Portraits In Faith: Harriet Rossetto

Harriet Rossetto - Los Angeles, CA, USA (portraitsinfait...)
I Want To Know What I Want
“A lot of my life was spent feeling empty and dissatisfied and negative. Life is hard and then you die. I was a young mother in the 1960s. I was part of that whole movement, and never found how to put my pieces together. They were always at war with one another; my inner parts. I didn't have faith for a very long time. Or at least I had faith only in negative things. My faith was that nothing good would happen and that you could always count on being disappointed.
And when that changed was the whole way in which I found the calling, when I went to see this woman who was a metaphysician; a “Science of Mind” lady. And I was at a really down place; a bottom in my own life. I had no idea what to do. I'd left social work. My one child had gone off to college, and I thought, ‘Well that's it, there's nothing more for me.’
So before I decided to kill myself I went to see this lady and she said, ‘What is it that you want?’ And I never sought any kind of spiritual help. I considered myself an atheist, at least an agnostic, a cynic, a skeptic; this was not for me, but I was pretty desperate. And she said, ‘What do you want?’
And I said, ‘Well, that's my problem. I don't know what I want. What I want is I want to know what I want.’
And she said, ‘Do you pray?’
I said, ‘Lady, come on…. Pray? You know, I'm an intellectual, I'm a Jew, I, I never prayed in my life.’
And she said, ‘I'm going to pray for you. Father of the universe, take this woman by the hand and guide her to her rightful work. She knows she wants to do something to make a difference. She doesn't know what it is.’ Then she said, ‘That's it. Now you pay attention.’
A little hokey, but I was unemployed and I was looking in the want ads. And I had left social work, I wanted to do something else; make a lot of money. And something said to me, ‘Well why don't you see what social work has to offer?’ And, in retrospect, that was the still small voice I think.
So I looked and there was this tiny little ad. It was the smallest ad on the page and it said, ‘Person of Jewish background and culture to work with Jewish criminal offenders.’ And that was my moment. Every time I retell it-and I've retold it a lot over the years-the hairs on my arms stand up with what they call in the program 'God bumps.’ And I thought, ‘Oh shit! You know? This is it! And this worked! This worked.’
I made a very rational decision to call that a divine calling; to call that a moment of faith. This woman prayed for me and I was guided, and it was mine. This was it, what I had been searching for. And that changed everything for me.
So I read the ad and I went down for the interview. And when you go with the surety that comes from knowing you've been divinely sent, you present yourself in a certain kind of way. And I didn't tell them I was divinely sent 'cause it was a mental hospital; I didn't want them to lock me up!
And they hired me. And I started visiting Jewish people in jails and prisons. And I was hooked from day one. These were my people. I saw myself as the translator; the person who knew them and identified with them, but who was from the right side, and could translate.
And there was nowhere for people to go when they came out. So I got this notion to start a place. A Jewish home where people could come when they got out of jail or prison,and re-enter life and heal from their addictions. So I wrote a grant for a one-time purchase and we bought an old house down near the barrios. It was part of a mental health complex called Gateways Hospital. And I had no operating budget, and no staff, so I moved in.
And that was it. That was almost 25 years ago. And in the course of things I met Mark, my husband, now who was then an inmate in the state prison. He is now a rabbi and we do this together. And we built a community, and a family here really. A place where I feel connected. I had never felt connected anywhere. I always felt I didn't belong in the worlds in which I found myself. So this is my place too.
The faith I have today is that...not that if I'm a good girl, good things will happen. I know that's not so. But the faith I have is that whatever hand I'm dealt, or whatever I need to deal with, I will also be given the strength and the support to deal with it. I believe that."
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[@matthewramsey5239]

This is so beautiful and truly inspiring. Im going to try and speak with you and get some wisdom before i depart next week!!♥️