Saturday, July 26, 2008

Do Christians go to church to complain about God?

No. They do not. They gather together to worship God, becuase of all God as done for them. Now I am not a remotely religious person so I cannot say what else they do there in church but i highly doubt that they ever gather around and complain about how early they have to go to church, about how inconvenient it is to be there on Sunday when they could be doing other things about how strict all the rules are, or about how uncomfortable it is to sit on a bench for so long.

So why is it that average people think that runners get together and complain about running? Running is my religion. I worship with every mile that I cover on every road, sidewalk, and dirt trail. Long runs are like my church. 2+ ours left alone with nothing but my thoughts able to appreciate everything that running has done for me. It is my meditation, my outlet, my sanity, it is my life. Yes I recognize that the things I do on a daily basis are somewhat uncomfortable. I am on my feet, it is hot, my muscles hurt, I am sweaty and uncomfortable and hungry and thirsty, I might have a blister, I might be straining a muscle in my shoulder, but I signed up for this journey. I decided that I wanted to be a runner. So I wake up at six am every Saturday morning, earlier than I wake up for work Monday through Friday. I wake myself up, spray on my sunscreen and stretch as it dries on my stiff body. In less than fifteen minutes I have my sneakers on and I am ready to be outside. I can just feel the energy building up from the bottoms of my feet.

In the early morning light I know that the rest of the runners (and there are not many) I encounter are the serious kind. The kind of people who give up their Friday nights of drinking to go to bed early. The kind of people who rise early and throw on their running shoes just as I have. No matter how far they are running, or how fast It does not matter to me. Because they take the sport seriously enough to give it the respect it deserves. It is not something you just do whenever you feel like it becuase it is convenient and becuase it feels good. If you do, you are not a runner, you just run.

That is the end of my thoughts for the day.