For many, the words leave a negative taste in the mouth: a flavour of judgment, of being considered not enough as one is, or broken, or somehow wrong. Wielded as a weapon, conversion can be those things. But it can be other things as well.
I have recently found myself undergoing a conversion in my capacity to trust. Perhaps the beginnings of another to courage. How many more conversions do I need? Conversion to acceptance. Conversion to love. Conversion to courage. Conversion to creativity. Conversions that are not one-offs, but emergent processes, like a bud unfolding.
The Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama (coming soon to Poetry Monday) writes that: “Conversion — if it means anything — means more than one thing. It is a process, a conversion towards the good. It is an embrace of the possibility of change and future. It is a difficult companion. It is a rewarding companion. It calls us again and again throughout a life.”
Not because your bad, or broken, or wrong, but because you are not yet everything you might be, what conversions want to happen in you?
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