Article June 3, 2002 Issue

Journey to finding God

A New Yorker finds Truth—on a park bench.

By Iris Pellerano

Although I was raised in a mainline Christian religion, I always wondered, "Where is God?" I got traditional answers, but I was never satisfied. I had attended the finest schools. After graduating from high school, I studied in Europe and later graduated from an Ivy League university, Neither my childhood religion nor my education had helped me find answers to my questions about life and the human experience, and by the time I was 20 I had become an atheist.

I had everything the world valued. I had a fine education, friends, popularity, good fortune, and I was engaged to a young man from an internationally known family. But I was unhappy—so unhappy that I decided to jump in front of a train, which was something people were doing frequently in New York in the late '70s. What was the point of life, I wondered? If I, who had experienced the best the world had to offer, was so miserable, and if there was no meaning to existence, why did people go on living?

I had been seeing a therapist, and on the Thursday when I told her I was suicidal, she suggested we make a deal that I admit myself to a hospital through the weekend to think it over. While I was in the hospital, a clerical messenger, who had casually stopped to speak to me, suggested that I turn to God. Although I really was searching for Truth, I rejected the notion of God. To me, the idea of God was inadmissible because of all the evil I saw going on in the world. But this person persisted. And when I asked, "How will I find God?" she said, "God will find you."

About the author

Iris Pellerano was born in the Dominican Republic. She has worked as a teacher in the US, the Dominican Republic, and Europe, as well as being a translator and simultaneous interpreter. She and her two daughters live in the Bronx, New York.

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