Daniel 7: 1-18 (links validated 9/18/24a)

Just consider for example, Sarah McBride, the new young congresswoman from Delaware and from the transgender community of which she is a part. Sarah McBride isn’t a cause cèlébre for me. She is a longtime and personal friend of mine. She patiently taught me everything I know about transgender people and their experiences. We were colleagues together at a progressive think tank downtown. Her boyfriend also happened to be on our team, a brilliant young lawyer who fought off cancer and fully recovered. Then a year or so later went to the doctor with a persistent sore throat and was told his cancer had returned and he had two weeks to live. They asked me to marry them, and I did, on that next Sunday. We, colleagues and friends, orchestrated a beautiful ceremony on the roof of their apartment building, because Andy was deteriorating so fast he could never have made the trip elsewhere. It was a heartbreakingly beautiful and sacred wedding. Andy died four days later, and on Saturday we buried him out of St. Thomas Parish in DuPont Circle. And through it all, Sarah was brave and strong and fully present to her beloved husband...

Horatio Spafford knew quite a bit about calamity—about things falling apart. He was a wealthy and successful lawyer and businessman who lost a significant amount of his fortune when the Great Fire of Chicago destroyed most of his real estate holdings. Two years later, Spafford planned to travel to England with his wife and four young daughters, but at the last minute he stayed, intending to follow shortly behind them. Partway through its journey, the ship carrying Spafford’s family sank and, though his wife survived, all four of Spafford’s daughters drowned. Soon after hearing the news, Spafford left for England to meet his wife, and legend has it that, as his ship reached the place at which his daughters died, he wrote this hymn: When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll; whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul...

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