On Conversatio

How one woman's Benedictine experience of conversatio began

Some years ago, I fell among Benedictine monks, and began to grow in prayer. It was a happy turn at an unhappy time. When I came to them, at Mount Michael Benedictine Abbey in Elkhorn, Nebraska, I was despondent, having lost a child and thinking that I may be on the verge of losing even more than that...my sanity, my marriage, my way on the road of life...

It was Kathleen Norris' Cloister Walk that had lured me to the rhythms and eccentricities of Benedictine life and prayer. I became an oblate there at the urging of a fine old monk named Father Frederic, whose deepest and wisest advise to me was "Pray as you can--don't worry about how you can't." Father Frederic has since gone to glory, where I imagine he's wearing his coveralls and taking good care of the grounds, but his smile and his simple words guide me still.

"Pray as you can--don't worry about how you can't."

I've moved hundreds of miles away from the abbey and from my community of oblates. I miss them. I've also moved far away in terms of suffering, sin, and experience from the person that I was when I first became a Benedictine oblate. Things seemed much simpler then. Back then, I dreamed of sanctity. Most days now, I think I haven't got a prayer. I've been thinking lately, though, about what it means to be a Benedictine , and I decided to begin this blog in hopes of connecting with others who are interested in the idea of ongoing conversion or conversatio. It's a fine idea, once it gets under your skin and into your heart, that throughout your life, you turn and return to God, and that God turns and returns you to himself.

Just an aside. As I begin, I ask to be forgiven in advance for something. I ask to be forgiven for referring to God as "he." I know I'll do it, and I know it might offend or hurt some tender hearts and disciplined minds. It's a habit that I once tried to break, when it used to be offensive to me. I was once a feminist Christian, and couldn't even call God my Father for a while. I couldn't conceptualize God as male, and tried very hard to image and speak to and of God as without gender. I think God probably is without gender, as we know it, but I really can't speak that way. As I came to forgive the painful "He" in my past for the hurts he inflicted on me, and that part started to heal, I came to peace with my limited vocabulary. For me, God can't be an "it." I just can't have intimacy with an "it." I don't see any advantage to God as "she," so I'll stick to my tendency toward "he." It's my weakness, I've owned up to it, and since it's my blog, I suggest we move on. Or, I bless you on your way as you click to a different site.

For you who have decided to stay, I invite you to comment and join me in considering what ongoing conversion, or conversatio means. Conversion to what? Holiness? Perfection? And what might those things mean? I'll try each time to end with something from St. Benedict or a Benedictine writer to fuel our thoughts.

"First of all, every time you begin a good work, you must pray to God most earnestly to bring it to perfection." (Prologue 4, Rule of St. Benedict)