Nigeria, May 17 -- This past Sunday, as my family and I sat quietly in St. Mary Margdalene, our neighborhood church, listening to the homily, sunlight filtered through the stained-glass windows, casting ethereal hues across the pews where familiar faces gathered, some bowed in solemn prayer, others murmuring along with the choir's hymns. Yet amid the sacred stillness, my mind drifted. The questions that once whispered now echo with growing insistence. I find myself participating in the rituals of faith not from conviction, but from habit, and perhaps, fear. Fear of what might fill the vacuum when belief begins to fracture.

My wife and I continue to attend church on Sundays whenever possible, often bringing our children, not because they ...