over the weekend i was asked, on a couple occasions, why people abandon the faith of their childhood. i fidgeted, looked out the window, & offered some anecdotal comments anemic of any real answers. anthony bradley offers a more articulate response to why people move from youth group to agnosticism. but i didn’t have an answer, nor do i have fond memories of youth group.

church youth group, for me, was a dull experience in perseverance. most of the youth attended the church’s christian school. a couple of us attended the public school & were reminded that we were pagans within a cathedral. “why would i want to invite friends from school to youth group?” i asked myself. “to be ostracized like me?”

somewhere in those murky years of high school i turned to books for companionship & writing poetry for private enterprise. maybe not in the way wallace stevens did: “after one has abandoned a belief in God, poetry is that essence which takes its place as life’s redemption.” i felt abandoned, but did not seek to abandon.

perseverance, poetry, & a feeble faith have traveled with me, but members of the youth group seem to be pebbles in a path long ago traversed.