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So on Saturday, we are throwin' Twyla a party. It is her Welcoming Ceremony. Hannah and I put the finishing touches on the ceremony part of the event last night. The whole event is 3 hours long. We rented out a room in a local park building, big enough to hold the 40-50 odd friends and family who are gonna attend. It is a big deal, with my brother flying in from L.A., and Hannah's sister Maggie flying in from Philly, and her grandparents, and godparents in attendance. We've been lucky that so many people had this weekend free. The first 30 min is devoted to a ritual/ceremony, and the rest to drinking, dancing, and talking. Ok, scratch the dancing.

There have been three issues that we've considered throughout this process of creating the ceremony. One is what to do in lieu of a Christian-based baptism ritual, because while Hannah and I were both raised Christian (Lutheran to be precise), neither of us go to church anymore except on random Christmases or for other people's weddings. So it would have felt weird and pretentious to basically ignore that fact and have a baptism at a church that we didn't belong to and had no special meaning for us. We could have done a baptism at the church where we were married, in Milwaukee (Hannah's church), and while that place is pretty cool, and the closest thing we have to a church that holds meaning for us, still, we wanted to do the ceremony in the town where we lived, namely Chicago. Cuz this is our town, and all.

So we came upon this lesser-known tradition called a 'Welcoming Ceremony' and we decided to create one for our daughter. We found a wonderful little book that we used for ideas and inspiration. And we arranged a ceremony that has prayers/vows offered by Uncle Christopher, Aunt Maggie, me and Hannah, the five grandparents, the two godparents (more on that is a moment), two close friends, and Hannah's Aunt Bones, who has had a special role in Hannah's life. There is also a prayer that the whole group is gonna read in unison, and we are going to use the Unity Candle from our wedding as the spiritual/symbolic object in which the light of our marriage is transferred to the new bright light in the world that is our daughter Twyla. There will also be bells rung by the group, a tree where people attach written blessings to the branches, and a song performed by Christopher. All in a wham-bam-thank-you-slam of a half hour. I'll let you know how it goes. We are pretty excited. We haven't done something like this since we composed/assembled the rituals for our wedding, 6 years ago.

Next issue is that of the need/value of the tradition of 'godparents'. Since we weren't gonna go the church/baptism route, should we also ditch the tradition of godparents? We gave it good thought and discussion, and we decided to keep it and so we asked two close friends to be godfather and godmother. Arielah Moskow and Ben Rogerson. What we liked about the role of godparents, which we uncovered in our research into the history of the custom, is that godparents act as protectors to the child, and serve as a way to turn close friends into relatives. We also liked the idea that if parents (me and Hannah) are required to see both the forest and the trees in the course of raising Twyla, godparents lean more towards the bigger view of the forest, and act as counsel to us parents, as well. Ari and Ben are lots of things to us (all good) and one important thing that both are to us is excellent shit-detectors. They have no problemo telling us we are being stupid or silly with this that or the other big idea we have. So we want that to rub off to Twyla as she grows up. All in all, it was these qualities that we wanted to preserve in the role of godparents, and the rest is more or less negated for our purposes. And, fuckin' a, we couldn't think of a better term than 'godparents'—mentors? guides? naww...—so we chose that title, as well.

Finally, there is the issue of religious lineage. I thought about this more than Hannah did. Basically, because Twyla non-baptism breaks the link she might have with those before her in the the respective clans of her parents. I think lineage, and its importance to contemporary folks, is gonna make a comeback in the coming years, and for me, I think about it more and more. It is a way to ground one's existance, and thus instantly fight the whole existential grief that comes from a lineage-less awareness. So I was concerned that Twyla breaks this chain of Dallman/Pendzichs who were baptised in the Christian church, but, like above, it just didn't make sense to pretend that Hannah and me are/were churchgoers, and thus deserve the right to maintain this religious lineage.

Am I a Christian? I think I basically am. I view the New Testament as allegory of one's capacity to offer selfless love to others. But as far as the social mortar that is the church part of the 'Christian Church', I haven't participated in that since I went to college, and don't feel an impulse to change that as of yet. And frankly, if anything, I would change from the bland Lutheran tradition to the more ornate and breathtaking Catholic tradition anyway, if for no other reason than Catholic sacred music fucking rocks. Perhaps Twyla and her daddy will take little father/daughter fieldtrips to my favorite Chicago Catholic churches and I can share with her why I find the architecture and the music to be utterly profound and beautiful. And perhaps in that way I can pass on a lineage of sorts to her, which is a love for music of all kinds, especially that of Christian sacred music from the Renaissance (Italian being preeminent).

So there you go. Our struggles/dilemmas/decisions for the ceremony that formally welcomes Twyla into the world, and reminds her family and friends of their role in forming the important community for her journey through life. For it takes a village and parents to raise a child. We grow through the vibrancy of both.