Ashes to Ashes....

I was in foster care as a teenager. My foster parents attended a Vineyard church. I'd had some experience with religion as a child; when my Mother needed help and turned to whatever religious group was nearby. However, I completely lacked the social graces of shutting up and being force fed bullshit. My un-churched views were not appreciated by my youth group pastor. I didn't appreciate his propaganda though, so we were even.

I will never forget a disagreement we had where he drew a very large circle on the chalkboard and handed me the chalk. He asked me to assume the circle was all the knowledge of all things in the world; be it languages, history, people, faiths, families, individuals, all knowledge to ever be known in history or yet to be history. He asked me to pretend it was a pie chart and display just how much I knew. I remember his words stated something about my arrogance in arguing with him and my lack of knowledge due to my age. I replied that age had nothing to do with it. I took the chalk, blew the scant dust off of it toward the chalkboard. There was nothing to be seen in the circle. I passed the chalk back and said "your turn, what do you know?"

He left the church less than a month later. I don't know who he was, nor do I know what became of him. 

I will never forget admitting that of all the knowledge there is in the world...past, present and future.....the knowledge I do possess amounts to dust. There is a freedom in it. 

My dance with organized religion lasted little over a decade. I do have faith, but not in anything that amounts to a hill of dust.