I don\u2019t have religious convictions. My approach to my own agnosticism is to argue that any all-powerful, ever-loving creator, if they exist, is unlikely to be perturbed by what I, one among the billions of life forms on an ever-increasing number of stars and planets, believe about them. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s more important, I think, for each person to start in their own sphere of influence and behave in a way that they can morally live with themselves among those closest to them.<\/p>\n
So then why does having been to church feel so good? <\/p>\n
Is it the sensory delight of smell and sound and sight, as bells tinkle, hymns resound, incense trails and stained glass reflects? Is it the soothing familiarity of the ritual, the call-and-response suggesting communality, solidarity, belonging? Or perhaps it is the sense that all the people around me have willingly taken time out of their busy days and lives to devote a slice of time solely to trying to become a better human?<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all of the above for me. And yet I never feel like going to church. In the abstract, sure, but not in practice, at 8.45 on a Sunday morning. <\/p>\n
Another thing I don\u2019t ever feel like doing is getting up at 4.25am three times a week to go running. Still, it\u2019s something I\u2019ve been doing for almost three years now so I don\u2019t suppose I\u2019ll stop anytime soon.<\/p>\n
The trick, in the deep midwinter, is to sit bolt upright the minute the alarm goes off, eyes wide open, almost as quickly as the Spanish Inquisition appears at the heretic\u2019s door in a Monty Python film. In July, be sure you\u2019ve actually gone to sleep in your Sunday best, I mean, running kit. <\/p>\n
Do not question yourself, nay, entertain no doubts. Obey. Pick up your shoes and go out to proselytise among the other early risers about the pace, the route and the running injury. <\/p>\n
A good tip from our brothers over on the side of religion: unite against your common enemy. FYI, our common enemy is not cars on the roads \u2014 this is, after all, why runners run before rush hour. Our common enemy is cyclists, a word that has almost as many S sounds as satanists. <\/p>\n
Yes, we are insufferable. But not as insufferable as cyclists, surely the prosperity church preacher of the exercise world.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll likely be stoned for this, but it is the hill I\u2019ll die on. <\/p>\n
Did someone say \u201chill\u201d?<\/p>\n
Runners will use literally any conversational segue to shoehorn in an anecdote about their hill training. <\/p>\n
Like church-going, running is a voluntary communal activity that you endure at the time to reap the rewards afterwards. I\u2019ve never yet regretted a run, and probably only one or two church services. <\/p>\n
Also like church, running is free. As free as the air you breathe.<\/p>\n
All you have to do is fork out for running shoes, lights, reflective jackets, shirts that don\u2019t chafe your nipples off, industrial-strength sports bras, a GPS-enabled smartwatch, a Strava subscription (the social media app my running partner and also my son calls \u201cInstagram for runners\u201d) and a couple of race entries a year, and you\u2019re all set.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t need all of that gear just to propel yourself forward on your own two feet,\u201d critics may say, but have you ever tried to pass the collection plate down the pew without putting anything in it? It\u2019s not as easy as it sounds. <\/p>\n
Both running and church services take about an hour \u2014 longer for the more ardent devotees \u2014 and if you haven\u2019t been for a while, you may be rusty. But loosen your legs a little, even out your breathing, be mindful of where you\u2019re placing your feet and, for the love of God, don\u2019t look at your watch yet, and you\u2019ll soon have smashed the first couple of kays. If you\u2019re already doing this in church, try it on the road next time, it works in either setting.<\/p>\n
Somewhere about halfway, muscle memory takes over. You go from wishing you were dead every second to every minute to \u2026 entering a zone of contemplation, near-enjoyment even, that can in good light and with the right filter be called meditative. If you\u2019re already doing this on the road, try it in church next time, it works in either setting. <\/p>\n
After church there\u2019s tea. After a run there\u2019s coffee. Both are served with a side of self-righteousness, but the sugary carbs at church beat running gels, hands down.<\/p>\n
Runners speak of little but running. They become obsessed and single-minded, boring their friends, convinced of their own moral superiority. Church-goers are almost as fervent about their hobby as runners are. <\/p>\n
And just like that, you\u2019re addicted. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s a better vice than most: you don\u2019t have to go to AA, and you collect Discovery Vitality points like dopamine Smarties from a one-armed bandit. <\/p>\n
My long-suffering husband has recently completed a couch-to-5km plan, and even went on to compete in a 5km road race. He\u2019s converted and joined the cult. Club. I meant club. It\u2019s only fair: he\u2019s been rubbing his Catholicism off on me for decades. <\/p>\n
I\u2019m so proud I could burst. If the family that prays together stays together, stands to reason that the couple that jogs together snogs together. Regardless, now that he\u2019s drunk the Energade and stepped inside the circle of trust, we get to be revoltingly smug to the power of two. And that\u2019s the really unbeatable runner\u2019s high.<\/p>\n
Margot Bertelsmann is a freelance writer and editor and the Mail & Guardian\u2019s proofreader.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I don\u2019t have religious convictions. My approach to my own agnosticism is to argue that any all-powerful, ever-loving creator, if they exist, is unlikely to be perturbed by what I,<\/p>\n