Faithful Entry

Nicole wrote our second entry for chapters 3 and 4, and this is a photo of her when she graduated from Cuesta College before coming to Fresno State. She is with her best friend, who, she said, "is also my boyfriend." You'll enjoy her post!

In chapters 3 and 4, the women start talking more in-depth about their religion than in the first two chapters. Priscilla talks about her fear of living in New York. She tries to justify being a real New Yorker because she fears that terrorists will try to knock New York off the map. Ever since the September 11 terrorist attacks, she has not been riding the train due to fear of bombings on the train. She continues to try to justify driving a car to work every day. Her husband takes the train 3 hours a day and to her, it’s more justifiable for her kids to lose one parent, rather than two.

I can relate to having a strong fear, and for me, my fear was of living as a Christian and not being baptized. I always wanted to be baptized but I never was as a child. When I was 21, I started going to a Christian church in San Luis Obispo. I would attend every Sunday. They had two services and one was in the morning and the other was in the afternoon. I was so involved in the church I would go to cell groups, which were led by higher up church leaders. On the weekends I would go on trips to learn about God at other churches. I felt uncomfortable around these people because they were all baptized as children. They all encouraged me to get baptized at 21 years old. I felt that this was even more awkward because I thought you could only be baptized as a baby. I was wrong. My church pastor and cell leader convinced me to get baptized. They held a special baptism for people who had never been baptized, or wanted to wash away their sins and start a new life. It was a great feeling to be able to finally feel like I was living my life for God.

The ladies also got together to talk about what they wanted to put in the book. The Christian woman, Suzanne, said that she wanted to talk about the crucifixion of Christ. When Suzanne was finished telling the story according to her faith, Priscilla was offended because in Suzanne’s story, the Jews were the ones who wanted Jesus to be crucified.

I never really knew the Jewish faith. I was raised in a small town where everyone knew each other. There were a few Jewish and Mormon families in the area. Still, the schools celebrated holidays like Halloween, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day without even thinking about the other faiths. I didn’t realize it then but some of the children of these other faiths skipped class on the days we had parties. There were also those children that were bicultural individuals and still came to class the day of these events. They participated in the same holiday activities at school with the rest of the students, but were able to still go home and give faith to their god.

I am now a little jealous of these students who were not of the mainstream culture. They were able to gain the skills of being culturally competent that I am trying to learn right now. Having this knowledge and these skills is so important today. We come from a world of different faiths. The Faith Club is also a great way for others to learn about what people of other faiths are feeling. For instance, when Suzanne started to write about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and Priscilla got offended, she learned that there were some things she might have said that other people might take offensive to, so she rewrote it. At the same time Priscilla was mad that Suzanne wrote this, but was trying to be more understanding as to why she wrote that. The next week they got together, Suzanne had rewritten her story and Priscilla came in ready to be more understanding. In the end both ladies were satisfied with each other’s view points and understood that was just their faith.

This is a picture of Nicole with a few of her friends -- and Santa!