Many moons ago, quite possibly on a Thursday (though just as likely on a Monday), there was a quote I heard, can't remember who said it, but it was 'If you can accept a stone 100%, it's enough to convert you'. It's been one of those ones where I never really understood what it meant but it's still stuck with me, swimming round in some murky backwater of my brain, getting up to no good with my sense of urgency. I knew the accepting bit was to do with not needing to change anything - not needing your nose to be a bit straighter, or wishing there wasn't a stinky person sat next to you on the bus, or that your spouse would learn to stop squeezing the toothpaste from the middle, or wishing Lord of the Rings: Return of the King didn't have that ridiculous slow-motion, 'You-have-been-watching,-in-order-of-appearance' bit near the end (or, now I think of it, pretty much every scene in the entire trilogy with Frodo in it), or wishing that people would stop writing 'LOL' at the end of a text or comment that quite clearly ISN'T FUNNY (honestly, ask yourself if anyone has ever written that after a comment that was genuinely funny. At best you would have just made a slightly more forceful than normal exhalation through your noise. Maybe they should write MASMFTNETYN instead.)
(I should quickly point out that I'm not saying that Lord of the Rings wouldn't be better without Elijah Wood pathetically rolling his eyes up into the back of his head, or that the world wouldn't be better without big nasty powerful people groups being downright mean to little people groups, or that we shouldn't do anything to speak our against that kind of injustice. They would and we should, but that's not what is meant here. And I'm not going to explain why. This is my blog post and I don't have to if I don't want to. In fact, you can't do anything about what I write in this blog post. If I want to write 'mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmaasdooifhsdjcmybumismadeofbutterflieszzzzz.o.o.o' then I shall. See - I just did. You're just going to have to deal with it.)
But anyway, I wasn't sure what they meant by conversion and, more specifically, why not needing to change anything was already enough for that to happen. Then the other day I think I had a tiny bit of a glimpse into what they meant, and it was a little wondrous delight. I'd decided to perambulate gently up to the local park. As I ambled up I decided to simply be mindful - to notice the sights and smells, and to notice how my body felt.
The very first thing I noticed was the aroma of freshly baked hot cross buns emanating from the back of Tesco. My initial response was to have the sort of grumpy old man rant that involved the word 'bloody' an awful lot. I don't know when Easter is but it feels far too far away to think about stocking the shelves with hot cross buns. But then I found myself letting it go - shops always need to get stock in early, ready to fill the shelves, and I suppose that's fair enough. I might personally think that's too early, but then hot cross buns are rather tasty and I doubt the taste buds of Britain will be complaining too much. So I just accepted it.
Then I began to notice the ends of my fingers start to freeze up on the jolly cold metal push rims of my wheelchair, which hurt slightly, and all the more so every time my fingers caught on something. But I found that, rather than complaining about it and wishing it was warmer, I wondered instead why being cold means things hurt more. (It turns out I don't know). When I got to the park, I stopped to get my breath and watch the clouds. I noticed that I felt like I needed to park by a bench even though I was already seated, and felt the gently pleasant tingle of my fingers warming up, coupled with the uncomfortable tingle of my feet starting to get cold. The latter's not a feeling I usually enjoy as my legs tend to spasm in response. Again though, somehow I didn't feel the need to wish anything was different - that it wasn't so sodding cold, or that I didn't get these weird sensory things in my body, or that the weird sensory things were lovely cuddly feelings instead of painful for a change. And that kept happening - that quote wasn't on my mind at all but everything I saw and heard I simply accepted for what it was, without needing to put any kind of value judgement on it, or without being affected emotionally.
Then when I started to come home I found that I felt open. I wasn't really sure what to specifically. It was like I'd gone from sitting with my shoulders slightly hunched and looking down with the suggestion of a frown on my brow, to sitting upright, my brow lifted and my eyes open wide. I think it was simply I'd gone from being closed to having an emotional/mental/spiritual an openness to life. An openness to receive whatever there was to receive and to give whatever there was to give, to learn from it all and to let it change me. And I suppose being open is the beginning of any conversion experience, whatever it is you're converting to. Because I didn't feel the need to change anything, even though none of it was 'perfect', I was ready to be converted to the fundamental goodness of life.
It's like everyday life was inviting me to be its friend and share a nice pot of tea, and wondered if maybe I wouldn't mind not deciding I already knew all there was about it, or deciding that it should be different before I'd even got to know it. It's only by accepting something first that I can journey with it - I can only start a journey from where I am, not where I'm not. Wishing my circumstance was different denies me that journey. As a crappy example, before I can begin any journey I have to accept that I'm sat at the computer in my flat in Sheffield, and that I can't really walk. Wishing I was healthy and owned a house in the country is all good and well, but not much help if I want to consider how to get into the city centre. So maybe by accepting things 100%, I can begin to see that, as Richard Rohr says, what's on the inside is bigger than what's on the outside.
So that was all nice. If a little cheesey. ROFL!
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