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A selection from Chapter 2 of "Cairn-Space"

Uncovering growth and nurturance from the routine practices of daily life has long been a reality passed on from generation to generation. It is responsible for the development of “tradition” in faith, philosophy, art, politics, and the sciences. It is how we learn what it is passed on. Repetition builds continuity. It is a neural thing. It also helps us open to greater things. Laws are fashioned by it, and organizations are developed because of it. Routine practices keep us moored to the safety of the dock of life.
The notion of routine practice has its bearing on our individual daily lives. We live each day enacting patterns or habits that we have allowed ourselves to accept as meaningful. We go as far as to say that a day has been worthless because we have not checked off one of the habits we hold dear. But, are these habits all necessary? Are they all nourishing? Discernment would tell us, “No”.
We get up everyday and have a cigarette with our coffee. The pattern, over years, weaves itself into the meaning of what we call “morning”. The need for the nicotine is wrapped around the need to repeat familiar events and we are hooked on a habit that we cannot shake. We watch the news before we go to bed. The pattern, over years, weaves itself into the meaning of what we call “bedtime”. The need for tantalizing headlines is wrapped around the need to repeat familiar events and we are hooked on a habit we cannot shake. We know these things are not healthy for us, but we have woven them into our expectations.
We must develop patterns that feed us and strengthen us. We must look for the things we need as divine creatures and build them into habitual routine. This way (just like returning to the prayer practice when distracting thoughts arise) we can return to our core and avert building unhealthy routines. These habits entangle themselves in both our bio-chemical make-up and our cultural patterns of living. They can be at once a physical driving need and an emotional attachment. Habits and routines can ride the crest between the body and mind continuum.
Prayer is needful. Silence is needful. Compassion is needful. Rest is needful. The practices we develop around these needful things should reflect nourishment, health, and wholeness. If we do not routinely make room for the needful things in life, they will not just happen upon us. We do this by wrapping them in the myelin sheaths of repetition.
The same sort of practices should also be present in our lives together – as the body of Christ. Fashioning sacred space and filling it with the heart and essence of prayer is not a journey for the individual alone, it is a corporate practice as well. Having prayer space and prayer time is good for the one; it is also good for the many.
In a day and age when people would like to lose any connection to a daily routine and be set free to experience one new event after another (at least in our own estimation), the need for a nourishing daily routine is great. Having a heart center and a routine visit to that heart center is vital to an emerging stability and health. It is something we can practice together and apart. It is something we can build into the positive associations of what it means to be the Body of Christ.
 Although people may verbally acknowledge that routine is not necessary or a healthy requirement in daily life, they do enact the need for routine on a daily basis. People often enact things they need even if they cannot make a verbal or cognitive assent to the importance of the task.
 They may not turn each day to the sacred routines of old – prayer and or liturgy, but they do turn to the routine of reading email, checking social media, and watching the news. We find comfort in routines. Unbeknownst to most, we crave routine and create it whether we know it or not. Routine finds a way in our lives until we are able to recognize and give voice to the need. It is a myelin sheath sort of thing.
Routine is a cairn. Routine is a marker in time and space that helps us to know where we are, remember where we have been, and gain a sense of identity as we visit it again and again over time. Routine digs down deep below the structure of past, present, and future; into the reality of the eternal sense of NOW. Routine is a bridge that unites the dimensions of time and space.
We transmit the signal from axon, to dendrite, through a neural pathway wrapped in fat. We pile the rocks – stone on stone – leaving a visible mark in space and time. Have we discerned the soundness of the stones? Why were they placed? What do they sign?

 Liturgy, tradition, and prayer are cairns. They help us gain perspective in landscape of life. They mark how far and how close we come and go as we journey. They are a gauge. And, by their nature they are seen as repeatable events. We do them over and over again, wrapping them in meaning and depth. We can do these things as individuals and as a corporate body.



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