Who}
Childhood
I was born and brought up into a devoted catholic family. My father comes
from a family whose members mostly turned out to become priests and priestesses,
while my mother still has a certain aristocratic blood in her family. My parents
were blessed with five children, of which I am the only male and the youngest
one. I never had anyone of them to play with since I was a child because of
the quite significant difference in age, they were always occupied with their
school tasks whenever I needed someone to play with. As it turned out to be,
I got used to spending my time with the maidservant and when I was bored,
I simply went out to play. For that reason I was used to make friends with
people outside of my family, people in my neighborhood who were mostly muslims.
In my family, everything that has a "muslim taste" in it was usually
considered inappropriate. So every thursday when the time was for the recitation
of the Qur'an (we only had TVRI, the government's station back then) the TV
set was immediately turned off, that's how my family was like. When I got
to school age, naturally my parents chose a catholic institution, as with
all my sisters. Even so, I alwasy found it easier to be friends mostlye with
people who were muslim.
Adolescence
Perhaps it was because of my negative childhood image, that when I grew up
to be a teen-ager my family always thought of me as being this troublesome
kid. In other words, to them I was always the one to blame for everything,
anything good that I did was practically nothing to them. Hence, I always
tried to look up for answers of my problems through sources outside of my
family. My academic records were also nothing special except for English language.
And so I started to contemplate with questions that I had in my high school
year, I asked and kept asking, I read many books and literature, trying to
explore everything about my faith then. But as it goes, the more I gained
something, the more I felt that, "This isn't it, this is not what I want."
What's worse is that the more I involved myself with religious activities,
the more I went further from what I expected, which put me down more and more.
What I always found in there was nothing but negative views on somebody else's
faith. Whenever I tried to give in another view, they put me down saying that
I'm taking sides, I'm giving too much of a value judgement, so on and so forth.
Eventually I became more distanced from them, but interestingly (and this
is what had always happenned) I felt myself drawn closer and closer with my
muslim friends, they seemed to accept me without any sort of tendency to judge.
They knew I didn't share their faith but most of them didn't seem to mind
or be disturbed by it whatsoever.
Adulthood
My adulthood started when I entered college. I enrolled in a private college
whose students were predominantly muslims. Even so, I still tried to involve
myself in religious activities with students of the same faith. In that community,
the old conflicting trauma appeared afresh, even worse. Eventually I lost
my interest in it. As a college student, I felt more comfortable in my soul
searching process. Naturally, I had more access to many references, times
and places of interest, because I never felt home with my relatives, even
with my sisters. And so I went on with my life as usual, until this deep spiritual
experience happened. This is the story:
One morning, I don't remember the date, but it was in 1993. I was abruptly
awoke from sleep and just quickly sat down. Then unconsciously went up and
washed my face, hands and feet, then got back sitting with my legs crossed.
Exactly then the call to fajr prayer started..but very differently. I listened
to it with an indescribable feeling and emotion,..it was touching me so deeply,
in short. I myself never could explain what really happened that morning,
but so it did. Ever since then I looked for answers and learned with a practicing
muslim friend, read books, started everything from scratch.
The first obstacle for me naturally came from my family, especially my mother.
I became uncertain again, this is the most difficult choice in my entire life.
And so months I spent trying to think over my intention to become a muslim.
I felt that I had to make a choice. And of course I chose to become a muslim
eventually.
In early 1994 I declared my shahadah after finishing the maghrib (evening)
prayer in jama'ah (congregation). It was really emotional, friends from my
faculty in college even made me work out a written statement with them as
witnesses, how touchy it was.
In short, I've lived my life as a new person ever since then. After finishing
my school, I started working. Even though my relationship with my family is
falling apart, I try to pull everything together and be strong as to endure
the hardships.
My new life was again put to a test when I was going to marry. Because I'm
considered an apostate in my family's view, I had to do everything by myself,
the proposal, etc., everything. No wedding reception or any of that sort,
just the obligatory ones.
And then when my mother died, unfortunately I didn't get to see her for the
last time. Her wish, which of course I cannot comply to, was for me to return
to my old faith.
Wassalaamu 'alaikum wrahmatullahi wabarakatuhu,
Rendra.
For more in depth information, please click on the following links.
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