Years ago it occurred to me that spending my life void of any sort of physical exercise may have a long-term health implications, So I decided to join a gym.

However, my fondness for keeping my money in my bank account and not Vic Tanny’s, led me to construct a home gym in the basement using second (or third) hand equipment purveyed from various suburban garage sales (the upside of living in a culture where fitness is more aspiration than practice, is that this sort of equipment is not hard to find nor afford).

But the trick of course is not joining a gym, but using it. 

That’s when a friend imparted a very useful piece of advice. ‘Every other day,’ she said, ‘choose a 30 minute time slot and go down to your home gym and just sit there’ - the savvy reasoning being that anybody can do that - plus sitting in my empty gym for 30 minutes, surrounded by equipment, will lead to its use, and hence a regular workout pattern will emerge. 

She was right, it did.

And both body and mind were aided - as it occurred to me that conversion isn’t something totally out of my hands - but often, something I can influence - and is well within reach.

On Sunday we’ll hear a conversion story like this - about a man who’d lost everything, and found himself in surroundings that motivated him to a dramatic conversion.

And isn’t that the point of Lent?

You and I want to be converted - we want to be more kind, more patient, more forgiving, more generous, more relaxed, more at ease and able to enjoy and more fully participate in the life we’ve been given?

And we can be ‘converted’ to that kind of person when we, too, pay attention to our surroundings.

To use the analogy about the gym, Lent is when we take time to sit in our chapels - be they at church or at home - with our Bibles or faith books or icons - to get in better spiritual shape - to do our exercises - to pray, to journal, to contemplate what God might be saying to us - and how we might respond.

And how we can start, is by taking my friend’s advice - choosing 30 minutes, a few days a week, and just going there - and sitting. Soon we’ll be doing more than just sitting.

Friends, conversion isn’t something we have to wait for - it’s often something we have to work for - 

What is it we want to be converted to? What kind of project do we want to accomplish? What kind of person do we want to become?

Conversion is possible, we can play a role, Lord, show us the way.