"Something happened to me in that pool."
It was my first physical therapy session, after knee replacement surgery, with Dan S., the physical therapy assistant who, a year earlier, had guided me through therapy in the warm-water pool. This time, we were working together on terra firma; my incision was not sufficiently healed for a return to the water.
So, as Dan and I worked on straightening and bending my new knee, I shared with him my understanding of what had happened to me, one year and about 100 pounds ago.
In the 94-degree water of the therapy pool, I had what I now recognize as a conversion experience.
I write a biweekly faith-and-values column. The column that was published on Dec. 31, 2016 -- while I was in Phoenix, barely able to hobble -- addressed the varying types of life changes.
There are resolutions -- vague and shallow decisions and goals for self-improvement, usually made for New Year's Day, but almost always abandoned on Jan. 2 or not long after.
There is repentance. Repentance is defined as turning around, or turning away. Sometimes repentance endures, especially if the penitent person has a plan, and a lot of support. But repentance, too, is subject to falling away.
Then there's conversion, an authentic and enduring soul-change.
The challenge with conversion is, a person can't make it happen -- not to oneself, and certainly not to others. You can't even know when or how it will happen, or what direction it will take. All you can do is ask God to help you be open to it -- because conversion, being out of your direct control and usually out of your comfort zone, can be terrifying.
Conversion is the "something" that happened to me in that warm, healing water.
It wasn't in my plan. It wasn't in the care plan Dan S. had devised for me, as skilled and intuitive as he is in the art of healing.
It was bigger than both of us, and more mysterious and holy than we could fathom.
Somewhere -- between Jan. 31, 2017, when Dan first instructed me to walk in the warm water, and Feb. 16, 2017, when our guided sessions ended -- some Spirit changed the way I saw myself.
If psychologist M. Scott Peck is right about people's outward appearance being, at least to some extent, a reflection of how they perceive their souls, then a sea-change in inward self-perception could be manifested in a change in outward appearance.
First, I discovered confidence, strength, insight and radiant joy in moving my body through the water.
Then, I changed the way I eat and move, so that my outward flesh looks a little more like my inward soul.
Is conversion, like resolutions or repentance, susceptible to falling away?
I think it is. In fact, I'm pretty sure it is. If you can get changed inside, you can also get changed back -- by one seductive temptation, one thoughtless comment or act, one setback. When it comes to fallible, weak creatures of the flesh, and that describes our entire species, there is no such thing as a final, once-and-for-all change. That's why I need to follow Christ's admonition as I move through my ongoing conversion: "Watch and pray."
It was my first physical therapy session, after knee replacement surgery, with Dan S., the physical therapy assistant who, a year earlier, had guided me through therapy in the warm-water pool. This time, we were working together on terra firma; my incision was not sufficiently healed for a return to the water.
So, as Dan and I worked on straightening and bending my new knee, I shared with him my understanding of what had happened to me, one year and about 100 pounds ago.
In the 94-degree water of the therapy pool, I had what I now recognize as a conversion experience.
I write a biweekly faith-and-values column. The column that was published on Dec. 31, 2016 -- while I was in Phoenix, barely able to hobble -- addressed the varying types of life changes.
There are resolutions -- vague and shallow decisions and goals for self-improvement, usually made for New Year's Day, but almost always abandoned on Jan. 2 or not long after.
There is repentance. Repentance is defined as turning around, or turning away. Sometimes repentance endures, especially if the penitent person has a plan, and a lot of support. But repentance, too, is subject to falling away.
Then there's conversion, an authentic and enduring soul-change.
The challenge with conversion is, a person can't make it happen -- not to oneself, and certainly not to others. You can't even know when or how it will happen, or what direction it will take. All you can do is ask God to help you be open to it -- because conversion, being out of your direct control and usually out of your comfort zone, can be terrifying.
Conversion is the "something" that happened to me in that warm, healing water.
It wasn't in my plan. It wasn't in the care plan Dan S. had devised for me, as skilled and intuitive as he is in the art of healing.
It was bigger than both of us, and more mysterious and holy than we could fathom.
Somewhere -- between Jan. 31, 2017, when Dan first instructed me to walk in the warm water, and Feb. 16, 2017, when our guided sessions ended -- some Spirit changed the way I saw myself.
If psychologist M. Scott Peck is right about people's outward appearance being, at least to some extent, a reflection of how they perceive their souls, then a sea-change in inward self-perception could be manifested in a change in outward appearance.
First, I discovered confidence, strength, insight and radiant joy in moving my body through the water.
Then, I changed the way I eat and move, so that my outward flesh looks a little more like my inward soul.
Is conversion, like resolutions or repentance, susceptible to falling away?
I think it is. In fact, I'm pretty sure it is. If you can get changed inside, you can also get changed back -- by one seductive temptation, one thoughtless comment or act, one setback. When it comes to fallible, weak creatures of the flesh, and that describes our entire species, there is no such thing as a final, once-and-for-all change. That's why I need to follow Christ's admonition as I move through my ongoing conversion: "Watch and pray."
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