The Power of Conversion. Part II

Isaiah 55: 8, 9.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Matthew 20: 14-16 (Parable of the landowner who hires laborers throughout the day and then pays everyone the same wage.)

 “I choose to give to [the last ones I hired] the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

So the last will be first, and the first will be last.’ 

The first reading and the Gospel this week are passages of scripture that are difficult to put into context. We accept the Gospel because it is the word of God but it is a contradiction to our natural way of perceiving justice. Most of us relate to the laborers who resented toiling for a whole day only to be given the same wages as the ones who worked a short time. It's a parable that's on par with the Prodigal Son. Who wouldn't commiserate with the laborers' shock or empathize with the resentment of the faithful, obedient older brother who had to stand by and watch his irresponsible sibling get a party? How can we view these scriptures in a way that makes us leap with joy rather than grumble in frustration?

Conversion. We need conversion to come close to the heart of this week's scriptures as well as to other scriptures that seem to place God way out in left field playing his own mysterious game while we all huddle around home plate struggling to learn the moves and play within the rules of what sometimes seems like a completely different game.

Conversion. Normally we think of conversion as the one time act of turning from one thing to another. I was a convert to the Catholic church. Unless I decide to leave the church and convert to Buddhism, I won't seek  conversion in that way again. As it is, I'm here and I'm Catholic. Done. However, within the spiritual life conversion is a journey that's never done and unless each one of us is aware that we are constantly in need of conversion, our journey will stagnate. We will stop growing and we will just spend our time maintaining what we have. It's like brushing our teeth – it's a good healthy discipline but it won't produce new teeth. We're just maintaining what we've already got.

Conversion: causing something to change in form, character or function. Con means 'altogether' and vertere means 'turn'. As soon as anyone says to themselves, “I don't need conversion. I'm fine the way I am,” that person has shut down and has gone into basic maintenance mode. The openness to conversion means an openness to being altogether turned around. If you look again at the scripture passage excerpts above, you will gather that to move closer to the mind of God we not only need God to turn us around altogether, we also need him to lift us up to the point where we know that all our thoughts and all our ways are limited and inadequate when it comes to knowing him. Without conversion, we can know this but it becomes a heavy burden as we try to shoulder the responsibility for all our inadequacies and limitations. After conversion, knowing how limited we are is a precept of utter joy for it means that we can let God be God and we can let our old selves – those selves that had such a poor handle on everything – die and fade away.

We know that dieing is part of the spiritual life but what is harder to grasp is that just because we need to die to something, that thing is not necessarily bad or sinful. Listen: Unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies...there will be no conversion. The grain of wheat cannot develop in its present form but its present form is not a mistake or a failure - it's just not enough. The simple fact is, death must occur before a grain can develop into a new and different form of life. We all need to die to self because self retains incomplete images and pictures of God that may not be bad but are as different from reality as grains of wheat are different from the stalks and leaves that eventually sprout from them. Self resists changes to its treasured images of God. If the images can change that means lots of other things can change too and that is a very insecure feeling. Self is that ego, that inner identity I spoke of a few blogs ago. The ego hangs on desperately to what it thinks it knows. The incomplete images are part of self's sense of identity. Loss of those cherished images could mean a loss of self.

As soon as we capture some images of God and try to make life work according to images we possess, we slowly lose sight of God. That doesn't mean he leaves us or loves us any less. It just means we've stopped looking at him and have made our image of who he is and what he expects of us into a substitute for his real presence. Every image we have of him is two-dimensional, inaccurate and lacking in depth and power. I can take a photo of a sunset and hang it in my living room but that doesn't mean the sun is actually rising and setting beside the fireplace. The photo is simply a reminder of something that happened in the past and has no dynamic life of its own. We have no power to change our images into present creative life. A conversion moment is a moment when we are given the grace and power to behold a portion of God's reality and realize that all the perceptions we had of him until that moment are like faded and torn photographs. We no longer desire to hang onto those old images because they cannot even begin to compare to the beauty of God's present moment reality. Conversion is a series of turnings: turning away, turning to, turning from and turning into and there comes a turning point where it becomes quite clear that we cannot capture and own God. Conversion introduces us to a life that dances on the pinhead of the present moment. We can't 'make it work'; we can only be there in gratitude.

Conversion is a gift from God. That means that you cannot convert yourself. You cannot do anything that will make you more or less worthy of conversion. You cannot demand it; you can only want it and be open to it. And, yes, you have to turn up at the vineyard. You might be first or you might be last, you might be faithful or profligate, you may be a cloistered contemplative or one who is simply trying to keep up with the frantic pace of secular life but God's gift of conversion is for all who turn up. Extensive religious knowledge is most unnecessary. Previous experience will not prepare you. You will never be able to imagine where conversion will take you until God converts you and takes you there. The mind and heart of God cannot be comprehended in the way we like to comprehend things. The authentic spiritual life is not a possession we can 'own'.

Conversion often occurs during or after times of great crisis or stress. Sometimes God has to take us through crisis to strip us of all the captured images of him that we've got buried within us. He needs to disable the sources of inspiration that were right for a time but now are not. He wants to replace garments that we have outgrown. If we always have to have a handle on everything, always have to be in control, always insist that everything fits fine and never allow ourselves to experience doubt we can miss that conversion opportunity. The period leading up to a conversion experience can feel painfully stormy and uncertain but it is the living breath of God blowing our boat to shores we never knew existed.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:7-11,“But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,‘No eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him’—
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God.

We can never plumb the depths of what God has prepared for us. No matter where we are in our spiritual journeys, we can never assume that what we know about God or how we have experienced him so far is pretty much all there is. There will always be hidden treasure waiting for us. There will always be something more prepared for us if we are willing to let him take us there. There is no saint or mystic who deserved or deserves conversion more than any one of us. Saints and mystics are the kinds of people we think God chooses to receive the blessings of conversion; however, God has a vastly different take on these things. The first shall be the same as the last and the last shall be the same as the first – and all are welcome to the feast.

The only thing we can do is turn, yearn, seek, be open to the risk - and wait.

...but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)