2024-10-17 A Meditation on Conversion

“7 But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Phil 3:6-11 ESV)

To unpack a new thing, a spiritual heft, a soulful Encounter, is to come crazily upon a Line of heart, of heartbeat, of delimiting Potential, of warmth for the journey. As those newfound by the Spirit, we are strangely Courageous in the name not just of what we are, but in the name of what we’ve transpired from, what was our original Quality of Life: in community, in pastimes so many, in deeds good and deeds ill. We are a product of so many evidences of Grace, because we are now tuckered out around any crazed desire for more “sin”, and—having had our sup—we strike a new Chord of Advancement, thought Advanced, persona Advanced, a wild ride wherein the last shall be first: yet, too, first only insofar as we are burdened by more not less Clarion Call to be Cruciform.

Like Paul, who suffered more because he was of a worldly pride more paramount (his career; his revelations; his do-goodism), we are on a hair-raising rollercoaster ride engendered when we once have put our bedrock reliance, our faith, in an oddball Crucifixion. As Jesus wept, as Jesus suffered, as Jesus made paradoxical journey, we too are awakened from any and all death-embracing sleep, to a New Tomorrow, a New Today even, a Today alert and perspicacious, alert and no-time-to-dawdle over former sins. And such composure may even have heightened for a season our trials and temptations; we may have sinned more post-conversion than pre-conversion. Because we were looking for the simplistic statement of faith; because we were not bold enough to Fight and to Manfully Embrace, Fiercely to combat, the passive acceptance that passes for Creed.

In our churches, that passes for Creed: a sermon or sacrament or worship service devoid of point-blank coming to Christ; devoid of Dying, that life may arise abundantly; devoid of an unexpected, strange carpet ride through Climes we scarcely had prepped for; through the Ending of all focus groups or material wealth or things clutched, in the lightness of being and the Name of our Lord. A psychedelic Lord, perhaps, to those of such sober assessment as to meet and greet the Good Product, the Good Stuff, the Good Anchor.

The newcomer to faith then stores up all these memorable moments, because to pass through a death valley does bring with it the tomorrow-tide of a pleasing Garden: and our faith then must still persist. We do not tire of Christian living. Rather, no longer feeling “needy” we still feel “celebratory”: of the grandeur of Christ, of the token—no, not token, but meaningful—gestures. We still feel Ready and Able, for the blessed sake of those whose plight we have in no way forgotten, who are facing a hunger leading unto heavenly vision upwards, who are facing a rent due and the sad reality of going from respectable to homeless, who are facing any sort of tyrannical authority in their world… to these we devote winning, Converted, loving hours. Hours in prayer. Hours in sensibility. Hours in Duty. Because we are of a former reality the world easily forgets: a harrowing experience, of unmanageable tyrannical sin—or whatever we wish to call it. A dead end, a grating proximity, a no-way-forward trap. So our good cheer is with a distant gaze of unmentionables, of simple Forgiveness of all who approach us, of genuine Courage to claim and to own the good tidings that go way down.