My daughter’s friend skipped into the kitchen asking, “Where are the kiwis?” She was still in her Halloween costume, in which I’d watched her eat half a bowl of Kit Kats and 100 Grand’s over the past hour. That she was inexplicably asking her host for fruit was not to be judged. Yet before I could get off the couch to help her, she spotted them in a bowl on the counter. “Oh, there they are. Where’s a knife?”

“Here, I’ll–” but again I was too slow. She spotted one laying out on the cutting board and grabbed it.

“Oh, but this one’s dirty,” she observed. Now I really was getting up to intervene; this chirpy little guest was starting to embarrass me. No quit in this one, though. She turned right around to the sink and promptly washed off the dirty knife and wiped it clean with the dish rag that lay crumpled on the counter. Then she pivoted again, and halved the kiwi in a single, fluid, cutting motion. Looking around then, she asked where a spoon could be found, and this time I simply told her. She clearly did not need me to do anything for her. She fished a spoon from the drawer I identified and held it up to the light for inspection. Then she grinned and walked out of the kitchen, carrying two kiwi halves in one hand and a spoon in the other.

His dog was wearing a heavy red blanket on its back and was squatting midway between two sidewalks as he, also carrying a baby in a front-facing carrier, attempted to walk it southbound across a four-way intersection. I pulled up to northbound stop sign and watched with amusement as he took stock of what his dog was doing and then looked up, panicked, at the waiting traffic. I posed no risk, but a car waiting to proceed east has cautiously started to advance, its front wheels clearing the crosswalk, and now its back wheels. The dog straightened up, and the man scampered the remaining ten stops to the opposing sidewalk, leaving the mess, but making a display of retrieving a bag from the dispenser attached to the end of the leash.

The eastbound car rolled right over it. Before the dog-walker could finish opening the bag, the mess was rendered a poo pancake. He looked around, trying to decide if he was required now to clean up, to scrape flattened excrement off the pavement. I didn’t think he was. I rolled down my passenger side window and cheerfully shouted, “You gotta just let that go, man.” He looked up and laughed, and then shrugged his shoulders like he agreed. But as I drove away I checked my rearview mirror and saw him bending down with his bag, trying to do right.

On Tuesday I ran out of toilet tissue and logged onto everybody’s default shipping service to buy some more. But before I could click “Order Now,” a little voice in my head, the one that’s been reading all the articles about how this company is a menace to society, whispered, “Find an alternative.” So I did. They exist. The one I chose promises “sustainability” and “locally owned” facilities. It was going to cost more, but I was willing to bear it.

In addition to the tissue I ordered some bread, the bougie sprouted grain kind that stores stock in the freezer. I wanted a single loaf, but the site required a minimum of two. Fine. Bearing the cost. I got a notification at checkout that, as a frozen item, it would ship separately from the rest of my order. Whatever. Sustainability.

The two loaves were delivered on Saturday in a box big enough to ship an aquarium and just as heavy. Inside were two large ice packs and a spiral of inflated padding protecting a second box. The loaves were in that box. Two loaves of bread shipped in a package so big and heavy I had to make a second trip to the mailroom for the mail, when I could have had the single loaf of that same bread by walking 10 minutes to a grocery store and carrying it home with no extra packaging.

And that wasn’t even the dumbest thing I did last week.

A student from a nearby Bible college emailed me out of the blue for help on an assignment. I don’t know the student, but I know the assignment, because I’ve helped one or two students from this college with it before. Basically, they have to interview a pastor they don’t know about church leadership and ministry and such. I like helping.

His email said, “Sorry I didn’t set up a phone conversation to do this. I meant to.” And then it simply listed the questions he needed answered. I spent about 30 minutes typing earnest answers I hoped were helpful. The last question was: “What warnings, admonitions, or exhortations would you offer me as a potential next generation leader?”

I answered: “Invest time in meeting with people in person and listening carefully for what they’re saying. As a leader, people will act in the way they think you expect. But if you pay careful attention, you can see through to the heart.”

The internet offers almost unlimited choice, which makes choosing a constant feature of life online. What to watch? What to read? Who to talk to? Elements of life with other people that used to be given can now be taken. That’s great and not. Not, because it’s exhausting; so much choosing makes you tired. Somebody asked me my preference about a work project recently and I told them I prefer not to choose but to be assigned. I get lazy.

So music, then. I haven’t depended on a radio dial for years. I have my own streaming library, and I choose every time I play music: something new or something old? An album or a playlist? Shuffle? Yes, shuffle. I have a “Liked Songs” list on Spotify that has 7,535 songs in it, and often I just hit shuffle on the whole thing to see what I get. There are entire albums in there, because Spotify used to automatically add every album in your library to the liked songs list. For the past few years, though, you’ve had to actually tap the little heart icon on the player to add a song. Whatever. There’s more music in there than I will ever systematically choose to listen to.

I have earned myself a little break from choosing with this list. When I shuffle it, I hear some songs I distinctly remember choosing, and I choose them all over again. Others play that I wouldn’t choose again. I delete those from the list. Choice finds us in the end.

Here are the first five songs I get when I shuffle the 7,535 songs I have “liked” in the nearly 10 years I’ve used Spotify.

The angry person you’re arguing with doesn’t want better understanding of the issues (do you?). They want the anger. It feels good to yell or to type out takedowns in ALL CAPS. Owning the idiots is a whole genre of online activity that looks like discussion but shouldn’t be mistaken for it. It’s performance–for the people on our side. Think about that the next time you narrate an argument you had to some of your friends.

Of course, we don’t have to engage people who disagree with us at all if we don’t want to. Maybe we shouldn’t. But if we must, then we should start with the anger. That’s more the substance of their issue (and ours) than the content of the argument.

I spent last week in Kansas and Missouri visiting family and enjoying a little vacation. I’m in Kansas 1-2 times a year. I went to college there; I’m familiar. I lived in Missouri (Kansas City) off-and-on for five years, though I’ve only ventured south, near Arkansas, one other time.

Southern Kansas and southern Missouri are not Kansas City, and they are definitely not Chicago. Obviously. The differences between those contexts–southern Kansas is also not southern Missouri, and Kansas City is not Chicago–are products of stark contrasts in history and culture, which I appreciate and which I have navigated since at least 1994. Yet something felt different on this trip. There are expressions of overt aggression on display in the parts of Kansas and Missouri I was in last week that surprised and disturbed me.

A “F*** Biden” flag flew from someone’s front porch and it emblazoned the front of a hat for sale right next to a “Follow Jesus” hat.

A T-shirt for sale read “LGBT” with symbols beneath each of the letters: Lady Liberty, a gun, a Bible, and Trump.

Another T-shirt showed a picture of a gun and a Bible with the message “Two things every American should know how to use.”

When people in Missouri learned we were from Chicago, they voiced disgust at the “ghetto” and “gangs.” One man called the city a “cesspool” he would never visit (and never has) because people there defecate on the sidewalks; he just sees no value in those peoples’ lives. This was small talk. With strangers.

After the 2016 election, urbanites distressed at the outcome were chastised in essays and blog posts for a shortage of familiarity with and empathy for rural America. This was always disingenuous; many residents of large cities moved there from small towns and know them at least as well as J.D. Vance. But even if it were a meaningful criticism, it has most definitely not been leveled in the other direction. Following Biden’s victory, rural America is not publicly searching its soul over its distance from the urban voters who elected a Democrat. Instead, the places I visited last week are seething in open rage against him, Democrats, and “Democrat cities” like Chicago. Specifically Chicago.

This rage is a media product, and it feels really consequential.

“I can” or “I can’t,” not “I can but I’d rather not.”

“I will” or “I won’t,” not “I will if nobody else will.”

“I am available” or “I am unavailable,” not “I can be available if no one else is.’

If there is an obligation that needs fulfilling and we are a) able, b) willing, and c) free, let’s just say “yes.” If we are not any of those three, let’s just say “no.”

Simple as that.

The family spent the back end of a family visit trip in Branson, Missouri, over the weekend, and while we were there we saw a show at the Sight and Sound Theater. It was called, simply, “Jesus.” It was an impressive spectacle of costumes, sets that wrapped 180 degrees around the amphitheater, and live (and animatronic) (and digital) animals. The actors were highly skilled. The script was a harmony of the gospels that told the story of Jesus from his calling his first disciples through to Pentecost.

Such a project forces choices, and those choices are necessarily interpretive, and I’m sure the writers could defend those choices capably. Would I have presented Mary Magdalene as a prostitute? Probably not. Though it’s customary in church tradition, she’s never called that in the gospels. Would I have grafted her onto the story of the woman caught in adultery from John chapter 8? Certainly not. Neither would I have portrayed the Pharisees as menacing, black-robed figures who chanted the shema like it was a ritualistic incantation. I will moderate my textual criticism until I write my own, except only to note that such choices have weight and consequences.

I feel more comfortable commenting on the whole context of “Jesus”–the script, the production elements, and, critically, the audience. This was my first time in Branson. I had heard the shows there were heavy on traditional and patriotic elements. Yet I still found it jarring to be surrounded by hundreds of people, many wearing red, white, and blue apparel, watching this particular representation of the gospel on stage. Especially near the end.

The resurrection scene lit the tomb from the inside so that the audience watched the actor playing Jesus sit bolt upright as a thunderous crash shook the auditorium. The moment produced an eruption of cheers from the seats. Looking over my right shoulder, I saw several sets of arms reaching for the ceiling; this was as much a church service as a performance. As the disciples rushed down the aisle and bounded onto the stage to convene at the empty tomb, they bear-hugged each other and slapped each other on the backs in celebration. It was a triumphant climax, and we, the audience, were meant to be part of it.

I can’t shake my discomfort with this ending. The resurrection accounts of the gospels contain as much wonder and fear as they do joy and celebration. Reports of the emptied out tomb lead the disciples to hide in the city, not high-five in the streets. No crowd is there cheering victory. In fact, the gospel stories say one thing very clearly that we, piously applauding in the audience, seemed completely to miss: the cheering religious crowd is the problem in the passion story, not its resolution.

Here’s something impressive about the production to end with. The program contained no cast list, no technical credits, no photos or bios of the actors, and the production ended without a curtain call. There was no mistaking what the producers, actors, and stage crew believe is most important in what they’re doing, and it isn’t recognition for themselves.

A really good motivation to make something today is the promise that it will serve you in the future. Once it’s made, you have it in your portfolio. You can reuse it, repurpose it, refine it. You can share it.

My first move before starting on a piece of writing or a presentation is to search my files for work I’ve already done on the same topic. If I find something, I often don’t even remember having done it before. I may deploy it for this new project or I may not, but even if I don’t, it’s good to be reminded that I’ve done this before. It can be done.

Reward yourself tomorrow with whatever you create today.