Anselm, Basil, and Baptism

Anselm was graduated from his final training (I think they put him through three different courses) as a junior enlisted man at the U.S. Navy's Submarine School. He is a qualified navigator and navigation equiment repairman now. Oh, he is a pistolero for the Navy, too. That last qualification, I am sure, will not be used on a submarine, but the more qualifications a sailor has the faster he gets promoted. Today he began driving from Connecticut to California. He'll stop by San Jose for a couple of days but then he reports for duty at Point Loma.

Basil is still very sick from the Covid, it has been since just before Palm Sunday. He is able to keep up with his classes (regular high school classes + an art history class from Evergreen Valley Community College but easly spends 15 hours a day in bed. He has no active virus but his heart and lungs are taking a long time to recover. The doctors changed his meds a week ago but say not to expect any improvement for at least another week.

Kathleen and her son are scheduled to be baptised on May 28. She ordered baptismal gowns from someplace in Greece. It was 45 years ago when I was baptised but I think I remember wearing brown couduroy pants and a brown and white striped cowboy shirt with mother-of-pearl snaps. It was just what I had on. No one had planned on me being baptised that day. I don't remember a lot about it. I remember visiting a church in Mountain View (The church my Dad pastored was in the neighbring city of Palo Alto.) where a whole lot of peole were being baptised. I remember having to convince my Mom and Dad that I really believed. And I remember standing in the water with my Dad and Uncle Harry (He was a preacher in the same denomination as my Dad.) I remember the question, "Do you believe in and choose to follow Jesus as your only Lord, God, and Savior" When I said "I do" they laid me down in the water saying I was being baptised in the "name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost." When I came up they said to me, "You are a new creature in Christ". It was shorter than the Orthodox way of baptizing.