The second time around...

I've been here before.

How's that for a beginning, stranger?

When I say I've been here before I'm not meaning physical location or situation. I don't mean it in the way that someone in an unfamiliar area might look around and conclude that they are lost, "I've been here before, and I've seen that rock, we're going in circles!” I mean that I've been here before because despite many outward signs that would suggest otherwise, I don't think I ever left this spot once I found it.

Where is here? To me, "here" is being able to not just ask but accept my own answers to the questions that I've asked myself since I was twelve. Someone growing up in a true believing conservative Christian fundamentalist household normally would invoke the image of strict control with lots of rules and harsh punishments for failure to follow, yet for me it was actually quite the opposite. In my home curiosity was encouraged, rules were there for practical reasons that generally made sense, and punishments were generally mild and always warranted. That is except for the one question and the ones that follow that I began to ask at twelve shortly after my baptism, the question that brought me here. What if we are wrong and other people are right?