"Re-baptism" anniversary

Today is the 10-year anniversary of a "re-baptism" ceremony I performed during a return trip to the Dominican Republic that I took with my then-partner and a lesbian friend who, like me, had served her mission in the DR. That's me in the photo, ten years ago, looking very serious. The trip was a pilgrimage of sorts. I wouldn't have articulated it this way at the time, but in retrospect I realize that I was hoping to tap back into the spiritual power I'd experienced during my mission.

At the time I took this pilgrimage, I'd been inactive in the LDS Church, and living as a selectively out gay man, for going on three years. But I'd come to realize that I didn't really have what I could call a testimony that coming out of the closet was what God wanted me to do. That mattered to me because I felt constantly bombarded with messages that living "the gay lifestyle" is wrong, and I felt vulnerable to them. The late 1990s were a pretty intense time for gay-related politics in Utah, so a lot of these messages were coming at me from politicians, or conservative organizations like the Eagle Forum, or people writing strident letters to the editor—in addition, of course, to LDS leaders. And I still carried orthodox LDS voices in my head—my mother's voice, primarily. So I had begun a process of frequent spiritual journaling, similar to what I'd done during my mission when I wanted to strengthen my testimony of the Restoration, where I addressed the voices head-on, studying out issues in my mind, deciding what spoke to my mind and heart, praying to know if what I was thinking and doing was right.

The pilgrimage to the DR was part of this process of recovering a strong spiritual foundation. I don't remember now how I got the idea of a "re-baptism," but the purpose of that gesture was to symbolically recommit myself to God. Also I'd say (I wasn't really conscious of all this then), I was trying to reach out to God—to strengthen or rejuvenate our relationship.

On June 18, 1998, we drove out to a beautiful but empty beach at the eastern end of the country. My friend Sara and I walked down to the water's edge. Sara invited me to articulate my intentions for this ceremony. I talked about a David O. McKay quotation I'd recently discovered that had spoken to me quite powerfully. McKay was talking about one of his favorite subjects: free (yes, he called it "free") agency.

I would like to say to youth everywhere, we desire them to feel free to do as they please. We want them to feel happy in that thought, too. [He then quotes from the hymn, "Know This That Every Soul Is Free."] Once we share this sense of freedom, we are conscious of the fact of responsibility. . . . And that consciousness is what brings your soul into activity and makes it an independent entity, the real offspring of our Father in heaven.

I told Sara that I wanted to feel the freedom David O. McKay talked about. I had made choices for my life based on my own best lights, and I wanted to feel good about that. I wanted the inner strength and security of conviction that I wouldn't feel threatened by anti-gay voices. Then Sara and I waded out into the surf, and Sara cupped her hands to sprinkle water onto my head. When we came out of the water, I picked a small piece of coral up from the sand to memorialize the occasion. I still have it.

If I were performing a personal ceremony like that today, I would do something more clearly rooted in the Mormon ritual idiom. But this was a time in my life when I told myself I was moving away from Mormonism. (The fact that I'm wearing a Sunstone t-shirt in the photo, and was meditating on teachings of David O. McKay, should probably have clued me in otherwise.) In retrospect, I feel that the ceremony accomplished what I'd hoped it would, plus some things I hadn't been looking for. It helped me tap back into the spiritual power of my Mormon roots. And as time went on, I gained the stronger conviction—the testimony—that I'd been seeking. I thank God for that.

By a curious sort-of coincidence, the ten-year anniversary of this spiritual recommitment is two days shy of the one-year anniversary of the phone call from my stake president that marked the beginning of disciplinary proceedings leading to my excommunication. That phone call came on June 20 of last year. Despite myself, I feel a vague impulse to read some meaning into that coincidence. The two events are milestones on the same journey, and though the road has taken some unexpected twists and turns, God is walking beside me the whole way.