The halls are so full of people it is hard for me to move among them. My short time in this large school has already taught me how to weave through the crowds of my peers as we float from class to class, bell to bell.

High school. It is here I learned how to do hard things, one day at a time, because simply going was something to get through. Here I first stood in front of a room of people and they listened, because of my words and the way I said them. And here I learned there were many who went to church, and not many who liked it.

The generation ahead of me has long been surprised by the exodus of the millennials from the narthex and sanctuary of church. I haven’t been. In high school I knew those surrounding me were already gone from church, long before they had the autonomy to make their own decisions. Conversations about church echoing in the halls of my youth centered around confirmation parties, drinking on the weekend and youth group on Wednesday nights; all this a disconnect from church and all it represented for me.

I was listening to an audio book today and the author talked about how remembering is putting our members back together. That we are dismembered and to remember our past, who we are, is to re assemble our pieces.