Meeting Faith by Faith Adiele PDF

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Essay about a book called Meeting Faith....

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Journal #2 Meeting Faith by Faith Adiele SP19-THEO-10000-004, “Search for Faith”

#1-1 There are less similarities about Faith’s story to me and more strange things. Because, I have never been to another country where I would want to start my new life in a religious way. One of the things I can see familiar to my situation was when Faith wrote: “I have no idea what being maechi, a Buddhist nun, entails” (p. 32). I too am for the first time in another country where people are religious, I have been to the mass a few times with my friends even though I am not religious, and I had no idea what I had to do in these types of ceremonies. Something that feels very strange to me is that the Buddhist nuns have to be bald. They shave their hair and their eyebrows. I think for a woman our hair is one of the things we love the most and it must be really hard to give that up. However, I do think it must take a lot of courage to do so and I have to say I am very impressed with what actions people are willing to do to become something else. I admire Faith for leaving another country, that is what I find similar to myself. Although I did not leave my country for religion, I also left my country to go and find myself in different ways. #1-2 I think the failure to spiritual growth is not having enough faith. And as it is like that with faith, it is like that with everything else in our lives. If we want to achieve a goal in life, we need to stay positive and believe that we will be able to succeed. It is just like that with faith. If you really want to become something else, you have work for it and believe in it. Once you start to doubt yourself, it will not lead to success. Thinking positive and believing in yourself is one of the most important things in this world. If we set our minds to achieve something, we need to stay positive in order to do say. Faith accepts the challenges along her way, and she believes in herself. That is what we all should do no matter the situation. #2-4 “My eyes rove as freely as I can manage without drawing attention to myself.” (p. 79) From my own perspective, the answer to this question is: the mind. Our mind is the most powerful thing and no one else but ourselves can access it. Only we know what we our thinking and where does our mind go; in what direction it leads us. Our mind is where we have the most freedom. We can imagine whatever we set our minds to and it can take us beyond universe. Of course, we need to take care of our bodies. But as someone once said: positive mind; positive life. Our mind controls all of us. We should always think healthy and positive. #2-5 “Anger is most dangerous. It destroys you, the person next to you, and the place where you live.” I could not agree more, anger destroys us and the people around us. I could give an example of how this works in relationships. For example, jealousy. When people are in a new and

healthy relationship, they should not feel the need to be jealous of another person. However, sometimes that happens. Us people, we sometimes get upset over nothing or over little things that do not matter as much. We get angry, we get into a fight with another person and sometimes we say some things we do not mean just because we are angry at the moment, and we regret it afterwards. People should be able to learn how to control their anger and how to deal with situations they are not comfortable with. We should all try to always find a solution to a problem while not getting angry and not only blaming the other person. “An Immense amount of fear is created as we spend our lives dodging pain.” Again, something that I agree with completely. I myself am one of the people who does not want to deal with pain, rather I push it, keep it inside of me and not deal with it. However, after a while, something happens, and the fear comes back again. The solution to our pain is to deal with it and do something for ourselves that is going to help us from the pain. We should not dodge our pain, it does not help us and after a while it only gets worse. #3-2 I think the role of religious life is to find our path in life. Some people in this world know exactly what their purpose in life is, but some do not know. And that is why they find religion to help themselves find their purpose. Religion is supposed to inspire us and give us reason to faith and to believe. It is going to help us find where our finds fit into this world. It is supposed to inspire us and give our life meaning. I myself am not religious; However, I do know my purpose in life and that is to help others. If I did not know what my purpose in life is supposed to be, I think I would try to become a Buddhist because I like their traditions as I am learning more and more about them. #3-3 I think that everyone has a private and a public self. And these two types are very different. There are certain things a person would never show off in public, in front of a family and not even in front of the closest friends. And on the other hand, there are certain things only we know about ourselves that no one else knows. And I think it is important. We should not trust everyone on our lives, it is important to keep some things for ourselves. However, one should never go and be a totally different person then they actually are. We should all act similarly in public as we do when we are alone. Moreover, it is important not to lose ourselves and to not pretend we are someone else. But it is also important to keep certain things private. #4-1 “My exchange year had confirmed that once and for all I had to escape eastern Washington” (p. 134). Faith wanted a scholarship to a good college. Her and her mother were still the descendants of the American immigrant dream. Faith said it would be as “where a nobody could be discovered, could rise to glory on the basis of merit alone” (p. 134). Faith was aware that her success would always be questioned but she would not give up in any way! She wanted to get into a good school with popular people who cared about books, traveling and politics. She had her expectations that together, they would form new alliances, stay up all night, smoking cigarettes and drinking wine, arguing passionately about how to make the world a better place. I too had similar expectations when I first came to college. I am the first one of my family members to go to college; Therefore, no one could give me any advice on how it works. I thought I would have a lot of friends, we would all hang out together, have fun together and talk about the most ridiculous stuff in life. However, it is not like that at all. I came to college with my best friends and I am mostly with her. I am studying almost all the

time and I do not really have time for a lot of stuff outside of the school environment. However, I am so grateful for the opportunity to be at college and I will make the most of it! #5-1 “The most important thing to remember is that all religions teach us to recognize our human connections to each other.” (p. 171). Faith’s mother inspired her to choose the religion she wanted. They celebrated many different religious holidays in a month. When Faith mentioned that while the offer of choosing any religious tradition, she wants left her open to the possibility of non-Western religion, at the same time she was closing the door on actual religious belief. I think she meant that when she is going to choose one faith, she has to close the door to another one. However, I do not understand what she meant by saying “actual religious belief”. #6-2 “I will become a devout laywoman, I will exchange my maechi vows for the five basic percepts to which Buddhist citizens are supposed to adhere: to refrain from killing; stealing; sexual offense; lying and harmful speech; and consuming intoxicants.” (p. 228). Faith does achieve her goal, she came to Wat Thamthong to survive being alone and she has achieved to do so. She is claiming that our journey will always surprise us. She was not expecting this embrace, but she has achieved her goal. She knows that after leaving the Wat she might return anytime as she pleases. #7-2 From my personal perspective, I think it is always better to know the truth about everything. Because I think it is important to know as much information about any situation in life as much as possible. If we do not know the whole story, we could not have any real opinions about it. If we did not know the truth about our heroes, how can we look up to them if we do not know the whole story about them? The only way how we can admire someone and see them as our heroes, is that we know all about that person, or a hero of ours, and we still look up to them. Being truthful is one of the most admirable things in the world and people should realize that. If we are not telling the truth, we are living in a lie. And if we do not know the truth about our heroes, how can they be our heroes? #Recap I did enjoy reading the book Meeting faith. However, it was kind of hard for me to read. As I am an international student, there was a lot of words in this book I needed to translate because otherwise I would not understand what Faith wanted to say. Even though this translation of the words took me a lot of time it was a great reading. I cannot compare this to my personal “Search for Faith” because I am not looking for it. I have my own faith in family and the people who are closest to me in my life and I did not leave my own country to find faith. However, I do think the similarity is that I have left my country in order to find myself in a little bit different way....