Conversion

One of our gravest mistakes is assuming that conversion only happens once in a lifetime. To be sure, there is often an identifiable initial conversion -- the time we turn to God for the first time. But it is only one in a great number. Sometimes the first conversion gives us a sense of false security. When faced with a choice between God and self, we promptly remind ourselves that we have already made that decision. Such realization quiets our convicting heart and enables the heart's default setting: love of self. Our existence is a series of choices, all opportunities for conversion. However, if choices are not acknowledged as such they become tiny agents of death and occupy the soul one at a time until the soul is dead and no longer convertable. Those choices, though various in circumstances and intensity, are one. As Didache puts it, "There are two ways, one of life and one of death; and between the two ways there is a great difference". Chose to love God and forsake self, choose humility, choose to love your neighbor, and you come alive. Choose to pity yourself, choose pride, choose to please yourself, and you die. During Lent the choice is more evident than ever. Maybe, that is why Nouwen calls it the forty days of conversion.