Wetlook World Forum

There was a time when I was rafting on the Hiawassee river and at the take-out area, a local church was having baptisms. Now THAT was cool!  They did their baptims fully clothed in their church clothes. Most of the people to be baptised were kids, and one or two male older teens, so nothing to look at there. But there was an older lady in her late 20's or early 30's who headed into the river wearing a blouse, knee-length skirt and high-heeled dress sandals.  All the candidates headed into the water and stood in line, youngest to oldest, so she was the last one. So I got to watch her standing in waist-deep water waiting her turn. Wanting to be respectful, I just sat down and watched all the baptisms (besides, I had never seen a river ceremony before). After they were done, everybody walked out of the river and hugged and and talked with family members before heading off to Sunday lunch. The lady in the skirt wound up chatting for about 10 minutes with some other church members standing near me. I remember her standing there, in her Sunday best, dripping wet and chatting as if it were just the most natural thing thing to do.  Goodness I wished I had had a camcorder for that.

I also got to watch a lake baptism with college age girls (when I was in college) but they were all in jeans and sweatshirts, so nowhere near as good. That same weekend we were at a retreat at some campground with cabins. It  rained the whole darned weekend. Rather than not do anything, the church leaders told us to consider it as "liquid sunshine" and go about our activities. So were were all outside playing hoops, tag, talking, etc in the rain. There were a number of the girls who stayed in their jeans and tops and got soaked standing around talking and cutting up. Very nice.

Corsair