It has been a very busy week in Swallow. Following Norman's funeral on Thursday, there was Lyn and Phil's wedding on Saturday, and today Diane was baptised. As I have mentioned before, Swallow is a very small village in which not a great deal happens - the last christening was two years ago, the last funeral four years ago, the last wedding seven years ago, and this week we have had all three in the space of 4 days!

Diane's was the first adult baptism I have ever attended. She doesn't live in the village, but had decided that she wanted to be baptised in the church where her ancestors were baptised and married and buried. I felt it was sad that this was a lone decision and that she was unsupported by family or friends, while the those of us who make up the regular congregation met her for the first time this afternoon. I was left with a vague feeling that Anglican adult baptism is a rather lonely decision and lacks the family joy of infant baptism, and that somewhere along the way there should be a role for friends and supporters ever though, in this case, those supporters would have been strangers. As it was - except for a single sentence which we joined in - it seemed to me that, from the time we stepped out of the usual order of the communion and turned to face the font to the time we turned round and resumed with the intercessions, we were onlookers rather than participants. Even if there had been a small change in the positioning of the baptism within the service so that the passing of the peace followed on immediately after and we could straightaway shake her hand and welcome her personally into the family it would have been better.

Even leaving aside those denominations in which adult baptism is the norm rather than the exception, surely somewhere in the christian communion there must be a more joyous model to follow?