5th place (tie) — 2024 high school essay contest: Lyn Sepersky
FFRF awarded Lyn $1,500.
By Lyn Sepersky
I was supposed to feel heard. I was supposed to feel loved. But in the pews of the Catholic Church that raised me, I felt nothing at all.
For so long, I was told that God would listen to and provide for my needs. In return, I was supposed to listen to him: follow his will, listen to his words, play by his rules.
I was living for someone else, a deity who I believed would fix me — yet it was when I left his church that I learned I could change it myself. I learned that I, on my own, was enough to change the world, a lesson that many other Americans are currently learning.
When I embraced my life as a “None,” I embraced a life of change. When I was a Catholic, I believed wholeheartedly that simply praying would fix my problems. Even as I struggled in my own life, I did not believe it necessary to put in work to fix things. I believed God would do it for me. But that is just the trap that religion brings people into — the trap of perpetuity. They believe that someone else will save them, and so they never even try to save themselves or their world.
The year I labeled myself as a None was the year I finally decided to become engaged in my community. After years of prayers — prayers that went unheard — I finally stepped out and began protesting, calling to those who I knew had to listen. It was 2022, and I went into the streets, arm in arm with my fellow citizens, and caused a disruption.
As a child raised Catholic, I had been trained to accept the rules laid down by someone else. As I became a None, however, I was able to make my own rules and fight for the future I wanted to see, hand in hand with the people my church had taught me were evil. I was able to do something. And that feeling was liberating.
That liberating feeling is exactly why the Nones will be able to change America. In modern politics, religion has been fiercely weaponized to halt progress and keep the world stationary. But, as people break free from religious traditions and beliefs, they can find and fix the issues in the world.
I suspect that in most progressive protests, a majority of those pushing for change would identify themselves as Nones of some sort. This is no coincidence. Nones know that their futures are up to them, and that they need to work to get what they want. That is how the Nones will change the world. They will be the people who fight to make a change, rather than relying on the whims of a deaf God.
As I have taken responsibility for my own life, for my own joy and happiness, I have looked toward the future with a smile. It will be what I make it. And I plan to make a change.
Lyn, 18, is from Schofield, Wis., and attends the University of Wisconsin, where she plans to major in history and Spanish before attending law school.
“Between working my job at a gas station, being an avid participant in my school’s ecosystem, and volunteering at my local historical society, I keep myself busy on days off through writing and reading,” Lyn writes. “After college, I intend to use my degree to help anyone in a tough spot through my legal services. Until then, I plan to do whatever I can to buy my cats, Sam and Deedee, a cat tree. They deserve it.”
