Conversation about conversion
and greeting the world
Dear friends,
When I was in my 20s, I lived in Dublin in a big ramshackle house with 40 colleagues, all of us all doing church-based youth work. It was many things: some predictable; some surprising.
I was a regular at the small parish church. As the years went by — I was there for six years, I think — I got to know plenty of the people. Nuns, priests, parishoners.
There was a particular woman, Mary, who had a repeated phrase. “Morning, flower,” she’d say when I saw her on the way into or out of mass, “I’m praying for you. For your conversion.” She had bright eyes, favoured blue, was in her 70s, worked as a cleaner for the nuns, had lived a hard, hard life. She remembered names, even though she called most people “flower”. Her hope for everyone’s conversion was her greeting to everyone.
Conversion to what? Who knows. I mean she saw me at mass multiple times a week, so it wasn’t devotion I was more in need of. Continual conversion, perhaps, turning and turning towards the source of life.
Once, I introduced her to a bishop. I wondered what she’d say — hierarchical authoritarianism being what it was in Ireland in the 20th century. “Nice to meet you, your Grace,” she said, undaunted. “I’m praying for you. For your conversion.” Then she went about her way. A pale blue housecoat over her weekday dress.
Mary made me chew over the verb “convert” – to turn around. Years later, I got to writing a poem about conversion. It’s in honour of her, and in honour of Meister Eckhart – a 14th-century mystic whose wild words about time have entranced readers for 700 years. I like the idea that Mary, were she to have met the Meister, would have greeted him in her traditional way: “For your converto,” she might have said, switching to Latin for a bit of international conviviality.
My poem about conversion is below. It’s about how, in the midst of exorcisms, invasive imaginations of queer identity, hate-filled rhetoric about how depraved a gay man’s life was, an unexpected change happened in me: a turning away from the self-hate I was buried in. The phenomenon’s origin was not of or in me. It came. Like lightning.
Something happened to you – something true. A word of wonder made its way inside you and nothing could describe or take it away – though plenty tried. You called it the unknowing. You said it came like lightning. You began to seek love in silence. You said once you turned your gaze to it you realised what the gaze is for.
From Love Between Men by Pádraig Ó Tuama, coming in September
So, friends, two things, the second of which is the more important. The first is that this poem is a hidden poem in Love Between Men, a book of mine that’s coming out in a few weeks. Pre-orders help artists to an enormous level, so if you felt like ordering the book, I’d be grateful. There’ll be online and in-person launch events announced in the next few weeks. In the U.S., you can preorder it via a local bookshop on Bookshop.org. Elsewhere in the world, there’s an in-person or online option at your fingertips or in your town!
Secondly and more importantly — this week’s question: What was a moment of conversion for you? Meister Eckhart called it “the unknowing” and said that when a tree is struck by lightning, the leaves all turn towards the source of the light. I don’t think that’s forensically true, but it’s such a memorable image. What have you been converted to? What was the experience like?
I’ll see you in the comments, friends,
Poetry in the World
A list of my events: Online and in the U.S. (Santa Fe, NM; Frenchtown, NJ; Hickory, NC; Cambridge and Stockbridge, MA) and England (London, Kettering)
August 9–13, Santa Fe, New Mexico
I’m leading a four-day intensive workshop at Modern Elder Academy called “Poetry as a Common Language”. We’ll read, write, and discuss poems on finding and deepening connection. (For more information, click on the date heading.)
Join me in celebrating the launch of my new collection, Love Between Men, hosted by St. Martin–in-the-Fields Church, beginning at 6 p.m. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
August 27–30, Kettering, England
I’m absolutely delighted to be returning to this year’s Greenbelt Festival, a gathering of arts, activism, and belief in England. (For registration info, click on the date heading.)
I’ll be leading evening worship alongside Nadia Bolz-Weber and Doug Gay as part of the Festival of Preaching, beginning at 5:30 p.m. GMT. (For registration info, click on the date heading.)
October 1, Frenchtown, New Jersey
Join me at Frenchtown Bookshop for a conversation and book signing, beginning at 6:30 p.m. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
October 11, Hickory, North Carolina
Join violinist and fiddle player Liam Bailey and myself for an afternoon of music and poetry at Grace Chapel, beginning at 3 p.m. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
I’m leading a virtual craft intensive on poetry and desire through Poets House, beginning at 6 p.m. ET. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
I’m delighted to be joining Ellen Bass’s wonderful Living Room Craft Talks Series for a discussion of the poetry of eros, beginning at 12 p.m. ET. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
November 2, Cambridge, Massachusetts
I’ll be reading alongside Susan Stewart as part of the Blacksmith House Poetry Series, beginning at 8 p.m. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
I’m leading a virtual course on lyric address through Arvon, beginning at 7 p.m. GMT. (For registration info, click on the date heading.)
December 18–20, Stockbridge, Massachusetts
I’m leading a retreat on poetry and prayer at the Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
Michelle Penn and I will be reading together in a virtual event with Café Writers, beginning at 7:30 p.m. GMT. (For more info, click on the date heading.)
I was converted to myself. It was an insight born of nothing in particular, it just ... happened. I realised my instincts were sound, were very often right and needed to be paid attention to. Now that my sound odd to some but if, as a child and then as an adult, you learned to do what others wanted, say what others wanted to hear and swallowed their opinions about you, then such a revelation is a marvel. A quiet certainty, not dogmatic and not to be forced on others, but just a deeper inner, solidity that's arrived. I welcome it and wonder how life would have been if I'd been able to recognise and honour it earlier.
Hello and happiest Sunday all! Thank you, Pádraig, and for your poem too. I'm very much looking forward to the book.
Your description of Mary in her pale blue housecoat, her benediction offered to bishop and parishioner alike, is so vivid.
This is the first prompt that has given me pause. Usually I have a very quick response. Today I find myself returning to my earliest memories, to being rehomed at eight years old, and to that first, fragile turning toward a new family, open-hearted, uncertain, and yet, somewhat miraculously, willing. Perhaps the conversion I am struggling to express is an opening to trust...