The Journey Home - 2014-01-13- Sara Piazza - revert from Judaism

good evening and welcome to the journey home I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program each week I have this great privilege of bringing into your home's the stories of men and women who were drawn back to the church through the Holy Spirit in love with Jesus Christ and often the guests their journeys you know when you look at a map you look at a map sometimes those roads look straight but in real life they're all over the place but when you're drawing a map it's straight right well sometimes are the juries of our guests are like that and it might be true of our guest tonight Sarah Piazza convert and revert and maybe dot dot dot dot right Sarah welcome to the program it's an honor a privilege a pleasure and it's great to have you here because you did something to get here yes I looked at a lot of maps to get there and you know I'm talking about it could be straight in the map then you find out in reality it's way up and way down yeah I actually drove 800 miles to get here and as I drove along I thought this is one of the more interesting things I've done lately drive to Ohio to talk to Marcus Grodi and I'm very happy to be here and on my drive I thought you know I wondered what it would be like I haven't taken a long road trick and trip in many years I've driven I've written on train to California a couple of times and back haven't actually been behind the wheel for three days at a time for a while I wondered what would I listen to the radio would I listen to my music on my phone would I talk to friends and I I surprised myself and I actually drove in relative silence for three days and enjoyed every minute of it I enjoyed the scenery passing by every step of the way was was new I composed a song the day before I left that I couldn't shake that I just sang it's a new Gloria as a matter of fact and also say I had sort of two theme songs on my drive one was a song that's partly in Hebrew that goes back to my Bat Mitzvah in 2002 and my Bat Mitzvah portion was the story from Genesis of where God tells Abraham to leave your home leave your country leave your father's house go to a new land a place you've never seen in a land that I'll show you and I'll make of you a great blessing and the song that I composed combines one verse from the haftorah from Isaiah where it God is speaking to Israel seed of Abraham be not afraid on your on your journey I will be fear not for I am with you I will support you I will uphold you with my victorious right hand and the verse from Genesis the Lord said to Abraham go forth from your father's house I combined those two verses and so the Gloria and the Lacroix ha song were my theme songs I sang them I heard them in my head all the way here in fact the Lacroix ha song fear not for I will out for I'm with you I composed when I was on the train to California happen to have my guitar with me and just noodling around so yes I had a wonderful Drive well you know that that story of Abraham yes where when I was a Protestant we looked to Abraham as Luther did and you know it was a man of faith and that's his righteousness was of that faith but for that faith to be real he had to leave yes so there was an action a part of that and thinking about your journey even all the way here yes is a parallel to your own journey which as we kind of hit it on earlier was kind of all over you know and and it is interesting you could you could be have been distracted by having the radio on and all that but the beauty of the journey as opposed to flying over and all you see are a bunch of clouds you see history you see people you seen a sure you see the beauty of that whole trip plus as you said it gives some time for that music to the muse yet to work on you yeah lingerie and I want to say one more thing about that verse from Genesis in Hebrew the first two words are lac la ha and they're spelled exactly alike and lac comes from the hebrew verb holech to walk to look to go and la ha go forward go actually it's literally translated as go to yourself and that torah portion i didn't choose that torah portion for my bat mitzvah the tradition is to choose the torah portion closest to the day you were born and that happened to be mine and it has been perfect because i i'll go back to the beginning but right certainly leaving the church and becoming Jewish was as far from home as I could ever get I moved to a new land with new a new language in the new alphabet and new people and new customs and well you know that also was thinking that the fact that that the tradition was to choose the verse or the scripture closest to your birth is also the the heritage that we as Christians share with our Jewish presence sisters that recognize that God works in these powerful ways in our life rather than you choosing the version while look God choose it what's closest to your birth when did he bring you into this I mean that's the bigger picture of our God work talk about the bigger picture I'm gonna push you way back before your Bat Mitzvah is that what it is but mitzvah before that I studied Hebrew but I can never learn to say it right but his daughter mitzvah his commandment daughter of the Commandant bar is son Bar Mitzvah right yeah like simon barjona right the son of Jonah okay let's go way back though look and let the audience know where you came from spiritually way back with okay well I'd have to say that there are two very important aspects to my the two things that my mother - decisions that my mother made that would be influential for the rest of my life in terms of my personal journey and my spiritual journey the two things were one I my mother's marriage to my father dissolved before I was born and she burned all the bridges I never met my father he died before he died when I was nine and I never didn't meet him never even saw a picture of him until I was about thirty years old so I had I was born with sort of half of who I was a black hole and on one hand that was a horrible thing to be born without a father it was the cause of much sadness acting out rebellion confusion as a child on the other hand it's the best thing that ever happened to me because I was literally born with a broken heart and I was born without a father and I had to this set me up on my search for my father my father God in fact my Hebrew name that I took one of them is a via God is my father and that to me was the both the question and the answer for my life where is my father who was my father God is my father so on one hand I'm a brokenhearted little girl coming through life the other thing that my mother did was because she I think herself was brokenhearted and disappointed became anti-religious and even though my older brother had been baptized my mother my grandmother was Methodist so my mother came from a Protestant family even though my brother had been baptized I knew at a young age that I was not baptized and her answer to me was I want you to make up your own mind well I'm here to say that that's both a blessing the curse and the joke is my mother tried to race me said I agnostic but it didn't take so I you know my now we've heard of many of that time period you know you know I've grown up in the 50s and the 60s yeah there seem to be a lot of parents that for whatever reason they decide to do that yeah that was the American thing to do you know I'm not gonna decide for him I'll let that aside for themselves right I think the truth is my month my mother was I I don't want to put words in her mouth because she's no longer with us but now that I'm grown up and looked back I think she was brokenhearted in disillusioned and certainly as a divorced woman in the 50s I don't think she found a warm welcome at the church so so those are the those are the two elements that have been the you know sort of the light motif of my life the the theme of abandonment and searching and searching for healing and searching for wholeness my my little methodist grandmother god bless her did take me to Sunday school to the Methodist Sunday school when I was very small I have early memories of being in Sunday school and learning jesus loves me and I will make you fishers of men which I thought was I would make you fishers cement and you know doing some church functions I remember singing in children's choirs a couple of different churches in town on in Edgartown on Martha's Vineyard where I grew up and but we weren't really church to people we didn't really belong to a church and I don't remember certainly during my teenage years I had zero connection to any church and then I grew up and got married and had children and further did your friends or anybody with any religious friends or so I was really just an empty as opposed to an aunt I would you say right i I do remember having some sense of God I I know that two houses away in 1960 I would have been about 10 the the local Episcopal priest and his family lived in that house for a couple of years and my mother went away for one weekend and left me in their care and somehow we got talking about God and death I don't know why I was talking or thinking along these lines but I do remember stating that I didn't believe in death and I don't know what made me say this because I didn't believe that there was a God that would allow us to die I had some sense of something good yeah beyond myself I certainly didn't know how to articulate it or how to express it or where to express it really but certainly some message had come and no seeds there definitely sees this plant so you you you you meet someone you get married was their religious ceremony was it at all it was a justice of the peace ceremony and in a kitchen and I thought you know I married a man who was a lapsed Catholic and in my mind in my early 20s at being a non religious person I I thought that was a plus you know so we you know the first two children I have three children the first two children come along and the older one is about four years old and starts asking questions about God and Jesus and I said to myself you know I think I'm not gonna do what my mother did so I had a friend who was taking her children to the local Methodist Sunday School in the next town over Vineyard Haven and I said could we go with you sometime so she said sure so I started taking my children to Sunday school and I'll be honest with you my marriage wasn't easy my husband was 10 years older you know what it's like you have small children I'm 23 24 25 years old I was overwhelmed a lot of the time and what I remember early on from attending my kids would go down to Sunday school and I would go to church it resonated I remember I brought this of course it was a Methodist Church brought back memories of my grandmother and but something really spoke to me the words come to me all you who labor and are burdened and I will give you rest and I said Wow how did who who was there how did you know you know how did you know that I'm labored in burden so that was the first thing so as I'm kind of going along in my marriage and again struggling a bit at one point I had a dream and the dream was a little bit like an out-of-body experience I'd been going to church for a while maybe a few months and the in the dream I was in a room and there was a table full of people and the room was filled with an orange glow and the glow went through everybody was translucent and it wasn't just visual it was a feeling of profound love and peace unconditional love you know all the cliches that you can think of and I was up above sort of as I said as in an out-of-body experience looking down on this scene and there was actually a Hollywood voiceover that said Sarah this is the presence of God and that dream changed me and I went to the pastor's there a husband and wife team and I said you know I I've never been baptized and I'd really like to be baptized I want to be a Christian and I said but I don't want to do it the normal way I want you know I'm on an island I said I wanted to do it I want to be baptized the way Jesus was baptized so they said well we've never done that and I said well couldn't wait so we they said okay so we borrowed a couple of robes from the local Baptist Church and we went out to a place called Lake Tashman which is a big beautiful saltwater lake or pond beautiful fall day the whole congregation came down after let's go say Mass after church and the pastor and I Lee and I walked out we had to wait walk out quite a waste because it was kind of shallow and he dunked me three times in the name of the Father and the Son and Holy Spirit and I of course you know I I look back on that day I I heard stories they say something happened in the sky something the Sun the clouds I don't I don't know that's the that's the lore but so for the next twenty years so now I'm a Christian and for the next twenty years I spent teaching Sunday School teaching music in Sunday school something a musician all your life a big party I've been a musician all my life grow up in a musical home music was definitely part of my family life you know hootenannies around the kitchen table my brother on guitar my mother on ukulele tambourine civil-rights music folk music the neighbors would come in so I spent about 20 years mostly in the Methodist Church I also was recruited to teach music at a local Federated Church which I guess is UCC and Baptist old federation that they joined up years ago in my town so I worked there as the music director for the children for a while but somewhere after about 20 years of being a Protestant I was really suffering from the fact that I rarely ever went to services I wasn't being fed myself because I was always involved with the children and one day I was walking up the street and the local Episcopal Church had on their butt billboard an announcement for a communion service at 11:30 in the morning every Wednesday so I started going to that communion service and it really meant a lot to me it fed me it gave me my time out my space to pray and to receive the Eucharist and of course as a Methodist you know you receive the bread and the grape juice once a month whether you need it or not and so I was now experiencing the Eucharist in a whole new way and you know I don't know how the evolution tech play took place but it was over a matter of maybe a year that I started wondering about the Eucharist and I think at some point I discovered oh wait the Catholics you know the Episcopalian this is a symbol and and it's all lovely but the Catholics say that it's really the body and blood of Christ I wonder if there's any truth to that so I started exploring Catholicism you know I I don't have a lot of really strong memories the strongest memory from that period was I dared one day to go into the Catholic Church now the Catholic Church in downtown Edgartown that was where some of my friends went to catechism growing up but they were different you know we I don't know it was a different world so I sort of snuck into the Catholic Church st. Elizabeth's one day and all I can say is that something happened to me I walked in and I sat down and really you know it's this little Portuguese mission style Church a you know low roof the room started spinning I actually knew that I was in the presence of the Ancient of Days I was in the presence of the Almighty I was speechless I'd never experienced anything like that so one thing led to another and I started speaking to father Mike and I believe I was meeting with him privately and then the Easter of 1997 I was received into the church and I can still remember his big greasy thumb on my forehead it was greasy from the oils yes exactly and immediately I you know he heard me sing he said I want you to sing it Mass I said I don't know how and so he trained me and I became very involved with I was singing it there are three churches Catholic churches on the island I there were I figured out once I did the math in three and a half years I I played and sang at something like 400 masses because in the summer it was every every morning five days a week plus Saturday afternoon plus four masses on Sunday so I was very involved I was cleaning the church I was sending up the candles I was opening it in the morning I was closing I was really a poster child for a Catholic convert but ironically or interestingly around the same time maybe this was 97 maybe 90 mid 98 or 99 I was playing music at a library at a children's program and a woman walked up to me and said we'd love to have somebody like you at Hebrew school and I said what's Hebrew school and she said well it's up at the Hebrew Center and we we just could you would you come up into a children's program i I said sure I've never been to a Hebrew Center I've never been to a synagogue I'm gonna I'm gonna pause you there sir only because not your you're entering now in the start of a whole different part of your life right the Jewish side let's pause there for a second go back a little bit yeah because you had this brief well four hundred masses is about a year with the Catholic Church right before you started before I wait you said you use you did you saying it did music for no no that's over our three and a half year period all right yeah okay no that's daily in the summer but only okay yeah if you look back on that period then because you you bought from agnostic and then you you were in a Methodist which I'm sure some of the audience may not know that Methodism is Ron's break away from the Episcopal Church but it's a it's a move back to from Methodism back to the its mother church and then Episcopalian to the mother church which would have been the Catholic Church you also know that a lot of people can go to Methodist Church Episcopal Church Catholic and do a whole bunch of things but not have much of an internal change you look back on your life there was was there the internal change the religious change the conviction to our Lord Jesus and she looked back during that period of your life had that been a real for you at that point it was very strong it was very strong my that the dream I call it my burning bright dream right my my baptism by immersion that was all very real to me I was a very active Christian again I was suffering because I I wasn't being fed because you were feeding yes I mean they're teaching and that's always the danger and you know even the pastor's you know they're always teaching and preaching and consoling and doing all this but which is why the church has the Liturgy of the hours make sure that the priests and oh and to be truthful in the days that I was taking going to the Eucharist service the communion service at the Episcopal Church I had also started attending Episcopal services on Sunday mornings I came very close to becoming confirmed as an Episcopalian okay so but but becoming Catholic another part though fascinating music are your life what was your music being drawn your own music the religious side we were you're getting involved at the time with with writing and singing not as much writing but very involved with the singing and what was extremely satisfying for me was having complete creative control of all of the music for the mass and having to be familiar with the readings and know the choreography of the mass and know how to design the songs to support the readings and so the music music has always been key music now is key I I spend more time singing than I do reading the Bible I the that's just the way I learn and the way I experience things well in the the I mean there's such a responsibility I think on the shoulders of a musician because that there's so much power in music to shape people that you have a great responsibility to make sure you're using that correctly yes you know through music you can move people in all over the place and you can which includes not in the right direction right music and really influences so the church has always been very careful on its on its music as you know and the whole time period you're talking about from Methodist through Episcopalian to the churches there's been a lot of changes in music right in worship in mass and some has been good and some been awful all I was in on the you know the folk Mass and I accompanied myself I owed I I led all of the songs with just me and my guitar and my voice and I think you know if things were going well but interestingly after I was invited into the synagogue into the Hebrew school now what did I know I didn't know what I was going to do with these kids I knew one word of Hebrew Shalom and so I prepared a shabbat shalom song I prepared a few children's songs and I got in there I took my banjo and my guitar and I we the shabbat shalom' song and then i offered they asked me if i knew rise and shine I said yeah I know rise and shine so here we are banging away on the banjo with these kids singing rise and shine give God the glory and I was really moved by the fact that we were two different worlds but we came together with that one joyous song and that was the beginning of my transformation they loved me I loved them they invited me back they invited me back enough time so that I eventually became their teacher literally one Hebrew song ahead of them every week then the rabbi got a hold of me and said will you come and sing at services so for a while I was in this unique position of Friday night singing at the Jewish services Saturday afternoon and Sunday singing at mass it was on one level confusing on the other hand extremely rich and I remember standing up next to the altar with my guitar and being aware of you know I I could now understand the mass at a whole new way from a Jewish perspective I could even translate some of it into Hebrew you know blessed are You Lord God of the universe who brings forth the fruit of the vine yeah I know that I can say that in Hebrew so this was becoming a very fascinating it's time for you to be doing both those things that you know our Holy Fathers the last have always encouraged us Catholics to appreciate our Jewish roots to understand I appreciated them a little too much well we're gonna pause now in the program because I think it's a good place because you know this idea of really seeing you go all the way into it is fascinating so our guest is Sarah Piazza and we're gonna pause right now we leave her on Friday nights playing banjo for the Jewish children in in the Jewish school and then leading the masses on Saturday and Sunday right there you are doing both at the same time let's pause right there we'll come welcome back to the journey home our guest tonight is Sarah Piazza I'm Marcus Grodi your host for this program Sarah you have a website Sarah Piazza Sarah Pownall yes Sarah Piazza comm it's home for Sarah Piazza photography and music okay I have a lot of other little blogs and other things but that's that'll get you to me if people wanna know more about your journey and what I did do great I wanted to get that in early in the program so check it out so we've left you we've paused on your journey I would say that maybe even our Catholic viewers might be wondering she became Catholic and then and then she was lured to the Jewish church so you're right in the middle what's what's happening in you that would open that I want to say that this wasn't random this wasn't me sort of going off on a tangent this was deep I stood this this came in the context of standing on the altar at the Catholic Church it was a calling to go deeper and for somebody who came from nothing and was sort of moving through time into becoming a Christian and becoming Catholic it was a natural progression to go even farther back in time and so it was very deep and very real and not completely comfortable all the time because I was in conflict because eventually I fell in love with the Friday night rituals the the candle set everything was so touchable and and everything I was always aware that it was what Jesus did it was the way Jesus lived it was tangible it was my Christian faith touchable and in along the way while I was Jewish probably to the consternation of many of my Jewish friends I often said that becoming Jewish was the most one of the most Christian things I've ever done so on say no category for that and they're thinking they would they wouldn't have understood what you're talking about right on some level I thought if I went to the temple I'd find Jesus I that's not exactly what I found but it was I didn't really on some level I didn't really leave the church i I went deeper but I did leave the church and I was lured by the idea of becoming a Jewish Cantor because as a music minister at the Catholic Church the role is somewhat limited and as a Jewish cantor really the Cantor is the most important person in the service the Cantor is the sheliak sabor the public emissary the person who stands before the Ark and prays on behalf of the congregation so there's huge responsibility and I saw it as sort of my highest calling and one of the things that I learned as I was learning Hebrew I was tickled to learn that the spelling for my name Shinra shhhhhh hey also spells I sing first-person plural feminine so okay this is all you know this is all ordained I meant to be a cantor and and so I went to Hebrew college I started studying I moved to Brookline part-time I was commuting every week back and forth between the vineyard and Boston I was living this strange double life I never knew what was in my closet I my biggest problem was banana management I you know I could never buy too much bananas because I'd come back home and they'd be all rotten or I had to eat like five bananas on a on the Tuesday morning so it was arduous it was a long arduous it was ten years of commuting and eight years of study part-time at both at Hebrew College in there cantorial arts certificate program and then that was the year that they put together a full-fledged Duel Masters sacred music and Jewish education program that I wanted to get on board with but I needed a bachelor's degree so I took a break from less from Hebrew College and went to Lesley and it took me three years but I got my bachelor's degree and my self-designed major was music and religion it was very interesting was a good experience then I got back on board thinking that I would go for the full program at Hebrew College and I realized I've been in school now for five years and I'm looking at three or four more years and I'm thinking this isn't going to happen and I also the climate for Canter's and employment had changed vastly in those five years and there was no guarantee that I would have a job at the end of many more dollars many more thousands of dollars and three or four more years so I decided to just simply complete my certificate so at the end of the eight years and along the way I had volunteered in temples I had filled in for Cantor's & Cantor's special sake Cantor's and rabbis because in fact yes I did sometimes have to fill in for both because part of part of my job as a cantor it did involve creating entire services and running the entire service is there in that a preaching element yes I can think of a couple of instances where I was called on a Monday to fill in for somebody the next Saturday who had been suddenly called away where I had to prepare a Torah reading which involved hours of work the haftorah reading which involved a lot more work Plus come up with a sermon plus to prepare all the not only the service music but some songs that would fit the service so it was a lot of responsibility but I loved it it was just my cup of tea problem was there wasn't enough of it the longest period of employment I enjoyed in the Jewish field was at a temple in Haverhill mass which is a you know where that is where I was a music teacher and I that job ended after four years and let me ask oh this is really a focus on music and and a professional aspect of music I'm involved in leadership and even preaching out that what had happened to Jesus during all that period Jesus I discovered at the end was asleep on my bed in the form of my stuffed lamb that I got for Easter probably when I was six years old that I brought to Boston with me and there he was I I out of obedience didn't pray to Jesus was there an emphasis within that environment to encourage you to put putting Jesus back away it wasn't it was a non conversation oh there you go yeah it really wasn't a conversation at all I was Jewish people some people knew my background some people didn't I was living fully immersed with kosher kitchen observing the Sabbath and and and learning Hebrew and immersing myself in Hebrew and to prepare to read Torah for a Saturday morning is an all-encompassing project it involves using a special book where the one column has the vowels and the musical symbols and the other column has the scroll as it's written in the books font as it's written in the scroll in the synagogue and you have to immerse yourself in each line one line at a time learn the meaning of the words and the music and the rhythm and then transfer it over to the side where there are no queues and you have to be able to stand up on a Saturday morning and and read it and/or sing it beautifully you know and and I I did it I I did it very well would you say Sarah than during this period that you can a person can be some so attached and distracted by all of this that what was necessary to accomplish this but in the process Jesus just its push farther and farther and farther away out the center because you've got so much to focus on this right that God kind of gets pushed aside I'm not being negative of the know of the synagogue worse I'm not being there but but anyone in our lives can get so focused on things well first of all Jesus wasn't a factor not consciously Jesus was not a conscious factor I now know that Jesus was always there and always present at the time but no it wasn't it wasn't a factor but as far as the God thing goes the Jewish God is I found to be very big very untouchable and nondescript and on one hand I thought that you know going to Temple the God of Israel Jesus is God I would become closer to God but that wasn't the case I felt I did not feel close to God and in fact there's no real agreement on who God is or what God is the the Jewish experience that I had anyway there was a big emphasis on the prayers and the tradition and it's almost as if the tradition becomes the religion you know the old joke is you know you go to go to shoulder talk to God no I I go to shoulder talk to Schultz Schultz talks to God but there's a there's not a big emphasis you wouldn't hear I wouldn't I would never hear my Jewish friends talking about oh the Lord did this for me or I'm you know there it wasn't a personal experience and the reason I brought that up because it's even within the Catholic Church with them Protestant churches you know sometimes the music Shen's in in doing their work it's demanding that in the process they can become solved in it yeah that over time their relationship I think a little bit that can happen you know that no better fat it can happen even the preachers but I assume I on the other hand I feel more spiritual when I'm actually performing and and involved using the gifts God yes but by the by the end of it all I really okay so that one four-year job ended I was still feeling and doing some fill-in work I got a job as a part-time cantor at a temple in Marshfield and it was an interesting temple was a temple that was kind of a breakaway temple or it was a reconstructionist temple the you know there's Orthodox conservative reform reconstruction ISM is kind of an ultra liberal version of reform based on the teachings of Mordecai Kaplan who his premise was God is people God is civilization God is not necessarily a supernatural being with any kind of power it's the way we are in the world and the way we treat each other big emphasis on how we treat each other and that's not bad that's not a bad thing lacking a little bit of a spiritual element but at any rate I worked there for a year it was a very unsatisfying job it was a very part-time job I was working there maybe once a month I had very little time with the children and even the onesome I wasn't there often enough to get to know anybody really or feel part of the community and the my in other words I was using a you know very small amount of what I had learned I was not using my gifts what was it a satisfying position and as it turned out and so I had started thinking I had this apartment in Brookline right in Coolidge Corner way beyond my means and and I'd take it every year one year at a time I'd say well I'll take it for one more year and see what happens and make my vision was that I would have a real job making one hundred twenty five thousand dollars a year in a big city temple and as I said that the the job climate changed I also I was not convinced I don't think I was believable as a Jew that I had the wrong effect or the wrong I can't explain it I'm gonna stop short of saying I might have been too happy or something I but that there I just didn't have the right demeanor and or the right accent even though my Hebrew was beautiful my singing was beautiful there was something that one little aspect that if there were a field of applicants even though I qualified I probably wouldn't have made the cut which is probably why I was able to get this job in the mixed congregation it was a my thought it was a congregation breakaway congregation of intermarried families who didn't find a home in the regular local synagogue so they they created their own so it would make sense that I would be employed in in that setting but I it was the spring of 2012 I had been sort of thinking in my my lease for my apartment would have been coming up at the end of June and I was sort of thinking I think it's time to start moving I can't afford this anymore I think my season for being here is over and I loved it there I thrived in the city I lived in Brookline I you know I grew up in the vineyard but my mother and I lived in Brookline during my high school years so this was kind of it was I just happened it was coincidental that I ended up back in Brookline again and I just loved it there I had friends there oh and I had also I can't emphasize how strongly my studies how lonely my studies were a lot of my study a lot of my courses were online I didn't have the Millia of the classroom I was very lonely in my apartment and the music was lonely it was it required all of my concentration that learning the Torah readings required all of my you know I couldn't have the TV on I couldn't I couldn't go anywhere the music was lonely some of it was sad you know minor-key and I happened to be at a friend's house one day and I knew that her son played Irish music and her son happened to be home for the weekend and he lived in Boston and I said I'd like to go to one of those what do you call those things Irish sessions he said oh yeah he gave me a list of different pubs in Boston to go to and I discovered the wonderful world of Irish music in the Irish music scene in Boston so now I'm out of my apartment playing wonderful happy music on my fiddle making new friends and what struck me was as I went from pub to pub work these people all knew each other this was like a family again this is back to the theme of my fine looking for family looking for home looking for healing looking for my father looking for connections and so the the pub became an important stepping stone for me to come out of the darkness and the sadness of being in my lonely studies and unemployed and and most of the time feeling like a stranger in a strange land and on some other level here I was playing music with these obviously Irish Catholics you know on a Sunday afternoon some of them were still in their mass clothes and I realized not only did I want to play music with them I wanted to go to mass with them but these were just little triggering thoughts at the time so spring of 2012 I start thinking I'm I've got to leave Boston I'm gonna go back to the vineyard I have the house where I raised my family which is a land that was farmed by my great-grandparents I have my childhood home that was owned by my grandparents since the 1930s that needed to be renovated and that I had sort of partly moved into summers anyway so I I'm pondering my next move and I mean time Springs coming I've got a rental house to get ready I've got this big old childhood home to work on I get down there and I start painting and I'm a very this is a little gift Ike I got from not having a father I didn't have a father to build me bunny hutches and to fix things for me so I have all my life been the older uh you know the irony is that I I didn't have my father but I inherited he was a violin maker I inherited his hands and his mind so I'm very hands-on I paint I plaster I tile I repair I love it I love that kind of stuff because at the end of the day you say oh I did something something happened here so something about being in my grandmother's house painting scraping it started I realized at the end of it all I didn't have I didn't have any spiritual home I had I was empty even you know a Jewish person by Burton now there are many Jewish people in fact it's typical for Jewish people to really just go to Temple once or twice a year that you know there's a more of a cultural identity now it I had kind of evolved to that level of non-observance non-participation I didn't have a job anymore I wasn't involved Jewishly and so I was left with nothing and I it was it was not okay so I I guess being immersed in my grandparents house and my grandmother's memories I said well I said to myself okay well if you know the Jewish God isn't real and you know what difference does it make if nothing is real why I may as well just pray the prayers of my own ancestors so I started thinking I really in fact I wrote in my journal I need to get back to church but I'd never heard of such a thing how can I do that I'm Jewish and it was it seemed all wrong and so I little by little it it filtered up that I really had to get back to church and I called my good friend Father Vincent Youngberg on the phone one day oh and all along while I was Jewish I was still friends with father Mike we would hang out I'd visit him regularly and we'd talk about our various jobs and you know clerical type stuff and I went to him one-one I decided okay so I called father Vincent and I said Vincent have you ever heard of anybody who became who was Catholic who became Jewish Oh became Catholic again he said no he said but I know what I would do if if somebody came to me I I wouldn't have a problem with that and I just started bawling and I knew that I was I really needed to come home so I I walked the rectory three doors away from me I walked down to father Mike and you know instead of sitting and hanging out I sat right up and I said I need your help with something and he could tell that was serious and he said what's up I said I come ready to come home and he said oh really I said are you surprised he said not really I said what are we going to call the last 10 years he said we'll call it an experiment I said okay I and so we talked for a while and he welcomed me back and and you know I went to Mass the neck stay and you know I told him I confessed I said I don't know what I believe anymore you know I haven't prayed to Jesus in 12 years I don't know what's real anymore but I know that I need to be home and so I went to Mass and it was immediate I I immediately knew that I was in the right place and I I felt a little strange you know people are looking at me we thought she was Jewish you know what's she doing here and then I realized half the people didn't know I was there to begin with the other half didn't know I was gone so I settled in and you know a few people said oh you know maybe you maybe we'll have music again at 8 o'clock mass and I said well I'm not quite ready to do anything like that and I told him I said you know I'm not here to sing I I'm here because I'm a Christian and I realized that being Jewish just it wasn't my home and there's a famous story where rabbi dr. Abraham Joshua Heschel is at a seminary teaching and and he's taking questions from the seminarians and they somebody says dr. Heschel you know so much about the Old Testament the New Testament you know about Jesus why aren't you a Christian and he said because I'm a Jew I was born a Jew I'm gonna die at you well I realized I'm not Jewish I I gave it my all I have no regrets I'm glad I know Hebrew I my my world experience is vastly expanded and broadened and deepened my like understanding of Scripture ironically everything I learned in cantorial school completely transfers over to see that to the music ministry I was also wondering though that your time in the Jewish faith you're discovering of all that background probably enhanced your understanding of our Lord Jesus and ultimately yes place in your life ultimately yes although you have to understand that that's not what I thought I was doing right of course I thought I was becoming a Jewish Cantor and I thought you know do we are we running out of time yes no I'm just gettin to the good part can I have 30 seconds yes of course of course I went through a period you know I said I'm not here to sing and in fact that's exactly what happened there was no place for me they didn't need any music ministers so I spent a couple of months sitting in the pew heartbroken and I've heard you say you know when you came to the church you gave up your career in five words I want to come home I threw away all my studies as the Lord would have it though and I was walking around feeling like I'm a double duped loser you do me not once Lord but twice and but as the Lord would have it I'm being brought back into the music and better I told father Mike I said you're getting a better version of me and I pray everyday I'm grateful every minute to be to wake up Catholic but yes because I remember that I thought at a point in my life that that guitar was me and I had to go through kind of a crisis with that to say no that guitar isn't me yeah it's the Lord Jesus oh and I had this I for the first time ever in my life as a Christian formerly or presently I had the experience of giving up my life for Christ I I wasn't there for me I wasn't there for the music I was there because I wanted to be there and I wanted to follow Jesus Eve take my music from me if you want take care of anything from me but this is where I need to be but as the beautiful Lord did he's giving it all back to me all right Sarah thank you very much for sharing us today we ran out of time Sarah Piazza dot-com if you want to find out more about what Sarah does in her photography and music thank you and God bless you I hope her journey was an encouragement thank you Oh

Channel: EWTN

Views: 15,168

Rating: 4.8095236 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, EWTN, Christian, television, Judaism (Religion), Convert, JHT01416

Id: Oslc-MC5570

Length: 56min 12sec (3372 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 14 2014