I was in a catholic youth group to be confirmed. To be confirmed we needed to write a latter to the bishop to be able to get confirmed. You have to write about your faith journey. At that point I was at the most contentious part of my relationship with faith. I was pretty ambivalent my whole life and I’d never say that I was ever really a believer or that I had faith. But I hated youth group and honestly youth group was the reason I became a stone cold atheist. So I had to lie. And I had to lie convincingly. Apparently I was really good at lying.
I’d been confrontational and angry for every week I’d been there. My teachers obviously struggled to have such an angry child in class. So when this asshole writes a heartfelt letter about their journey form being a nonbeliever to someone who was in tune with god well. I kept getting weird looks form my teachers like they were proud of me like they knew that my cold exterior was a farce. The guy who ran the youth group pulled me aside and said that that year they had changed youth group by adding more teachings and less games and that there had been a drop in attendance but that my letter had inspired him and given him hope. This man was emotional and telling me that I made him believe in the mission and the path of the youth group and I just sat there knowing I had lied.