I only have vague ideas about how the social media platforms work. Which leads to this question: How can something be posted in one second, and then—mere seconds later—angry emojis or thumbs-up support or belittling (and randomly profane) responses swarm beneath my original meme?

Naturalist John Muir wrote, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul alike.”

A quarter of a century has passed.

The memories I carry from that terrible morning include steering my car to the side of the road and calling my wife. She answered.

Early in my career as a minister, I’d heard and learned about “organ recitals.” This phrase doesn’t have anything to do with outdated church music, or attendance in a concert hall, or the beginnings of a riff on the works of Johann Sebastian Bach.

In the United States, one-half (0.5%) to one-percent (1.0%) of the population over thirteen-years-old identifies as transgender*.

 Which amounts to 2.3 million people, or about the population of Houston, Texas.

The best man strode toward me after the wedding service. Pale, skinny, and so young, he wore a rented tuxedo that made him look like an extra in a slasher film that ended badly at a prom. He stopped in front of me.

The fifty-something patient arrived right after me. He used a cane and wore an elaborate neck brace. With what appeared a practiced effort, he settled on the chair to my left. We were in the radiology waiting room of my orthopedist’s office, a space with a dozen identical seats in rows. Patients came and went, a kind of musical chairs for the walking wounded.