When your ship is at sea, you can watch the beautiful waves and the difference in the sky as it changes with the weather. You can see 10.7 nautical miles to the horizon and enjoy the illusion of land, which appears due to the clouds, shadows in the ocean and sun’s rays pouring through. God’s beautiful creation awakens us every day. Life is as much a blessing at sea as on land.

After San Francisco, we settled back into our life aboard. Work out in the gym, eat, lectures, eat, read, eat, sleep. Sounds familiar?

Funny thing occurred to us yesterday looking at the continental breakfast….why do gluten free muffins need to look like regular muffins only they are packaged in cellophane? If you aren’t suppose to eat gluten, why should you be eating items that look like the gluten items? If you are allergic to gluten, why do you need a look-a-like substitute for something you supposedly could never eat.

Yesterday, I enjoyed Christopher Kelly’s talk on a book he wrote called “American Invaded.” He researched how every state in America was invaded at one time or another. The lecture was quite interesting; I might consider reading the book. He especially was knowledgeable about the Japanese Fu-Go bombs of World War II that landed in over 15 states, carried by the jet stream! Today, his lecture is titled “World War II in the Pacific: A Collision of Geniuses.”

Music is everywhere on this ship. 2 PM is usually a Classical Concert, on the Lido deck at lunch is a band, 5 PM pianists, harpists or violin trio play in the Grand Lobby. And then every evening a show of some kind. Quite a treat every day!

The show last night was Joe West, a young man who tap danced, played the clarinet, sang, played the saxophone, tapped danced for an hour mixing in American and British known musicians, dancers and songs. He was quite talented and entertaining.

Tonight is a group called The Fly Rights – they do Soul, Motown and Swing – looking forward to that music. It is also a Gala night – the Black & White Ball. Time to get out the tux and ball gown! And of course Steve’s special black and white bow, worn only one other time, at the Black & White Ball in 2012.

Meanwhile, our daily reading has brought a few interesting words into our expanding vocabulary. Here are a few words: animism, syncretism, memetic and pan-ecumenicalism . I’m still reading “Sapiens” and have made it to the Scientific Revolution. Steve’s reading “Putting on the Mind of Christ: The Inner Work of Christian Spirituality” and has made it, in a reading sense only, to the 7th level of human consciousness. It will be interesting to see where the two books take our dinner discussions. Why do we need to go on a cruise to find out?

Two more sea days until we reach Honolulu on Monday.