In “My Neighbor’s Faith: The Heroes I was Looking For” by Eboo Patel, the idea of finding one’s self in community is a key element. Throughout this article, Patel writes about his religious experience after he became an independent college student. He first describes his realization of the world’s problems and wishes to help aid in the fixing of these problems. As a part of his faith journey, he works at a Catholic worker house which he enjoys very much and lives in community with others. He enjoys his work there not for the religion but rather because he simply enjoys helping others and the feelings that came with it. “It was at the Catholic Worker house that I discovered a desire to touch the pure love of elsewhere.” (Patel, paragraph 15) As he goes on, Patel realizes that he likes the idea of Catholicism and the community it brings, but he has no desire to convert to Catholicism. He then moves on to become familiar with other religions such as Buddhism and Judaism. After doing this, he realizes that he still does not wish to convert to these either. “Similar to my experience with Christianity, I felt that my soul did not fit in any of them.” (Patel, paragraph 22) Patel soon realized at the end of his journey, his spiritual soul belonged to where it began, Islam. Patel’s search of a religion to serve his purpose of helping others and finding spiritual heroes were in both his original religion and family. He realized his grandmother was his hero because she helped young girls in need because she felt it was her calling. Patel found his spiritual home by exploring himself by a multitude of experiences, and ultimately made the right decision for him.
In his article, Patel identifies with a hero and uses an anecdote in order to encapsulate his overall feelings and a way to show why makes the decision he does. Early in the story when working in the Catholic worker house, Patel describes his admiration for Dorothy Day. Patel identifies with Day because he too wanted to achieve similar goals to that of day. He wanted to better the lives of others by directly helping those in need. Patel wanted to experience the love Day described in her work. After realizing he was still a Muslim, Patel visited his grandmother in India and shares a short story with his audience. IN this story, Patel describes how his grandmother housed and protected young women in need without batting an eye. When Patel asks her why, she responds, “Because I’m a Muslim. This is what Muslims do.” (Patel, paragraph 30) Patel realizes that his grandmother is a Muslim Dorothy day, and she was his hero. Patel realized he had truly found his religious identity after this experience.
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