Emmanuel Carrère writes that in 1990 he was “touched by grace.” For the next three years he attended Mass every day, immersed himself in the Gospel of John, and filled some twenty notebooks with commentaries. Looking back, he remembers remarkably little of that period and has made no effort to recover it. His amnesia suggests that grace, at least in its fanatical form, can be exhausting enough to become something one prefers to leave buried.
I underwent my own conversion in 1976.
I was touched not by grace but by the bodybuilding bug.
Like every true conversion, it demanded far more than outward behavior. It required a new vocabulary, new authorities, new rituals, and a new vision of salvation. My sacred texts were Iron Man, Strength & Health, Muscle Builder, and MuscleMag International. My saints were Ron Teufel, Frank Zane, Robbie Robinson, Mike Mentzer, and Tom Platz. Their routines were studied with the seriousness medieval monks reserved for Augustine.
Every afternoon I retreated to my father’s office and sat before his IBM Selectric typewriter. Carrère filled notebooks with reflections on John’s Gospel. I filled page after page with workouts.
The process bordered on liturgical.
KSFX drifted through the room, playing the O’Jays, the Four Tops, Earth, Wind & Fire, and the Miracles while I stared at the page like a theologian confronting an elusive doctrine. I would type a routine, scrutinize it, decide that my split routine lacked perfection, tear it from the machine, crumple it into a ball, and begin again. Sets became sentences. Repetitions became revisions. Every workout was a rough draft of the body I believed I was destined to become.
What I sought was not merely a better pump.
I was searching for the Platonic Workout, the one perfect arrangement of exercises that would lift me beyond ordinary muscular development into something approaching spiritual transcendence.
It was absurd.
It was also glorious.
The ritual calmed me, excited me, and filled me with hope all at once. Every newly typed workout promised that next week, finally, I would become the person I had imagined myself to be.
The conversion had other liturgical requirements.
On more than one occasion I composed these workouts wearing nothing but a Speedo because it somehow placed me in the proper state of mind. Serious theological work demanded proper vestments.
One afternoon, after an hour of merciless calf raises, I sat typing when I noticed that my calves were exquisitely tender to the touch. The soreness delighted me.
My mother walked into the office.
“Dinner’s ready,” she said. Then she paused.
“Why are you so happy?”
I reached down and squeezed my calf.
“My calves,” I said. “They’re sore.”
She looked puzzled.
“Why does that make you happy?”
I smiled with the serene certainty of a man who had glimpsed the kingdom.
“They’re growing, Mom.”
A pause.
“They’re growing.”
Cinemorphosis 
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