tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554498168264477884.post2405116729290334485..comments2023-09-26T03:53:17.142-04:00Comments on Pentimento: I Am Mrs. LotPentimentohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17161146891505294679noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554498168264477884.post-29643967043896047172008-08-15T07:01:00.000-04:002008-08-15T07:01:00.000-04:00Well, to repeat a quote I seem to keep quoting, "C...Well, to repeat a quote I seem to keep quoting, <BR/><BR/>"Conversion is often portrayed as a positive event, a turning toward. It also has a negative aspect, a turning away. The event of formal adhesion [to the new faith] may consist of this flight toward the future and from the past. But . . . . the old life overshadows the understanding of the new. The event may produce a transformation; but something resistant to change informs understanding it, and retention of the old may indeed have been a condition without which there could have been no change" (from Karl F. Morrison's book Conversion and Text: The Cases of Augustine of Hippo, Herman-Judah, and Constantine Tsatsos). This has been true to my own experience. <BR/><BR/>A priest I knew once said that we are simultaneousl the same person as before conversion and a different person, and that the entrance of Christ into our lives sets up the line of demarcation between who we were and who we are.Pentimentohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17161146891505294679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554498168264477884.post-48007629795898292382008-08-14T21:43:00.000-04:002008-08-14T21:43:00.000-04:00Well, I can't explain it very well without going i...Well, I can't explain it very well without going into more personal detail than I want to do. It's just that I do feel very much the same way. There's regret for my own past, and a sadness about certain people who, as far as I know, remained behind, in the sense that they stayed, as far as I know, in the more or less godless frame of mind we had all shared at one time. And compassion for them. Was there a clean break? Yes and no. Most of the personal relationships that would have been problematic after conversion had already faded for one reason or another. Which was just as well. I don't think there was a perfectly clean break within me, in that I continued to value much of what I had valued then--the art and general sensibility, other things that could be loosely classified as culture.Maclinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14431327970201767428noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554498168264477884.post-24795580027589799362008-08-14T10:31:00.000-04:002008-08-14T10:31:00.000-04:00Can you explain further, Maclin? Did the experien...Can you explain further, Maclin? Did the experience of conversion constitute a clean break in your life between the past and present?Pentimentohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17161146891505294679noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5554498168264477884.post-15344980812887631752008-08-13T23:21:00.000-04:002008-08-13T23:21:00.000-04:00Well, there's me--that's one. (in reply to the que...Well, there's me--that's one. (in reply to the question at the end of your excellent post)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com