MY BAPTISM STORY
by Janis Cherry
I grew up in a Jewish family in Boston. I wasn't raised with much religion, partly because my
parents weren't very observant and partly because I was a girl. If I'd been a boy, I know I
would have gone to Hebrew school and had a bar mitzvah. As far back as I can remember
knowing about the Holy Mother from my friends and schoolmates, I felt drawn to her. She
seemed both very gentle and very powerful.
I remember once asking my mother how she could be so sure that Jesus wasn't the Messiah.
Specifically, I asked her, "How do you know that if we had been alive back then and been
able to hear Jesus preach for ourselves, we wouldn't have been among the Jews who
believed in him and followed him?" She got very angry, and the conversation ended.
But what I didn't realize as a child is that, for Jesus, there is no time and no space, so I
didn't have to live two thousand years ago or live halfway around the world to hear him
preach. I could hear him preach anytime, anywhere, and I could decide for myself.
Eventually, that's what I did.
Every school vacation, I spent a day visiting the Drew family, who were very devout
Catholics. Anne Drew was my mother's secretary, and she had three daughters, one of whom
was my age. Little did I know that many years later, another Anne Drew would be part of the
RCIA team that prepared me for my baptism. Although my mother was Anne Drew's boss, we
lived less comfortably than the Drews did because of my father's gambling debts.
There was a lot of love in the Drews' house, but there was certainly love in my family too.
What made them different was that besides love, they had a peace and a joy that my family
didn't have. There was peace and joy in their house because there was peace and joy in
their hearts. It was a wonderful example for me to see Mr. and Mrs. Drew interact with each
other and with their daughters, and to see the girls treat each other with such kindness,
without jealousy or competitiveness, even though they were very close together in age. I
didn't know it at the time, but I was witnessing the body of Christ. I wanted so much to
share their faith and wanted my family to be more like theirs, but I had no idea how you got
faith in general or Catholic faith in particular.
The Drew family from my childhood is part of a long list of Catholic individuals and families
who collectively helped lead me to the Church, like a tag team of shepherds. Some of those
people are now my fellow parishioners. None of them ever once explicitly suggested I
become a Catholic, but by their example of how they treated me and how they lived their
lives, they invited me into our Church without using any words.
I grew up into an anxious, nervous adult who was quick to anger, like my mother. I read
about Buddhism, thinking I would meditate and try to calm down, but it just didn't resonate
with me. I consistently read books about Catholicism, such as writings and biographies of
the saints and books on theology by scholars like Elaine Pagels. I still felt that I had a
special relationship with the Holy Mother and that she watched over me.
About 20 years ago, I became obsessed with becoming a successful novelist, obsessed to
the point where I couldn't properly enjoy the many blessings I had. I found a literary agent
in New York City pretty quickly, but then she became ill and nothing happened with my book.
I discovered that I didn't have the stomach to pursue finding another agent because I
couldn't stand going to the mail box and seeing my manuscript returned. By the time I
calmed down from one rejection, I'd find another one waiting for me. This obsession
negatively affected my marriage and my relationship with my son, but it was my way of
trying to find meaning in my life.
For many years, I had dreams of being lost, which I now understand were dreams about
being separated from God. I would be trying to get somewhere, sometimes in an emergency,
and always be driving on the wrong road or on the wrong train or bus or subway. I would
wake up totally exhausted.
My son went back east to college a week before 9/11, so I was hit hard by empty nest
syndrome as well as the tragedy. Since the heroine of my novel was a New Yorker, I thought
I'd write a sequel about her in the context of 9/11. As part of my research, I read accounts
of the funerals of the victims, especially the firefighters and police officers, many of whom
were Catholic. Given the horrific circumstances, I was struck by the laughter that
accompanied the tears at these services, at the anecdotes and jokes that were told. The
quality of the Catholic grief seemed different from the accounts of the Jewish and Protestant
services, and very different from the Jewish funerals I had attended. I started reading even
more about Catholicism.
I used to go to San Francisco once a month to have my hair cut. When I was in the city, I
started having thoughts that I should go to Chinatown. I had no idea why, since I wasn't
interested in all the touristy shops. But one day, I walked up Grant Avenue, and discovered
Old St. Mary's. I went in and lit candles by the statue of the Holy Mother on the left side
near the back. I believed that she had led me there. I started visiting her every time I went
to the city and always bought more books to study at the Paulist store next door.
Then I discovered the adoration chapel here at St. Hilary. I had some wonderful insights
sitting in our chapel. I still do! In 2004, I started coming to Mass every Sunday at 5. In the
next couple of years everything came together for me, emotionally and intellectually,
everything started to make sense. Listening to the readings and the homilies, I knew that I
had had everything upside down and backwards, that I had to start over in the way I viewed
the world and my place in it. But despite seeing a long road ahead, it was a huge relief to
finally feel that I was on the right road, that I wasn't lost anymore.
I told myself that someday I would run into Father and know that I was supposed to talk to
him about RCIA. One afternoon I was in the chapel, and I heard Father out here playing the
piano, and I took that as a sign, because the main character in my novel is a very talented
classical pianist. I met with Father several times, and then with Sister Dolores, and I joined
RCIA in 2006. The first time I met with Father, he gave me Ronald Rolheiser's The Holy
Longing, which is probably the most life-changing book I've ever read. It made me realize
that my obsession with writing the Great American Novel was really a longing for God.
Through prayer, I got the idea to try writing political speeches rather than fiction. I met
Governor Mike Huckabee from Arkansas at a party in San Francisco and sent him a writing
sample. He liked my work, and I worked for him for two years via email. When he began his
run for president, I went to Little Rock the Tuesday after my baptism and worked as his
Director of Policy for a year. Without my faith, I never would have been able to deal with the
loneliness of being away from my husband and dog and St. Hilary or with the demands and
deadlines of the campaign.
What my baptism means to me is that I emerged from our font as a new person, eager to
begin my new life. It has given me great confidence from knowing how much God loves me
and great humility from knowing that God loves everyone else just as much.
I am grateful for the opportunity to share with you how I came to be
baptized at St. Hilary during our Easter Vigil in 2007 and what my
baptism means to me. Since I was 56 when I was baptized, I obviously
took the long way to get here, and so I can't tell you everything in a
few minutes. But aside from time constraints, there are things about
my faith journey I can't explain simply because I don't understand them
myself, they remain a mystery even to me.
