It’s a new year, and the erratic firing of my neural pathways is already spacing me out. These are random thoughts.

1. 2022. All the stress and uncertainty of March 2020, but with a bigger number.
2. I will never understand the way people have to justify not liking something, a matter of mere preference, by projecting their hatred on to it. It debases everything. The fact that it seems a lot of people have learned this behavior “at church” makes me sick to my stomach ¹.
3. No, vaccine mandates are not a violation of the Geneva Convention. For mercy’s sake, stop this nonsense.
4. Irony is responding to someone who declares that you’re immoral by declaring they should learn how to bathe.
5. If pastors want, in Christ’s name, to gift this culture anything of value then let it be spiritual introspection and empathy. People are acting these ways because they have lost the ability to see themselves in the mirror.
6. If you are aghast at “Let’s go Brandon ²,” but applauded when DiNero exclaimed “F**** Donald Trump” are you really upset at the level of discourse or that you didn’t market it properly ³?
7. I don’t understand why so many people want to play Tieflings in D&D. But I’ve never been cool so I suppose it’s par for the course.
8. There’s a fundamental difference between leading and shepherding. I’ve been a pastor for nearly 21 years and I’m still figuring out what this is.
9. I have very good friends, and for the life of me I cannot figure out how this is. I mean, I know me. I’m pretty terrible.
10. I will never ceased to be amazed by how much pastoring can be done though a weekly list of random thoughts.

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1. Let’s restrict that behavior to sports rivalries, and recognize that it’s a game and the ribbing is all just for fun. OK? Go Birds. Dallas Sucks. ↩
2. And really, you should be. ↩
3. In other words, the biggest tragedy of Donald Trump is that he tainted all of us. ↩