Kwame came to his first gathering with more doubts than convictions, invited by a coworker who never once made him feel behind for asking basic questions.

He kept showing up mostly for the friendship, half-expecting to be pushed toward quick answers. Instead, he found people willing to sit with his uncertainty for months.

"I found a community before I found any answers, and that order mattered to me," he says. "It meant the questions were never a condition for belonging."

His questions eventually led him somewhere — but he says the friendships would have mattered to him either way.