64/365 Retrospect: Friday

Conversatio Morum. I remember reading something by some Benedictine that this was the spiritual equivalent of "we fall and get up, we fall again and get up again." It is the conversion of the heart. But it isn't conversio morum. Conversio means a moment of conversion and life is never the same again. St Paul's conversion. You know, that earth-shattering moment that changes your whole life.

But since my life is a novel and not a short story by Flannery O'Connor, conversio isn't part of my experience. Sure, there have been moments of grace, but never a moment of conversion. But I do try to live out conversatio morum.

Conversatio is more of an ongoing conversion. A slow turning towards. Gradually other things fall away, edges round down, we get more and more still. At least that's the hope. I see conversio as fire:, quick, hot, dangerous, energetic. Conversatio is water: slow, seeping, seeking its own level. They are both life giving, but definitely different experiences. And as can be seen in the Burned-over District of New York, fire certainly is harder to handle and easier to get out of control.

We can't spend our lives waiting for fire. But we can spend our lives slowly seeping into the low spaces of life, slowly bringing ourselves closer to an inner truth of God present to us, in us, around us.

And that was my own conversatio morum this week as I tried in vain to get myself ready for RCIA. In vain because by Friday night, Leo had a temperature of 104.1 and things looked pretty dicey. And I started realizing I wasn't working out. Not that this wasn't working out. But I wasn't.