for when my sister's around [...]

Heh. My dh's family is just the opposite. If you're pissing them off, you hear about it directly. If they're proud of you, they tell everyone else.

or baptismal methodology is more of an issue than the divinity of Jesus and the name and form of the Creator. Which I find kind of confusing, but then Dad's always been pretty complex.

Parents are confusing.

(Ask me how!)

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I'm hoping it's just a regular old benign growth. The vet didn't seem too worried, so I'm not either, at this point.

I spent a fair amount of energy trying to decide whether Ellie should be baptized (per Joe's Catholic background) or dedicated (mine). In the end, I decided that I had no strong opinion either way since I believe whatever you do for babies is more a community committment to raise the child as a Christian than a hell-preventing ceremony. I decided we would just do whatever the church we liked was doing. (I asked Joe about it, but didn't seem very concerned one way or another.) Since we feel most connected to my parents' Baptist church, we did a dedication.

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((Toby and family}} Brandy has a huge fatty tumor on her side. It doesn't bother her and the vet doesn't feel it needs to go unless it does. So it stays for now.

My mother is quite distressed over my children not being baptised. She's Catholic. In an effort to be respectful to her concerns I offered to have them baptised at her church. That wasn't possible because it had to be my "home" parish. My home parish wasn't an option because I am not a member. Hey, I tried. A God that denies entrance to heaven to babies because they weren't baptised is not my God.

In more exciting news, JenP is visiting!! Whee!!

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If you're pissing them off, you hear about it directly. If they're proud of you, they tell everyone else.

Yep, that's pretty much my mom in a nutshell.

I understand that, better. That's a personal thing.

It's a thing I feel kind of bad about, too, because his faith is such an important part of Dad's life. But at the end of the day I think you believe what you believe, and if there's one thing that ticked Jesus off it was folks professing a belief just so people would think better of them. And while I don't believe in the Trinity I do buy into a heck of a lot of what Jesus said.

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It's a thing I feel kind of bad about, too, because his faith is such an important part of Dad's life. But at the end of the day I think you believe what you believe, and if there's one thing that ticked Jesus off it was folks professing a belief just so people would think better of them.

Yeppity yep yep yep.

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