Until I was 12, I didn’t know other religions taught about hell. I’d been raised in midland South Carolina, where everything was hot and Baptist and deeply conservative. I was well acquainted with evangelical teachings about the lake of fire. But it was a tiny, insular religion I’d been around, and I’d thought hell was our idea and ours alone.

The night I learned differently was in the middle of a stifling hot summer. Church had just ended, but I’d left my bag inside. As I searched through the youth room for my purse, I came upon a small slip of paper. It was a chart, probably thrown together for a lesson I’d missed, that described crucial differences between three religions — Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Continue reading →

Everyone is a screwup, really.

Everyone has flaws. Everyone makes mistakes. And I would have to assume that everyone finds themselves, sometimes, in that place where your flaws have taken over — where you’re surrounded by tangles of your mistakes and being a good person again seems impossible.

I’m in my place. Continue reading →

I would like to sit in the back row of a church.

I know I’ll feel scared, nervous, worried about sitting in the wrong place or intruding on a clique, unsure of the etiquette after so long.

I know I’ll feel acutely all the pieces of me and my lifestyle that come into direct conflict with the things preached here, the things these people lobby and vote against. Continue reading →