An interesting email popped up this weekend; I’ve been invited to go to the reunion of the church youth group from my teenage years. I may have to re-jig my diary, but I think it’s probably worth the train fare and time to see what’s become of people – although I fear that it may be more driven by prurient curiosity than by a genuine interest.
The youth group happened at a difficult time in my life; In my mid-teens I wasn’t at all comfortable with my sexuality and really wanted being gay to go away so I could just fit in and be like everyone else. Not knowing of any way to make it happen, I tried to turn to the only power that anyone ever mentioned that might be able to change me; god. I never really believed though (which in retrospect was probably the better option for my sanity) but I prayed earnestly enough, went along to the bible study sessions and the Sunday services - and of course the youth group social evenings. After a few years though I realised the futility of wanting to have faith without actually having it and drifted away from the group activities.
Still, I had a good time with the people I met; they were pretty much all representative of the better aspects of Christianity and I guess there are worse places I could have gone to hang out with friends as a teenager – I’ve never thought of that before; where might I have gone to spend my evenings and weekends if I hadn’t gone there? Probably I’d have just stayed at home reading science fiction, these were the days before the Internet and I doubt I’d have had the enthusiasm to go out and find a group of people who shared any of my interests. I can’t really see myself getting in with a ‘bad crowd’ – I was never that cool a kid that the bad crowd would want me!
So anyway, I’ll at least make an effort to go to the reunion and say hello to everyone again. If nothing else, it should make an interesting post for you all to read.
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