The Islamic Bulletin Volume XX No. 26 Page 12 P HHOW I E I EMBRACED IISLAM My name is Rick Fenton and I accepted Islam in 2008. When I was in the 3rd grade, I attended Catholic school. Like we did every morning, I went to Mass and heard a sermon by a priest using a verse from the Bible as the basis. I knew about the Bible, but had never made the connection to it. All of the sermons I had heard in the two previous years of attending Catholic school had never impacted me until this particular sermon. The verse struck a chord with me so much so that when I got back to my classroom, I asked my teacher, a nun, for a copy of the Bible so I could look up the verse and read it for myself. She was quite amused by this and told me that only the Priest can interpret the Bible for us because he is the intermediary between God and the rest of us. She further explained that because I had not been trained in the seminary and studied it for years, I could not possibly understand the mysteries of the Bible. I knew that was wrong and proceeded to tell her so. But that did not go over too well with her. I received a good whack on the hands for my request. Can you imagine a Nun punishing a young boy for wanting to read the Bible for himself? Looking back, I can see how Allah was working in my life at that young age guiding me. I say that because I learned firsthand the difference between religion and God, and being religious and having a personal, direct relationship with the One, True and Only God, Allah. Well, I finally got a copy of the Bible and read it. It seemed that no Catholic I knew was in the practice of actually reading the Bible. I was shocked to find some very disturbing things. The first thing that I found disturbing was the fact that in church there were various saints and statues; the Virgin Mary with Jesus as a baby, Jesus as a man, not to mention the huge cross with Jesus hanging on it in agony. This led me to realize that Catholics didn’t believe in One God, but instead, they believed in saints, Mary, and Jesus. This all proved to be very contradictory to the Oneness of God. They violated the very 1st commandment which states, “I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before Me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down to them or serve them, for I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God.” They kept the Bible out of the hands of the common folk because they were afraid if you read it you might begin to question some of the rituals, traditions, and teachings they so carefully taught in place of reading the Bible and coming to know God on your own. I was very disillusioned. If they could violate their own 1st commandment, and could manipulate their followers in such a way, I wanted no part of the Catholic religion. So, for the next few years I studied hard and learned and got good grades in everything except the catechism they taught. I was determined not to be part of a false religion. I was not sure what religion was out there that was not false, but I knew that the Catholics had got it wrong. However, I am thankful to them for providing me with a fantastic curriculum. The nuns did their best to give us a well-rounded education. They succeeded marvelously. I can honestly say that the education I got in those grade school years was of the highest quality around. Oh, and by the way, my parents paid through the nose for it. And, in the 7th grade when they were a little short of the money needed to send me to the 8th grade I got bounced out of there. Regardless of the fact that my parents had always paid my tuition and I had attended their school since the 1st grade. That was the Catholic charity I got. But, Allah put it on my heart not to be disappointed in Him just because men had failed me, and religion had turned out to be less than satisfying. He was supposed to be the object of our faith, our trust, our worship and our devotion, and not anything or anybody or any religious tradition. I went to a public school for 8th grade and discovered a whole new world. That world included drugs and alcohol. In the summer between 8th grade and my freshman year of high school, I began to use drugs heavily. I used needles to inject LSD, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines, barbiturates, and anything else I could get my hands on. I smoked enormous amounts of marijuana, and drank alcohol along with all of it. I was basically zonked all the time. Dealing drugs was next because I had to make money to afford my habit. The guys I hung around with were in some cases 20 years older than me, and I learned the ropes of how to deal drugs quickly, and quite successfully. For a time I was making more money in a day than my dad made in a week. This enabled me to be able to move out of my home at 15 years old, and live with some friends, paying my own way by dealing. It also allowed me to stay stoned all the time without my parents getting on my case about it. Like always, Allah had other plans for me. It all ended the night I got busted with 700 tabs of LSD at the California State Fair in the summer of 1967. That was the best thing that ever happened to me. My mom and dad, who I had not seen in over 4 months were justifiably both scared for me, and extremely upset with me at the same time. In an incredible act of love, my father, after hearing from a psychologist who interviewed me while incarcerated, that the only effective way to get me to change was a complete change of scenery— new town, new friends, new school, new everything. So, he sold his business and packed up our whole family and moved from Sacramento to the San Francisco Bay Area. He wanted to give his oldest son a chance to live a good life because he loved me so much. I learned many lessons from my dad, none more important than giving up everything to do the right thing. Allah blessed me with a good man for a father. Not a Muslim, unfortunately, but a very wise and good man. I did my best to undo the good my father had done, but never went back to needles to inject drugs, and never went back to dealing drugs. I did, however, continue to take drugs. My drugs of choice became powder cocaine up my nose, marijuana, and I continued to drink alcohol daily. When I fell in love and got married it was easy to give up my own beliefs and consent to a traditional Jewish wedding because my wife and her family were Jewish. My two beautiful daughters, who are Jewish, came out of that marriage. They are the light of my life to this day. I worked hard during my marriage and my wife and I were able to buy a home, have two nice cars, and live a good life. A comfortable life. One that would last, I thought. But Allah had another journey in store for me, and I found out one day that my lovely wife, whom I loved so dearly, had been
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