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My Confirmation by Daniel Perez, age 15
After my confirmation I was thinking over it. There wasn't a feeling of completion, rather a feeling of beginning. All the preparation had merely led to another road. It became apparent to me that my confirmation wasn't going to be important to me in itself, rather it would only be important if I made something of what I had learned in the process. It didn't make sense to me that confirmation would be a completion or a fulfillment of a goal. No it was merely my letter of intent to fulfill my goals in a way worthy of my vows. The buzz will eventually fade, and the moment will seem less relevant as my life goes on. What I have to hope for and work for is that I can take my understanding and training with me through life's trials and trepidations. It's like a traveler who stops on a tall hill to enjoy the view and rest his feet. As he is there, he finds a sturdy walking stick, eventually he must start on his way again leaving the hill behind him forever. Though the view and the time of rest are pleasant memories, he puts far more value on the sturdy stick that has endured with him and helps him day in, day out.
They say that confirmation is the next step after baptism. In some other places it is a completion of baptism, and for some others, one cannot take communion until after you've been confirmed. Now at St. Augustine's, we've got no such concrete meanings for confirmation. To some degree getting something from one's confirmation at St. Augustine's is just figuring out what it means to you as a member of the church and what it means to you as a person. A week before the confirmation, those of us who were to be confirmed, had a breakfast with Father Murphy (a memory as important to me as my actual confirmation). During this meeting we spoke about what was going to happen during the confirmation. We also discussed what it meant to be confirmed. Father Murphy said that firstly, to some degree, we all have figure it out for ourselves, but a suggestion was to be more active in the services: learn how to be a chalice bearer or read perhaps. He then half grimaced, half laughed as he realized that a few of us could serve on the vestry in a year or two. So, as it is, I'm still figuring some of this stuff and I might even figure it out and then find my explanation doesn't hold any relevance and have to start from scratch. But life's a process, not a destination, and we should just all hope to processes of our lives have some byproducts.
Copyright © 2002 St. Augustine by-the-Sea
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