Interesting tidbit on conversion

So I had the TV on in the background while I was feeding Ben some fruit for breakfast this morning, and Good Morning America was on.  A segment of an interview with Mark Wahlberg and his new movie The Fighter.  I overheard him being made fun of for having 4 kids under 7 years of age, and a refreshing response from him saying that he loved his kids and was very pro-life.  He also then ended the segment saying he started everyday on his knees thanking God for his life and making it through his troubled past.

So I started to do some research, on his life, because this isn't what I usually hear on TV.  Usually its some celebration of some playing house or anti-Christian issue. This was a change from that.  So I found in my research that this man had a troubled life, and is by no means perfect.  But what was most interesting about him was that it seems that he is having a life-long conversion in his faith.  Apparently, a life-long friendship with a priest is a major contribution to igniting and continuing this conversion.  This article at catholicvote.org gives a more accurate description.

So what I drew from this, is a real-life example of how a conversion is not a one-time experience.  It is something that is constant in our lives.  Because if it was a one time deal, then our faith would be stagnant.  And the scripture from the book of James would call us out.  But this man, who has made very public mistakes along the way, is on the journey of a lifetime conversion. I wonder, and sometimes think that a constant conversion may be more of a Catholic idea than a Protestant one, but at the same time I hope that Protestants understand this is true in their faith as well, if their faith is genuine.

With Mr. Wahlberg, his life is in the spotlight, and so we can see the big mistakes he has made.  But in his life, he has seemed to learn from his past and make a conversion in that area to a new self.  While some things seemed to take longer to get over than what one would think they should, we don't know the full story behind it, so we take it with the best intentions. Especially knowing that some of the conversion milestones do require some true faith.

Thus, as the other blogger states, while the man may not be a saint, he at least is no longer a prodigal son to the Nth degree.



btw...If this blog post doesn't make sense, I blame it on not being able to think about anything other than fuel cells.