Its been hard, lately, to get into a daily rhythm. Commitments and obligations are constantly being shaped and added and it seems that the most subtle shift can have a disproportionate effect on the daily regime. I am not a person who does well with either a loose schedule or a tight schedule that is constantly evolving. I am a creature of habit and I crave normalcy and a constant schedule, all the while I long for variation and change.
It isn't because I love eggs and toast that I eat them every morning, and I could easily find a substitute for coffee, if I was so inclined. These are things that ground my day, just as riding my bike to shop that the company I work for is based out of is a way that I take control of how I am defined. I remember a pastor once said to look at the lords table (communion) and recognize the elements--bread and wine--as the most basic food the disciples would have had available on a daily basis and find something like that in our life. It has struck me as I struggle with my identity and work and general attitude towards life lately that I take on my routine to maintain control of who I am.
I don't sit down to my breakfast of eggs, toast, and coffee and make a conscious choice to enter into a time of communion. Rather, I sit and recognize who I am. This breakfast is something I made because i enjoy it and wrapped up in what I enjoy is who I am and what I believe. I am on a quest to severe, in so much as I can, the connection of my identity to what I do for work. Who I am is more what I believe than how I make a living, what I enjoy more than what I have to do.
We do what we have to do to survive--pay the rent, but bread on the table, gas in the car, and shoes on our feet. As a husband and father I sacrifice elements of dreams for the pragmatic reality of daily life. But who I am does not need to be defined by what I do. It needs to be defined by who I am.
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