New Kid On The Blog

27-April-2009:

Yesterday was a special day. The good news is that Dominic and I got baptized into the Church of England. I have been preparing for this for 6-7 months and now it's finally done. Although Saimun didn't show any interest throughout the past 7 months but he was there to support us yesterday, and he invited one friend along (probably to keep himself company). Ellen travelled all the way from Oxford and acted as Dom's Godparent. And there were many other people in the congregation who came for the normal service (frankly, a bit embarassed to have so many eyes on us). Dominic was the cutest when he shut his eyes tight for the Revd to pour water on his head.

Now, a few people has asked me why I chose to do this (and I'm sure you will ask too). It's not an easy question to answer. It is like asking a woman why she decided to marry her husband or why she fell in love. I guess I want to live knowing that someone is watching over my family and I, that no matter what happens, there's always hope and faith. I guess I want to build my faith on something that I am most comfortable with. No doubt, my grandmother is a Buddhist (and I lived with her) so by default I would be a Buddist as well, although I was never really into it. Looking back, when filling in all sorts of forms and applications where 'Agama' was one mandatory field, I've often filled in 'Buddhism' because that's the default, and at times I even filled in 'Tiada' (in fact, I felt more comfortable having no religion than to call myself a Buddhist).

Now that I am able to choose for myself, I choose something that I am most at home with, something that I've read about more than any other religion and to be honest, something that is most conveniently accessible in my circumstances. That subsequently lead me to have a small battle with myself on whether to baptize Dominic or to let him decide for himself when he's much older. But in the end, I love him more than anything in the world and I figured the right thing to do is to give him what I think is the best. After all, I've never had anyone to guide me in faith when I was growing up and I wished that at least one of my parents had done that for me. Besides, it is the first step in getting him into a good school, but honestly, that's hardly the reason I'm doing this.

So anyway, after it was all over, Ellen presented me with a pair of silver earings and a kids bible for Dominic. That was really thoughtful and I'm deeply touched. :-) We had a nice lunch and a nice chat. I've not had such a long conversation (verbally) with anyone in a very, very long time and it felt really good to have a friend to talk to.

# posted by Skye @ 8:16 am