Hindsight

[lydy]

So, imagine that you had a Bohemian, libidinous past. In your early twenties, you meet a wonderful man, marry, have three kids, and return to the religion in which you were raised. Possibly, this change to a conservative lifestyle is at least partly a response to finding your previous rebellious lifestyle unsatisfactory. Many years later, an old flame calls. To complicate matters, she's a, well, she, and so is twice a sin, once as a pre-marital affair, and twice as a same-sex relationship. Even if, or perhaps especially if, you have feelings about her, it is an uncomfortable situation. Another ten or so years go by, your life has become infinitely more complicated, and the affection you felt for her is even older and more faded, the church more conservative, and the taboo against same-sex relationships strongly reinforced -- and she tries to make contact, again. Frankly, this isn't the sort of conversation you really want to have, at the moment. Or ever. The absolute best it can be is painful, and the worst is, well, pretty unimaginably horrible.

No, I don't think I'll write a letter, or send email, or anything else. I hadn't thought of things from her side. I most emphatically hadn't thought of myself as an old regret. I forgot that that was the way it works. I mean, sure, now I'm a sin, I can dig that. But I'd forgotten that the whole repentance thing would reach backwards. I'd been thinking of conversion as, like, a new beginning. It's not, though, and I should have remembered that. I'm probably as welcome as a bull in a China shop. You know, it's embarrassing to not have thought of all of this, before. Even without some of the more tragic underpinnings, I should have been more careful. Boy, ain't hindsight something?

Comments

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

The conversation couldn't possibly be a new beginning, especially as you're reaching out to her after all this time.

Time flows only one direction.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

Uh, conversion, not conversation. One of those weird things that Christians do. :-)

And actually, this may be another example of not remembering to look at Anga's point of view. Jew's don't do conversion, as a rule. And I bet, when you do, it doesn't require that you change how you look at your past, unlike a conversion to serious Christianity.

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

And actually, this may be another example of not remembering to look at Anga's point of view. Jew's don't do conversion, as a rule. And I bet, when you do, it doesn't require that you change how you look at your past, unlike a conversion to serious Christianity.

How you look at your past, or how you feel about your past? This is a very tangled topic. And I don't know what the scope of "conversion" covers. Some people convert to Judiasm; others who are Jewish become Orthodox or return to Orthodoxy. Any of these cases will certainly lead to reconsideration of the past.

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

Actually, we do -- it's just that the rules are different. And for at least many converts, it sure does change how they look at the past, often in ways more than verging on impiety. (I can recall one who was of the strong opinion that her birth to a non-Jewish family was ample evidence that God wasn't infallible; he'd screwed up, and she had to fix things.)

[lydy.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, when someone is converted to Catholicism, the baptism wipes away all past sins. However, they remain sins. It's a completely different way of evaluating one's past. What had once been a lark, or a passionate affair, or, well, mostly anything, becomes a sin which one would repent for, if it weren't for the fact that the baptism has taken away the need for it. You don't look back and think, "Yeah, that was then, this is now." You look back with a dollop of Catholic guilt. At least, this is how I understand that it works for conservative Catholics. I'd be pleased to be corrected by someone with better knowledge than mine.

On the other hand, conversion to Judaism is just plain different, again, if I understand things correctly. Jews aren't subject to original sin, nor confession, nor the threat of damnation. These all make a conversion a psychologically different space.

[marsgov.livejournal.com]

No original sin, no confession, and no damnation. On the other hand, given Jewish mothers, who needs damanation? :-)

[joelrosenberg.livejournal.com]

Oh, sure. It is a totally different thing, even those issues aside. The primary thing about Christian conversion is one's (at least putative) relationship with God; the primary thing about Jewish conversion is one's relationship with the tribe. Conversion to Judaism is more like joining the Elks Club than it is like Christian conversion.