Oh my! How far have we gone!

The rising tides shuffle every boat on the shoreline beach, not the lakewater but the saltwater one. The moon sways the hulls with the ocean on its daily dance, a remarkable routine, gently brushing the rocks clean at high tide, similar to neatly brushing my hair.

The seasonal routine of autumn is another one; remarkably colorful; inevitably done. The world has routines. I have routines. Little walkway routes, taken every day, small step-stones repeated enough to forget their effect, like eating.

Eating. Oh, what a grand routine!

Food is love. Good old-fashioned physical food is love. Wonderful joy is food. It's a routine. I have to do it every day. That routine is worth living for. Though I've heard it said, "We should not live to eat, but rather eat to live." For me, it's the routine I live for. 

This one nourishes so repetitively but with variety. Variety such that the routine fades out of the lexicon. It's a remarkable repetition, notching me forward one spoke at a time. I cannot cram routines. I cannot eat in a day the year's worth of food. Each day itself is a reasonably sized meal, as all good routines are.

One does not live by breakfast alone, but by every word that proceeds from the routines of God. For me spiritual food is a routine. It hasn't always been. Spiritual food is the Bible; other good Scripture; quiet time with the Invisible One; listening before the immediate chatter of family, friends, work, news, chores, funnies, and sports inject themselves, obstreperously, into my day.

It means having prayer as a morning routine. ​Works at night, too. (I like to pray in the dark.)

Spiritual nourishment, routinely fed, is remarkable, like the inevitable, gentle tides brushing the flaws and knots out of my hair each morning. A routine like that is to live for. 


7:30 AM September 5, 2026, Saturday