{"id":25642,"date":"2025-08-12T07:06:20","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T11:06:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=25642"},"modified":"2025-08-12T07:36:29","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T11:36:29","slug":"25642","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=25642","title":{"rendered":"Paul\u2019s Conversion and Our Own"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Be Still - The Killers Lyrics\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Tkv13UC0nHo?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Richard writes of conversion as an experience of participating in divine reality:<\/em>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before conversion, we tend to think God is&nbsp;<em>out there<\/em>. After transformation, God is not out there, and we don\u2019t look<em>&nbsp;at<\/em>&nbsp;reality. We\u2019re in the middle of it now; we\u2019re a part of it. This whole thing is what I call the&nbsp;<em>mystery of participation<\/em>. Paul is obsessed with the idea that <strong>we\u2019re all participating in something bigger than ourselves. \u201cIn Christ\u201d is his code phrase for this new participatory life.<\/strong> In fact, he uses the phrase \u201cin Christ\u201d 164 times to describe this organic unity and participation in Christ. \u201cI live no longer, not I; but Christ lives in me\u201d (Galatians 2:20). \u201cIn Christ\u201d is his code phrase for this new participatory life.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s a completely different experience of life. I\u2019m not writing the story by myself. <strong>I\u2019m a character inside of a story that is being written in cooperation with God and the rest of humanity. <\/strong>This changes everything about how I see my life. A participatory theology says, \u201cI am being chosen, I am being led, I am being used.\u201d After conversion, you know that&nbsp;<em>your life is not about you; you are about life<\/em>! You are about God.<strong> You\u2019re an instance of both the agony and the ecstasy of God that is already happening inside of you, and all you can do is say yes to it. That\u2019s conversion and it changes everythi<\/strong>ng.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After conversion, you don\u2019t experience self-consciousness so much as what the mystics call pure consciousness. Self-consciousness implies a dualistic split, with me over here thinking about that over there. The mind remains at that dualistic, either\/or, and \u201cothering\u201d level. When we have a mystical experience, the subject\/object split is overcome. Of course, <strong>we can\u2019t maintain it forever, but we\u2019ll know it once in a while, and we\u2019ll never be satisfied with anything less<\/strong>. In unitive experience, we\u2019re freed from the burden of self-consciousness; we\u2019re living in, through, and with another. It\u2019s l<strong>ike the experience of truly being in love. Falling and being in love, like unitive experience, cannot be sustained at the ecstatic level, but it can be touched upon and then integrated throughout the rest of our life.&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>True union does not absorb distinctions, but actually intensifies them. <strong>The more we give of ourselves in creative union with another, the more we become our authentic self. <\/strong>This is mirrored in the Trinity: perfect giving and perfect receiving between three persons who are all still completely themselves. <strong>The more we become our True Self, the more capable we are of not overprotecting the boundaries of the false self<\/strong>. <strong>We have nothing to protect after transformation, and that\u2019s the great freedom and the great happiness we see in converted people like Paul.<\/strong> As Paul puts it, \u201cBecause of Christ, I now consider my former advantages as disadvantages.\u2026 All of it is mere rubbish if only\u202fI can have a place in him\u201d (Philippians 3:7\u20138).&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/app-link\/post?publication_id=3367802&amp;post_id=170655552&amp;utm_source=post-email-title&amp;utm_campaign=email-post-title&amp;isFreemail=true&amp;r=2dkj2&amp;token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjozOTkyMzY2LCJwb3N0X2lkIjoxNzA2NTU1NTIsImlhdCI6MTc1NDkyMjI4MCwiZXhwIjoxNzU3NTE0MjgwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMzM2NzgwMiIsInN1YiI6InBvc3QtcmVhY3Rpb24ifQ.3Bz-KJn8yvWGALlhbrjfw4MT7nv716Db1S3Fa-XIQyM\">the shape of a soul (when the shine fades)<\/a><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@chuckdegroat\">CHUCK DEGROAT<\/a>AUG 11<\/td><td><a href=\"https:\/\/substack.com\/@chuckdegroat\"><\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table><tbody><tr><td>&nbsp;<\/td><\/tr><tr><td><\/td><\/tr><tr><td>&nbsp;<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>You\u2019ve been told the lie<br>(though not in so many words)<br>that if you don\u2019t shine<br>You\u2019ll disappear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That you won\u2019t be seen<br>if you\u2019re not on.<br>That digital space is crowded<br>and the algorithms demand your sacrifice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Feed the glow, they say<br>Curate brilliance<br>(even if you don\u2019t have it in you)<br>The digital&nbsp;<em>ego<\/em>sphere requires its offering.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So you polish your moments,<br>(and trim the ragged edges)<br>filter the light until it flatters,<br>until you are palatable enough to trend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yet in the quiet<br>when the screen dims<br>and the crowd scrolls past<br>You feel the hollowing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>What good is being seen<br>if I am no longer here?<br>What worth is relevance<br>if it costs me presence?<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I want you to step back<br>let the glow fade<br>let the silence swell<br>until you remember the shape of your own soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To shine, not for them,<br>but because&nbsp;<br>the light within<br>is enough.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard writes of conversion as an experience of participating in divine reality:&nbsp; Before conversion, we tend to think God is&nbsp;out there. After transformation, God is not out there, and we don\u2019t look&nbsp;at&nbsp;reality. We\u2019re in the middle of it now; we\u2019re a part of it. This whole thing is what I call the&nbsp;mystery of participation. Paul [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25642"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25642"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25642\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25647,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25642\/revisions\/25647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}