Bridge building

So, this is technically supposed to be Wednesday's post, but I had to finish up some reading and wasn't able to write it before I got too tired and just went to bed. On the other hand, it was reading Nietzsche, so I think that was a pretty good tradeoff. It does raise a question, though:

Why, as someone who's supposed to be a Christian, do I love Nietzsche so?

Aside from the overly snarky note that “supposed to be” doesn’t mean “is,” the best answer I have yet thought of is simply that it’s encouraging. In my experience, Christianity has always been a guilt inducing, depressing, sucky sort of thing. I know there’s a huge amount of grace and love, and none of the condemnation sort of stuff, but in all honesty I’ve always found more encouragement from non-Christian places (sometimes, dramatically un- or anti-Christian) than I’ve ever found in the church.

I don’t remember if I’ve talked about this before, but I’ll probably talk about it a lot more. Church, in all my experience, has always been a place of smiling happy people. Maybe I’ve not been going to the right churches, or I’ve been misreading people, or maybe I’m just not involved enough with small groups and am just a member of the regular church. But, regardless, I’ve never found a single person at a single church who is truly honest (well, except for maybe one, but we’re not on speaking terms, so that’s beside the point).

Maybe it’s just that I’m not honest. Maybe if I opened up a bit more then I’d find more people who were also open. I guess that’s a bit of why I’m writing here in the first place. Is this like actually talking face to face with a real, live, person? Nah, I’m not stupid enough to think that. But, it’s a step up from talking to myself, which is where I’ve been for so long. Even if no one is reading this, it’s still out there. I’m trying to be a bit more real about who and what I am. I probably could be keeping a journal, but really, how is that different from talking to myself? The only difference is that it takes longer. This takes longer, but it runs the risk that someone I actually know will read it. I guess the potential danger makes it exciting. J

More in line with the supposed-purpose of this blog, I didn’t go walking today. The various exercise areas were closed “until further notice” and never reopened. So, I got a day to try to heal up a bit. In any case, I’ve done 25 miles in 6 days. If I’d been exactly on track, I would have done a bit more than 22, so I’m still happy. I may wind up doing a 5 day on, 1 day off schedule, but we’ll see.

Wishing you all honesty in love,

Felix