It was classic peer pressure. In the moment I was 12 years old and she was a classmate that was exercising the power of "the cool kid" to make me do things I wasn't suppose to do. But in this situation, we weren't just talking about stealing a car and going for a joyride, we were playing with God... And the CHURCH! I looked up at the altar. There was an assembly of men of the cloth, with coordinating outfits. One of them was decidedly more decked out than the rest. "Great," I thought. "A bishop." An image of the holy man sensing my sin and blasting me to hell with lightning bolts from his fingertips crossed my imagination. But I guess I realized a fate worse than hell would be to be mocked and made fun of as a "God Boy" or something, and I finally nodded my head in nervous agreement and dropped to my knees to pray for forgiveness of the sins I had committed and the the ones I was about to commit. The kneelers were not padded (standard in Europe). As I kneeled there in agony I convinced myself that these were actually "Kneelers of atonement." And that like the ascetic sects of years past, I was actually paying for my sins through pain of flesh.