Rebellion has been on my mind a fair amount for several reasons. I think being a youth minister makes me try to prognosticate teenage rebellion and figure out how to crack those codes. The forthcoming presidential administration makes me ponder what ways the church might need to rebel. And a month of anticipatory waiting to see Rogue One then finally getting to see the movie put rebellion on the front burner. The Star Wars story is, after all, the story of the Rebellion.

Rogue One is an enjoyable film. It's one of those rare prequel/sequels that make the original movie an even richer story. There is also something viscerally thrilling about watching a ragtag group of rebels (led by a woman and group made up of an array of ethnicities plus a robot) undermine the Empire and deliver what turns out to be a fatal blow. Rogue One is a war movie, which means that stormtroopers are mowed down, Nazi-like Empire officers get their comeuppance, and bad guys get their just desserts. You get to see those who live by the blaster die by the blaster, the powerful reap what they have sown.

Every other Wednesday, I take my lunch break to drive about 15 minutes out of town to go to my local comic book shop (because as awesome as Nashville is in so many areas, it took me a month and a half to find a decent comic book shop). There's a spot where 440 goes over I-65 where you can catch an incredible view of the Nashville skyline. I remember driving back to work one Wednesday in December, catching that glimpse, and realizing that this was now my city.

I had lived and worked in Music City for about three months at that point, but in that moment at the end of the year I was taken aback by everything that had happened. None of this was on my radar for the majority of 2016. There are still times when I'm walking the halls at church and this surge of awe goes through me: "I get to work here!"

Another year has come and gone. A ridiculous amount of things have happened in the world and in my family's own little corner. To look back on the past year, here is my annual review of my most read and/or favorite posts from this past year. Thank you to everyone who has read, commented on this site, and shared posts on social media. Your encouragement means an awful lot. Here's a look back at 2016.

In the popular imagination, 2016 has gained sentience and transformed into some sort of raging beast. I don't think this year is out to get us, but it has been a difficult one for many people. Yet there has been good and I think it is important for us to share the bright spots in our lives with others. The arts are one of those areas in which the light most often gets through to me. The following is not any sort of "Best of" list. It is just some of the television, film, music, comics, and literature that have been bright spots for me in these last 12 months.

When I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut, which is to say I was a kid. I memorized the name of all the space shuttles and had a picture of one in my room. I read books about the Apollo missions. I played with space-themed Legos. I had a blue VHS tape that was an infomercial from Space Camp. In my mind, there was nothing more awesome than to explore the frontier beyond this terrestrial ball we call home.

My interests eventually shifted, but the news of John Glenn's passing yesterday caused me to flashback to my childhood. Glenn served in World War II and Korea, he was a U.S. Senator, in 1962 he was the first American to orbit the Earth in the Friendship 7, and then three and a half decades later returned to space on the shuttle Discovery. That that sentence is about a single human being is ridiculously staggering.

Running in November and December has been somewhat of a struggle. I've been inconsistent. My pace has fallen off. It gets dark before 5 o'clock now and the home stretch before EA and the boys get here seems to get longer. It's easier to make excuses to just stay home. Running as an outlet has just kind of been off.

I dragged myself out the door after work earlier because it had been nearly a week since I last ran. I had trudged along for about three miles when I was waiting for a crossing signal on Blakemore. As I waited, another guy came running behind me and hit the intersection just as the light changed, allowing him to not lose momentum.

I decided to see if I could keep his slightly faster pace for a bit and ran a few strides behind him.