I'm a daddy, again. I now have two unbaptized daughters.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not worried about their "salvation" (whatever that means) on this basis. My sacramentology is pretty low. But I do feel the absence of what infant baptism represents: communion with the covenant family, and the parent's promise to raise the child in the faith. The reason I don't make that promise is that I've already promised exactly the opposite to the girls' mother. Her concern is that I should indoctrinate her children into a religion to which she does not subscribe, and she has my promise that I won't. While this was a mostly unspoken agreement at the time of our marriage, it has been spelled out explicitly in the last few years in our conversations around child-rearing.

It is, to say the least, a Faustian bargain. I have beautiful little girls I love, but I can't give them the reassurance and meaning and truth I find in Jesus.

Maybe the best step would be to stop dwelling on the point, embrace materialism and enjoy what I can, while I can. There's a lot of real blessing in my family life, whatever label anyone may put on it. Maybe I can hold the door open for them by keeping the right books around, by sneaking off to church every once in a while, by doing my best (and praying for God's help) to conform myself to Christ.

Father, please watch over my little girls. Please draw them to you.