Refractions

Two things are true. The first is that I have many conversion stories, some of them taking place within days of each other. The other is that my entire life’s journey is a conversion story.  Conversion – from the Latin, “with” and “turn” – “turning with”. And, implicitly, turning from and turning towards. But it’s this “with” that is the hinge of all my turnings. I wonder if that’s true for you as well.  As Adam and Eve leave the garden, as a cherub with a flaming sword stands to remind them that there is no going back, only going forward (and not easily), what we might not notice is that God does not stay in the garden, relishing a calm Eden like a grandmother tidying a quiet house after the mayhem of grandchildren has departed. God appears to have decided, in chapter two, to become what we will hear a name for, many books and chapters later, “Emmauel” – “God [is] with us”. God turns and goes with our first ancestors from paradise to the danger and promise of whatever is next.  It is

The young man stands on the far side of the river, waiting within a waiting crowd, eyes fixed on his cousin as he leads one person after another from east to west through the ancient waters. Who could not hear the echoes of Joshua and Elisha as the prophet leads the people through the brackish water to inhabit the land in a renewed and renewing response to the way of the Liberator. (No wonder it draws hostility from the temple and the court.) Joshua led a nation through this water to a land in which – they promised – they would follow the way of the Liberator. Elijah and Elisha crossed out of the land, and Elisha returned alone, both of them part of a long struggle against prophets of other gods who made shiny promises to that nation, to that people.   And now the young man watches as his cousin takes his turn in the witness of the prophets. The shiny idolatrous things are on offer from the religious establishment, the temple (the cathedral). Temple and cathedral share a common tempta