All along this journey I have been given the questions:

– Are you walking for religious reasons?

– Do you believe in God?

I really like these discussions. In all of them I felt that the questions was asked with sincerety and warmth. Most people I’ve met have been rather secular but still they want to talk about this and I feel that some of them have been searching for answers. Answers that would help them to make up their minds.

First of all, yes of course, a big part of this journey is for religious reasons. But perhaps not in the classic stereotype religious way that most people think. Let me return to this later.

This journey has so many different angles, so many different aspects. Primarily I would like it to be a manifestation for peace. And what is that then? And how can we achieve that? Is it even possible? And perhaps more importantly, has that anything to do with faith?

To me, those questions are best answered, if not only by common sense so by the very core in what I believe in. The most important work that my higher power wants me to do, is to treat my next of kin just like I would like to be treated by my fellow human beings. Showing understanding, or at least an effort to try to understand. Giving respect and if possible even love will more often than not be rewarded with just the same back to you. And I strongly believe that this is the key to a better world. A step towards what any God wants for us.

But when that doesn’t work? When we are treated badly? When someone takes advantage of our good will?

Being loving and caring is perhaps the most brave thing one can do. Doing that is a risk, putting yourself up front, potentially in harms way. But every time that you connect, every time you succeed in making someone else feeling loved, needed and respected, that will make up for that risk. Nothing is gained easily.

I’m not a saint in any kind of way. But I think that, in this great undertaking it is to live, you actually will be rewarded for trying. There is no one who can say what’s the only correct way to live. My priest tells me that it’s up to me to find out. And I’m quite confident that I will be the one taking resposibility for my choices, my actions and enjoy my victories as well.

And that is one small interpretation of my faith. I call it faith, not religion. My relationship with my faith is my own, I can’t accept being dictated what to think or believe. Simply because those trying to do that won’t be there to take resposibility for my actions. No one will do the catching when I do the horrible mistake to blindly follow someone else.

Being a Christian is a nice thing for me. My religion is like a community, like being a citizen in Sweden. But my faith is my own, given just to me.