The "I" in confirmation...
...makes all the difference
My 14-year-old daughter and I were both confirmed in the Episcopal Church today! My adult confirmation is meaningful because I was baptised as an infant, in the same church (the actual building!) I was confirmed today. This marks a true full circle (and very meaningful) moment.
My daughter’s confirmation has been a journey of learning and finding parts of her true-than-true self. She has learned about church history, calendar, creeds, and prayers. She has been challenged and encouraged to ask questions, tugged on loose strings, and no question has been off-limits. Her youth pastor stressed at the beginning that confirmation is the first adult decision she will make in her life of faith.
The rule in our church is that parents can have their kids attend the classes. However, the decision to be confirmed is all their own. Confirmation is optional and not expected, and the choice not to be confirmed doesn’t shift their acceptance and place in the vibrant youth community and larger parish community.
Over the past year, she learned that this act is a confirmation of her baptismal vows and her invitation and acceptance into a community, not in any sense conforming to any expectations of what a life of faith looks like. (Confirm, not conform, is the way this has been explained to her)1
Confirm and conform are separated by a single “i”. The Latin roots, “con” (meaning with or together) and “firmare” (meaning to strengthen) are the same for both words2, and yet…
The “i” sets them apart in meaningful ways.
Confirm means to “make firmer, strengthen.”
Conform means to “be similar, identical, or obedient or compliant”
There is no “i”-(literally and figuratively) when asked, told, or expected to conform.
Confirmation strengthens the “I.” It requires clarifying values and beliefs and reaffirming the truer-than-true self.
(This is why I love words, word history, and dictionaries so much; wisdom is literally in the word, if we look!)
The “I” that separates confirm and conform holds the wisdom. These words, which seem to be about ideas, are more about identity, our true, core self, more than anything else. The seven 14-year-olds confirmed today confirmed a part of their identity that we, as parents and our parish community, have fostered, but it’s theirs to own, step into, and inhabit.
The confirmation service today for my daughter began (in part) with these words.
“God’s call to each of us is to engage in the exploration of faith with all our heart, mind, and soul. Our call may take us down unimagined roads, yet at every step we are surrounded by God’s love and guidance…
Young members of the body of Christ, we invite you to join us in the work of healing.
We cannot give you a perfect world, but we can welcome you to the work of making it whole.”
Confirmation has been an action, an invitation, an event in my home over the past year as my daughter has walked her path, unwrapped, discovered, deepened her faith, and found a meaningful place in our community.
As I’ve watched her grow, mature, deepen, and delight in learning about and distinguishing confirmation versus conformation, I’ve pondered how to engage with these ideas in my living, breathing, and walking around life. I’m asking myself what ideas, beliefs, and invitations I need to confirm, deepen, make firmer, and strengthen. This leads to a more difficult question: where have I conformed-been obedient, or compliant, without thought or intention, to ideas or beliefs that are not my own?
These are challenging questions. They push and pull at the foundations of my identity.
Am I a consumer or a creator?
Are YOU a consumer of ideas or a creator of beauty through how you live, move, and have your being?
Does how I live align truly and deeply with the beliefs I say I believe?
Do you live, talk, and treat people in alignment with what you believe?
Have we conformed to identities and values which are not our own?
We are asked to label ourselves and others in so many ways all day, every day. Our culture and society put much pressure, visible and unseen, on us to conform. I want to be someone who confirms.
Confirmation is an act of choice, free will, a decision about what I wish to embody. Conformation is about becoming, doing, and being what others or culture needs, desires, and wishes.
Confirmation invites us to be firm in our convictions.
Conformation askes us to take the form of values, which might not truly be our own.
The confirmation service ended today in part with these words from the confirmands to their parents, mentors, and congregation…
“With all the love a heart can hold, I thank you for who I have become. I ask you now to set me free, as I set you free, so that I might find my path to God.”
Confirmation sets us free; may we hear and seek the invitation to confirmation.
A Blessing for Confirmation
May we be confirmation people who seek to live in alignment with our beliefs, ideas, and convictions. May we confirm and strengthen what we believe so we can continue working to make our world whole. May we be healers, wholeness seekers, truth-speakers, and joy-bringers.
Today's confirmation service included questions my daughter and I answered (and confirmed with answers like “I will and I do”). The confirmation questions are questions of reaffirmation, an audit of sorts. The questions come down to: Will you live by the values you hold?
The smaller and deeper invitation is to consider what you need to confirm (to make stronger, deepen, and strengthen). And where you have conformed (become obedient and compliant), do you consent, or do you need to reconsider?
I love the words and work of Macrina Wiederkehr. I’m sharing a few questions from a list of questions in her book Seven Sacred Pauses: Living Mindfully Through the Hours of the Day.
Walk with each question throughout the day, see what might be confirmed.
Have I been a good memory in anyone’s life today?
What do I know, but live as though I do not know?
When did I experience my heart opening wide today?
Have I waited with grace or with impatience?
What is the one thing in my life that is standing on tip-toe, crying, ‘May I have your attention please?
Macrina Wiederkehr
in
Seven Sacred Pauses: Living Mindfully Through the Hours of the Day.
confirm(v.)
mid-13c., confirmyn, confermen "to ratify, sanction, make valid by a legal act," from Old French confermer (13c., Modern French confirmer) "strengthen, establish, consolidate; affirm by proof or evidence; anoint (a king)," from Latin confirmare "make firm, strengthen, establish," from assimilated form of com "together," but here perhaps an intensive prefix (see con-), + firmare "to strengthen," from firmus "strong, steadfast" (from suffixed form of PIE root *dher- "to hold firmly, support").
From mid-14c. as "make firm or more firm, add strength to;" late 14c. as "make certain or sure, give an assurance of truth, verify." Related: Confirmative; confirmatory.
mid-14c., confourmen, "be obedient (to God), comply," from Old French conformer "conform (to), agree (to), make or be similar, be agreeable" (13c.) and directly from Latin conformare "to fashion, to form, to shape; educate; modify," from assimilated form of com "together" (see con-) + formare "to form" (see form (v.)).
The meaning "to make of the same form or character; bring into harmony, make agreeable," and the intransitive sense of "act in accordance with an example" are attested from late 14c.
Blessings in this next chapter of deepening faith for you and your daughter. This was fun to read.
This is simple (or at least it should be), and also very powerful. Beautiful! Thank you for sharing it.