Birch Bark

I grew up with Renee Good – Renee Ganger, as I knew her. We lived in Colorado Springs; she was two years older than me. We went to church together; our parents were in a home group together, and we spent many Sunday afternoons playing in various basements and backyards while the grownups talked. We listened to Backstreet Boys. We jumped on her parents’ trampoline. We were in youth group together, the strange and frenetic evangelical youth group of the early 2000s.

Long before a federal agent shot her and she became a headline and a symbol, Renee was the best singer – and listener – in my church youth group.