Content warning: this article mentions religious trauma

It starts in Sunday school: a leap of faith. Do you believe in God?
There I sat faithfully. What a silly question! Everyone believes in god.

Within the church, ears extend for whispers of the wholly other-
I squeeze my mother’s hand thrice to signal yes, I do believe in god. 

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. A choral sigh.
We learn about atheism in school. We struggle to fathom disbelief in god. 

I push my hands together, shape a house of sinews collapsing in on itself.
There I sat faithfully, believing in god. God. A careless, built-in God. 

The organ sounds with episodic ringing. Let there be solace, found in 
the crevices of a confession booth left wrangling with belief in God. 

Without the Church, the earth is renewed. I devote myself to faith.
A faith of certainty and determined patterns, crying ‘Believe in God!’

But I am my Father’s child. The clergy circle my dreams, looming. 
There I sat faithfully, god-pledged. Priest: We are one, believer of god.

---

Image: Melisenta Kozlova