Two and a half years ago, my friend Anne gave birth to Elizabeth, the most wonderful little girl in the world. (Some of you may disagree, and may in fact have your own candidates for the most wonderful little girl in the world. You are, of course, welcome to disagree.) I'm always pleased when my friends have kids for me to play with, but Elizabeth was something special. I was indescribably pleased when Anne asked me to be Elizabeth's godmother. "Um, sure," I said. "There's just one problem. I've never been baptised. And I haven't been to church in years."

My parents planned to have me baptised when I was a baby. While my grandmother was out staying with us right after I'd been born, my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer. My parents decided to delay my baptism until my grandfather was well enough to come to it, but my grandfather never got well.

My first memories of hearing about God are from when I was four or five years old. "Who is God?" "God is love." "God is everywhere, and knows everything about you." "God loves you." That was also about the time my parents got divorced, and my father moved away. I wasn't sure if my father loved me anymore, and if he didn't love me I was fairly sure this God fellow didn't either. That's pretty much how I viewed God most of my life, rather warily, because I was never sure how He really felt about me. I grew up in a small town in Idaho, where most of the people were Mormon, and their religion expected girls to be submissive, obedient, and stupid. (I was none of these.) The preacher at my father's church was very fond of St. Paul, and his sermons often reflected the attitude that girls were lesser in the eyes of God than boys.

I was ten or eleven when I found out I had never been baptised, and I kept waiting for my mother or father to arrange to have the situation rectified. I would mention it from time to time, but nothing ever happened. My older brother had been baptised, though, and I again concluded that since I was a girl, I wasn't worth it.

The priest at Anne's church had retired, and she and her husband were looking for a new church to attend, so Elizabeth's baptism was delayed. I asked about it occasionally, and would drop broad hints, but it never happened. I began to ask myself why it was so important to me that Elizabeth be baptised. Was it just because I wanted to officially be her godmother? After all, I had never been baptised, so what was the big deal?

Part of it was that I didn't want her to feel forgotten. Part of it was that I wanted her to have a sense of identity. I took the confirmation classes at my father's church when I was twelve, but I was never sure if I was really a Christian. What was I? I didn't want Elizabeth to have these doubts.

During this time, I had been studying aikido, a martial art based on the principles of the Tao. Aikido teaches you to blend with the force of your attacker, and redirect this force in a harmless (to you, anyway) manner. But, aikido doesn't work if you're angry or if you're tense. As a Silicon Valley engineer and manager, I knew all about stress. I can't remember a time when I wasn't always on the go. Aikido taught me how to relax and to open up my heart to the universe around me. (It also taught me how to fall correctly, but that's a different story.)

Then, I was about to turn 35. I wanted to do something special for my birthday, so I decided to hold a Star Trek party, where all the guests would dress up like characters from the shows, and I would serve Star Trek food on Star Trek dishes, play Star Trek games, and listen to Star Trek music. One of my friends knew this guy named Gerad who was an excellent cook, and was working on a Star Trek cookbook. Sure enough, he let us use his recipes and borrow some of his Star Trek stuff, and he came to the party. He was really cool. And, as it turns out, he was also a priest, and I thought, "Hey, I've found someone worthy enough to baptise Elizabeth."

After I convinced Anne to attend St. Elizabeth's, I decided I should come along, too, since I didn't know that much about the Anglican church. I really liked it. Anne arranged with Father Flynn for a date for Elizabeth's baptism, and he arranged for a time to talk to me about my duties as a godmother. When we were talking about it, I said, "Well, there may be a problem. I've never been baptised." We discussed theology for a while, and then he asked, "Would you like to be baptised?" This was the first time anyone had ever asked me that. If he had asked me that a few years ago, I may have said no, but I had been thinking about the subject a lot since Elizabeth was born, and I knew that that was what I needed to do.

Of course, there was another problem. I thought it might look kind of funny if the godmother were baptised in church right before the goddaughter, so Father Flynn baptised me at the Renaissance Faire (which is another story). The next day was Sunday, and I was going to take communion for the first time. I was very nervous. As I knelt at the rail waiting my turn, I used what I learned studying aikido. I relaxed, and opened my heart, and I felt God's love rush in. It was wonderful. And I realized that God had always loved me, I had just never let Him before. I had been afraid and uncertain, and had kept myself away from God.