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Stepping outside onto our back patio, the frigid early morning air startles me, smacking my cheeks like a trainer popping the face of a prizefighter, making sure the boxer is fully conscious.

Moments before, I had been inside listening to the news reports: the murders in San Bernardino, Calif., were likely the result of a terrorist attack, the newscaster reports, and this on the heels of the murders in Colorado, Springs, Col., at a Planned Parenthood Clinic, and just a few days before that, the terrorist attack in Paris, France.

I know the three most often repeated words in a marriage should be, “I love you,” but I’m afraid I’ve displaced those with “Where’s the clicker?”

Perhaps even worse, once the clicker is in my hands, I frequently follow that question with a plea to my wife: “Can you get this thing to work?”

Now, before you judge me as the stereotypical couch potato, that neglectful slob who bellows to “the wife” from the “man cave,” “Hey, babe, bring me another beer,” let me explain myself.

They say you learn something new every day, and I can’t argue with that.

I learn things at work, and I learn from my wife and son. Lately, though, a lot of my learning has come from running.

Sometimes our best advice to others is forgotten by ourselves.

Not very long ago I admonished the worshippers on Sunday morning to slow down, do less, and take a true Sabbath rest. We tend to get swallowed up by life’s demands and forget the important stuff that really matters.