My work was interrupted one evening when a youth of uncouth demeanor swept into the church with all hesitation of the sun at dawn. For the first few moments I could only look on dumbly as they stepped confidently forward. when I finally found my bearings and eeked out a nervous "hey!", their ease did not waver.

  "hello there! nice to see you," they smiled. Or was that what the priest always called a 'smirk'?

  I didn't know what to say next. A vaguely accusatory exclamation was about the extent of my vocabulary at the moment. "Are you sure you're supposed to be here?"

  "Oh, I couldn't tell you," they smiled (smirked) again and shrugged. "The doors were open. It's a church, right?"

  I was not yet put to ease, but the argument was sound. Call it 'granting refuge to the lost'. "Are you even a believer?"

  They struck a thoughtful pose "No. Not for the last few years, anyway."

  "But you used to be?"

  They nodded "A few denominations removed from your faith, I'd guess. I'm a protestant apostate."

  The chains on their clothes jingled quietly as they moved to stand more fully before one of the beautiful windows, and I trailed behind them. They admired the sight for some time in silence.

  I cleared my throat, "How old did you say you were?"

  "I didn't. I'm nineteen"

  That explained it. Everyone always tells me 'this is the most volatile, most spiritually dangerous time of your life - when the world presses against you the strongest, when it's guilles seem most tempting'. I nodded in understanding. "You went to college and lost your faith?"

  They laughed "Oh, y'all would think that, huh. Not quite." They paused, I waited. "I suppose I never really belonged with the faithful"

  This was obvious. "It is impossible to lose your salvation. Any who leave the faith were never part of it to begin with."

  "You know, I used to believe that. I held onto it with all my might, for a time - my last bastion of hope. The final stand before the fires of hell." They turned away from the Mother Mary and stood before the next window. "But if change is impossible to begin with, then I'm already lost. Or, the optimistic among you might say, already saved. I have since rejected fate. Providence. Whatever. But if I'm wrong - if god does have a plan for me, if I am elect - then I have no choice. My mind - or heart, or both - will change regardless."

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  I frowned. "We are not at liberty to ignore gods commandments. Even if this life is fleeting."

  They stepped animatedly to the next window. "But it's not! It's not. Life is so, so full! With friends and good food and beautiful art and love!" They continued facing the window, but were no longer looking at it, gesticulating energetically. "That's what it's all about! Cramming in as many dinners and lazy mornings and friendly conversations as possible. Stretching the years as far as they will go, farther than the misery of endless expectation!" They finally looked at me fully. "There is never enough time to do everything. Most things, even. But there is plenty of time to do some good things - for me, and everyone else too. Enough for a lifetime or two."

  I thought about it. "That sounds like hedonism"

  They put their hands back into their jacket pockets with a sigh, moving to the next window. We both studied it silence for a time. The light of the setting sun, colored by glass, shone from their mirrorlike earrings. I thought about it a little more.

  I asked "If you had resisted the loss of your faith, would you live the same way?"

  They took such interest in the artistry of the glass that at first I thought they did not hear me. Eventually they answered, "That's unknowable. And unlikely - looking back, I think it was all inevitable. Maybe, if I had remained in the fold, I would see the world as a dreary waiting period. Maybe I wouldn't, and I would apostasize soon." They stretched and crossed the sanctuary to the last few windows, still talking. "In any case, it didn't, even couldn't happen - or if it did, it wouldn't be me it happened to. You're asking me to entertain a very distant hypothetical."

  "Can I not say the same?" I asked, standing in the rooms center. "Is my adherence to this dogma not fundamental to me?"

  "We can change - drastically," they said. "Theseus was a bitch. you will live through one thing after another, and they will all change you, until the person you are now - faith and all - is perfectly foreign. And you will always be you."

  "My identity is in my God, and He is immortal and unchanging."

  They chuckled wryly. "Mine was too. Until it wasn't."

  I watched them move between all the remaining windows, ears filled with perfect silence as the last of day was spent. Finally the youth nodded to me and headed for the door. Surprised, I said "Leaving already? what did you even come here for?"

  "I just wanted to look at the windows," they said over their shoulder. "I'm done. Have fun."

  I finished my duties for the night alone. I never saw them again, until some number of years later - in public, laughing with friends that dressed exactly the same. Nothing was said, and they did not see me.