holy transformation

So we’re off and running. Day 2, post 2. Let’s not get into a habit.

I just wanted to reflect on something I heard at Mass yesterday. The readings and Father Bill’s sermon were about this funny little word that gets peoples’ backs up against the wall. Today’s word is “conversion.”

This word has a history of negativity. Like, there is this supposition in Western society that Christians are out to convert non-Christians, like we’ve got to turn em’ before they start burnin’. Like, fire and brimestone is waiting for the wandering sheep, the wayward lamb, the struggling sinner. And the way to avoid the fires, of course, is simply to convert. And do it NOW, sayeth the Sunday school teacher. Because the end is near. And there’s nutin’ you can do about it. So you best be believing, cause God aint’ deceiving.

Father Bill, though, was deadset against this kind of thing.

Now, I’m not trying to skirt responsibility for what Christians have done throughout history. I mean, there are certainly enough Christian folk out there to give the rest of us a bad reputation. Which is why Father Bill’s sermon kind of quelled some of the fires. 

Father talked about conversion, but not as one, single event that happens and somehow leads to a “okay, now you get to go to heaven” kind of assurance. Because Father Bill said that conversion is more like a transformation. It’s simply the process of becoming. Becoming something that you’re not currently. It’s not like one day you are and one you’re not. Rather, you spend your entire life simply striving to create the greatest amount of good in  yourself, for the people close to you, and for the world at large. You spend your life becoming something better.

In other words, you don’t covert. You convert. Get it?

Father Bill called it a transformation. And a holy one at that.

0h nine…blogging time.

In the immortal words of Eminem: “Guess who’s back? Back again? Del Monte’s back. Tell a friend.” (or something like that).

It’s now 2009. I haven’t blogged in 3 months, and coach CT has actually taken my blog off the PTC blog roll. I’m not hatin’. Not even a little. But it’s probably evidence I should blog again. Note to CT: don’t re-add me to the list…because for now I’m not talking triathlon. I’m going to talk about life, or something like it.

And so I start 2009 with a metaphor.

Life, I think, is like a hiccup. But not one of those little teeny tiny hiccups where you can kind of cover by just turning your head away. I’m talking about the big ol’ deep down from your stomach hiccup that stretches your neck and jaw two feet from normal. And so you’re sitting wherever: in a meeting, or in class, or at the dinner table, and you develp this uncontrollable inability to stop involuntarily hiccup-ing. If I could spell the sound a hiccup made, I would. But I can’t. The best simulation of a hiccup is to breath in very deeply, stick your jaw and upper lip out, and make a kind of belch/hurl noise at the same time. See. It’s the most unnatural thing in the world. 

And most of the time there’s not a thing in the world you can do about it, either. Like, you can drink water or try to swallow to induce a burp (which is what I do/Amy hates)…but that doesn’t always help. And so you just keep making that sound, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.

Ironically, of course, once the hiccups stop there’s nothing you can do to make them start either. Like, just try it. Try to make yourself hiccup. I’ll give you $0.50 if you can do it. Because that’s a safe bet. You can’t.

And so I say again: life is like a hiccup. Sometimes it (life) is going, and you can’t stop it, and sometimes it’s not going, and you can’t get it started.

Take the metaphor, apply it to your life, and see if it makes any sense. I’ll have something more concrete next time (which will certainly be before spring-time).

For now, it’s just nice to be back blogging again.