I suppose it’s been a while now. Years. Maybe since I got back from my last deployment, or maybe it started even before that, just quietly, like a slow leak. I lead prayers every night. Every single night. My wife, bless her heart, she arranges us all – the kids, even the grandkids when they visit – in the living room, and I stand there, Bible open, reciting the old words. The words I’ve known since I was a boy. And every night, a little piece of me just… watches. Watches myself go through the motions. I hear the sound of my own voice, clear and strong, just like it was drilled into me, and I feel absolutely nothing. No connection. Not a whisper of what everyone else seems to feel. It’s like I’m a performer, a very convincing one, and the audience has no idea the actor stopped believing in the play years ago. (The discipline from the Corps, I guess, comes in handy for things like this. You learn to just *do*.) The quiet in our house, the peace, it’s built on this. On my performance. If I stopped, if I said anything, it would be… chaos. Utter chaos. My wife, she would be devastated. My kids, they would be lost, probably angry. It’s their whole world, this faith. Their comfort. And I’m the rock, the pillar, the one who brings it all together. The one who *pretends* to bring it all together. It feels like a betrayal, every day. Every single day I stand there, eyes closed, hands clasped, and I lie. Not with words, not directly, but with my whole being. And for what? For a quiet dinner? For a peaceful evening? Is that what a man’s soul is worth? (It’s a question I ask myself a lot, usually around 2 AM, when everyone else is asleep.) I remember the old chaplain, back in ‘88. He’d talk about the weight of sin, about how it pulls a man down. I never really understood it then. Thought it was just a metaphor. Now… now I feel it. This quiet lie, it’s heavy. Heavier than anything I carried in the field. And there’s no relief. No confession that actually counts, because who do you confess to when you don’t believe in the listener? It’s just me, here, with this heavy secret, watching the dawn break, knowing I’ll do it all again tonight. And tomorrow night. And every night after that until… well, until I can’t anymore. Or until someone finally sees through me. That thought, that’s the one that keeps me up the most.