Of Conversion

“Paul wasn’t a convert,” the Smithsonian lecturer said, going on to explain how Paul wouldn’t have called himself a Christian and how his aim was to bring Gentiles into the fold, not to be among the organizers of a new faith.

I got his point. There’s no evidence Paul ever renounced Judaism, anymore than Jesus did. Yes, he believed Jesus was the Messiah who had been promised by God. But there was no “Christian” church for him to join, no reason to “leave” his faith.

But I do believe Paul began a journey of conversion that day on the road to Damascus, from Pharisee to slave and fool for Christ and his message of love. After all, aren’t we all on a path of continual conversion through God, a path that brings us closer and closer to Him, a path that takes us places we might have never thought we could go?

On a much smaller scale, I recently saw myself referred as “a freelance religion writer.” I was shocked. Me, the one who was away from formal religion for more than thirty years, who’s been an adult churchgoer for fewer than eight years, whose formal religious education consisted of about four years of weekly catechism? Then I reconsidered. I’ve been writing for Your Daily Tripod for seven years, and for Living Faith for three or four years. I’m the co-author of When They Come Home, a book for parish leaders about establishing programs for those contemplating a return to Catholicism. I’m the author of a forthcoming book on female saints. My freelance work on topics such as cat and dog care, human nutrition, and publishing has become more and more infrequent. Me? A freelance religion writer? I guess so, though if you’d told me even five years ago that would be the case, I would have laughed in your face.

Paul the Pharisee, the persecutor of Christ’s followers, likely would have scoffed at the very idea of becoming one of those followers, at the thought that a man with working-class roots and, possibly, physical disabilities would go on to become of the greatest evangelists ever for Christ. But he did. And while the big, public change in his life may have happened on the way to Damascus, his “conversion” didn’t end there. He continued to work at growing in faith and love, in compassion and understanding. Sometimes he succeeded. Sometimes he failed. But he kept trying–just as we are all called to, every day.