People are weird.

…and before I pause to thank Captain Obvious, I’m saying hello to Mr. Editor and already revising for accuracy. “People” implies everybody, and in my experience everyone isn’t weird. Don’t get me wrong, some people are incredibly weird. I’ve met a few in my time. But they’re not all that common. Not exactly rare, mind, but not really common. It takes a great amount of difference in worldview and habits and interests and behavior to cross the line from merely “different” to outright weird.

What people really are, almost without exception, is complicated.

Crappy people have their good points. Saints are riddled with shadow, and a lot of the time neither condition makes a lick of sense. Try to get to the heart of any of it and usually you’re left with some variation of “because that’s the way it is.”

As I’ve mentioned once or twice in this space, I was raised Southern Baptist. I almost said “strict” Southern Baptist, but that borders on redundant. No drinking except when there was. No dancing. Period. Lots of Sundays in the pew, lots of hymns. I like to say I put it all behind me years ago…almost.

Amazing Grace. I still love that song. Lyric wise I no longer believe a word of it. But I like the music. So much so that, to this very day, I’ll tear up a bit when I hear a decent version of it. Do it with bagpipes and I’m likely, if briefly, an emotional wreck.

I’m still trying to sort out the why of that, and the only answer I’ve ever come up with is simply this:

It’s complicated.