Recently, I asked a group of people to reflect on how God has blessed them or gifted them. Typically, many people in the group spoke of tangible things. Some said God had made them good teachers, others that God had made them good writers; others boasted of some other trade skill God had blessed them with. Only one younger woman spoke of something more ethereal. She said the greatest gift in her life was depression, which she had wrestled with for some years. She said that the experience of depression had sensitized her to the pain and struggle in other peoples lives. She said that because of her own suffering, she could spot even disguised ache in others, and respond to it. Then she said: "I offer people hope. I tell them that they ought not to give in, but with God's help, move on to new life." Listen to what the young woman was saying: the greatest gift in my life has been the cross, through it I have been changed, and now I can use that changed self to care for others.

Conversion -- it is about so much more than changing denominations. It involves the ability to think paradoxically or, as I would say, paschally. Such a process involves being able to re-interpret even life's struggles through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. This paradoxically, paschal thinking is convinced or convicted that the same process is now going on in us. In such a world view, even life's breakdowns are experienced as break-throughs to new levels of being.

Some months ago, I was off work for a variety of health problems that caught up with me. I had never before in my life taken several weeks off from work. I am obsessive-compulsive; I've always believed obsessive-compulsives make the world go around. When physical and psychological problems caused me to "hit the wall," I could not work. Without work, I went into a kind of withdrawal. One night I felt a strong need to be in a sacred space, so I went out driving, looking for a church. Much to my dismay, I could not find a Catholic Church open, so, I stopped in a Lutheran Church. I sat in one of the benches, picked up a copy of the Scriptures, and began to pray the psalms. I also began to weep; my spirits were very low. I have always valued busyness and success, and I felt that I was failing miserably. In a way, I felt it was "all over for me." Then, I looked up into the sanctuary and saw two banners hanging there. To the left of the crucifix hung the words "Become a New Creation." To the right of the cross were the words "In Christ, all things are made new." I dried my tears, got up and began to pace, talking to God, thanking God for the sign.

Much more than changing denominations, conversions involved the jumping of the imagination to a new thought, a synthesizing insight, or what one interprets as apparently God's voice, God's will. In that moment in the Lutheran Church, I felt God saying to me, "It's not over...but I am calling you to newness." The centrality of the cross in the middle of the two promises of newness indicated to me also that this newness would involve some struggle, some pain. But that has been and is still with me, as long as I sense God with me speaking, promising, leading; as long as I sense that I am living out God's will and plan.

Recently, when I picked up one of the newspapers, I was struck more than I usually am by the figures of starving children in Somalia. I have seen the swollen stomachs, the apparently large heads, the haunting eyes, and the shriveling limbs before. But this day's picture particularly stayed with me. I wanted to do something. But in my enthusiasm to do something, I also felt frustration. What could I do? I could send money, and I have and I will, but that will not eradicate the problem. Then I remembered what Jesus said in the gospel of Luke, that flesh and blood do not constitute family, but rather a deeper bond -- the spirit of God that we share and the will of God that we pursue. What troubled me about this particular picture of suffering people was and is a growing conviction that we are all family. We have been trained to not make eye contact with the poor, the hungry, the homeless, the dying child in the newspaper. But God will not allow our consciences to rest with a "no eye contact" approach. We need to make eye contact, for the suffering of the world are our brothers and sisters. In addition to engaging in acts of charity for and toward them, we must carry them daily in our heart, in prayer.

Conversion is much more than changing denominations. It is awakening to the whole Gospel -- the necessary connection between the Kingdom of God that Jesus preached, and the work of social justice. God's Kingdom is no less than this, the transformation of society with the power of the Gospel. Jesus did not intend His words to be misused for feel-good religion. The Gospel is simultaneously comfort and challenge. As I told this story in Portland, Oregon recently, a young campus minister said that she was experiencing some of the same tug, or pull, that is, to put the Gospel into action.

My stories reflect a little bit of what is involved in conversion: a cry for more, or God; a cry for help, or loving relationships; paradoxical thinking, which embraces the cross as the mystery of God changing us; a jumping imagination which senses God present and in a posture of revealing Himself; an enlarging heart, which feels a oneness with all of the creation, especially those parts of creation groaning because of suffering.

Something common to conversion moments or processes is the void, darkness, shipwreck, pain. Whether it is a physical ailment, or a psychological struggle, a relational difficulty, a job stress, or a moral dilemma, conversion usually involved a human experience of break-down. But the paradox of conversion is that in the break-down, there is a break-through -- to a new experience of God and the human family. The fuel or energy for merging into the new experience is trust, or surrender, letting go into the mystery of God and God's love.

How is it that some people have void or shipwreck experiences, and they become break-throughs, while other people fall rather into atheism or agnosticism. I think the direction that a struggle experience takes us in is largely influenced by the environment around us.

I recently changed ministries, from full-time work with the Archdiocese of Chicago, to full-time work with the Institute of Pastoral Studies, Loyola University of Chicago. I received a nice plaque and controlled my emotions until after I began my new ministry. But in the first days of the new role, I felt terribly frightened, and I was grieving the old role that I had, the comfortable things that I used to do, and the people that I had grown so accustomed to. I can be a terrible Lone Ranger, handling my problems myself, placing myself, as I said before, at the center. But this last time, I tried to approach things differently. I went to God in prayer and said, "I'm hurting, please heal me." And with the repetitive prayers for healing, a feeling of reassurance came. I also picked up the phone and called a friend. I asked her if she would walk with me, talk with me, pray with me. She did. The faithful influence of that friend helped me to reframe, to see things in a renewed way. I said ouch! help me! to God and other people; and God and people were there for me. The presence of other people of faith are vital if human experiences are to become conversion. It is very hard to make that jump to God alone. We need the context, the social context of other loving, faithful people. Conversion, in other words, needs community. In community we can pastor and shepherd each other.

This is an area in which I feel the mainline Christian churches are not doing what they can do, that is, provide the necessary community and pastoring that help in conversion. A recent survey said that 75% of most congregations are not even involved in worship. Only 25% worship; only 5% experience genuine community or ministry. As Scott Peck says in A Different Drum, we are in pseudo-community, afraid of the vulnerability needed for true community. A recent article by a Msgr. Robert Fuller said: Our parishes are failing. Never before have we had so many programs, so many volunteers; never have staff members worked harder. But, he contends, our parishes are failing. Our parishes are failing if we agree that the role of parishes and congregations is to foster conversion. In too many congregations we have baptized unconverted Christians, sacramentalized, unconverted Catholics. This is largely due to the fact that there is no genuine pastoring community, the first which has to be the domestic church or family.

I live in a parish of over 4,000 units or living situations representing tens of thousands of people. In no way can one clergyman and a few other staff pastor and shepherd such great numbers so that more and more of them experience their break-downs as break-throughs. No, that can only happen when a typical parish or congregation re-imagines all of God's people as shepherds, pastors to each other. All off us, whether clergy or lay, are the same. We are God's missionaries.

A person suffering from bi-polar or manic-depression, gave me a ride to the airport out of town recently. She spoke of the terribly painful mood swings that she goes through and how life at times seems unbearable to her. I asked her who helped her the most during these periods, and she said without hesitancy, not the counselor, or her clergyman, but rather her husband. Then she used a beautiful image to describe her husband. She said, "He is God's mercy for me." The patience and kindness of the woman's husband, in the face of others' intolerance and misunderstanding, were and are for the woman, an incarnation, an enfleshment of the mercy of God. That husband is an example of what I mean by people pastoring or shepherding each other.

I was struck recently by the story of Bill Linder. Bill is 55 years old, has a doctorate in sociology -- and is a monsignor in the Catholic Church. That means he has established himself not only as a good priest, but also a priest of special renown. Bill has been granted a share in the MacArthur Foundation. Through it, he has access to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, in recognition of his humanitarian service over the years of his priesthood. He accepts only about $9,000 for his salary from this grant. He donates the rest to the low-income housing, housing for the homeless, day-care center, nursing facility, security force, and the myriad of other services that constitute the "New Community Foundation," a community organization that he has begun in one of the poorest sections of Newark, New Jersey. If there are any funds left after the end of the fiscal year, he shared the remanent of the funds with other organizations in financial need. He does this to bear witness to his community of the poor of the importance of sharing resources.

Bill Linder is a man with a mission. Obviously having experienced profound conversion experiences, he has been led into mission, into sharing his gifts, his experiences with the neediest of the needy. He is truly a man with a mission. We all ought to be people with a mission. What a difference there would be in society if more people approached each other with a sense of mission and service. What if spouses approached spouses, family members approached other family members, friends approached friends, co-workers approached co-workers, strangers approached strangers, and enemies approached enemies with a sense of mission and service. The tonality of the world would indeed change. Conversion is never self-contained. It explodes in a person's life, seeking to spread spiritual richness to as many as possible. One of the tenets of Twelve Step spirituality is that one stays in, indeed deepens one's recovery by reaching out to help another in trouble. In the same way, any of us on the journey of redemption, salvation, conversion deepens our own journey by trying to be present in simple ways to other people on a journey similar to our own.

Interview with Patrick Brennan
Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Lydia Talbot: Your message earlier, Patrick, touched on those mood swings in your own personal case as an obsessive-compulsive to "hitting the wall," as you say. How do you keep God in the picture?

Patrick Brennan: I am struck by the work of Keith Miller in his reflection on Twelve Step Spirituality. He says that the essence of all sin is self-centeredness. Then he puts a spin on self-centeredness. He says that it is not necessarily greed. It is placing yourself at the center and having to be in charge and having to be in control. What we do is elbow God out of His job. I guess what I was reflecting on in those stories and my own story regarding conversion is allowing God to be in the center. When we allow that and when we practice that, I think a lot of chaos is eliminated and peace enters.

Talbot: When you talk about conversion, you raise that sense of receptivity, that special openness that one must bring to a transforming, revelatory experience. There aren't many people who can learn that or do that. Is there a prescription?

Brennan:  I think, as James Loder says in his book The Transforming Moment, there is no definite prescription. Usually a life experience causes the shipwreck or the void in your life and you have to surrender. There is no other option. Loder says that when it has happened once, you learn to trust the process. Ten years later if another experience comes your way, you don't resist God as much as you once did. You say, "Hey, this is a transforming moment."

Talbot: In thirty seconds, does that characterize your own journey with the priesthood?

Brennan: Very much with the priesthood and my own humanity.

Talbot: There must be resistance all the way through.

Brennan:  There is.

Talbot: How do you overcome that?

Brennan: There is resistance in the psychotherapeutic process; there is resistance in conversion. I think pain is a great teacher. I think when we are trying to be in charge and in control, we cause a great deal of pain for ourselves. When we surrender, some of the pain ceases.