Flannery O’Connor's short novel The River is a shocking story, in which a baptism lies at the centre. Below is the extract of Harry Ashfield's baptism in the river.
“Listen to what I got to say, you people! There ain’t but one river and that’s the River of Life, made out of Jesus’s blood. That’s the river you have to lay your pain in, in the River of Faith, in the River of Life, in the River of Love, in the rich red river of Jesus’ blood, you people! …. All the rivers come from that one River and go back to it like it was the ocean sea and if you believe, you can lay your pain in that River and get rid of it because that’s the River that was made to carry sin. It’s a River full of pain itself, pain itself, moving toward the Kingdom of Christ, to be washed away, slow, you people, slow as this here old red water river around my feet.”
…
“If I Baptize you,” the preacher said, “you’ll be able to go to the Kingdom of Christ. You’ll be washed in the river of suffering, son, and you’ll go by the deep river of life. Do you want that?”
“Yes,” the child said, and thought I won’t go to the apartment then, I’ll go under the river.
“You won’t be the same again,” the preacher said. “You’ll count.”….
Suddenly the preacher said, “All right, I’m going to Baptize you now,” and without more warning, he tightened his hold and swung him upside down and plunged his head into the water. He held him under while he said the words of Baptism and then he jerked him up again and looked sternly at the gasping child.
[The child’s] eyes were dark and dilated. “You count now,” the preacher said.
“You didn’t even count before.”
Flannery O’Connor, The River in A Good Man is Hard to Find (1955)
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