Ryan McKenna

[Ryan McKenna @rmckenna19]

@worldofreel Linklater not winning for Boyhood told me he never will. If Tarantino puts out one last great movie, feel like it’s gotta be him. Villeneuve is the next big name among the current generation though

[Ryan McKenna @rmckenna19]

@TopTierPucks Bouch should have made this team but this is maybe the worst take on that issue I’ve seen

[Ryan McKenna @rmckenna19]

Absolutely heartbreaking. Praying for the Sasse’s

[Ben Sasse @BenSasse]

Friends-

This is a tough note to write, but since a bunch of you have started to suspect something, I’ll cut to the chase: Last week I was diagnosed with metastasized, stage-four pancreatic cancer, and am gonna die.

Advanced pancreatic is nasty stuff; it’s a death sentence. But I already had a death sentence before last week too — we all do.

I’m blessed with amazing siblings and half-a-dozen buddies that are genuinely brothers. As one of them put it, “Sure, you’re on the clock, but we’re all on the clock.” Death is a wicked thief, and the bastard pursues us all.

Still, I’ve got less time than I’d prefer. This is hard for someone wired to work and build, but harder still as a husband and a dad. I can’t begin to describe how great my people are. During the past year, as we’d temporarily stepped back from public life and built new family rhythms, Melissa and I have grown even closer — and that on top of three decades of the best friend a man could ever have. Seven months ago, Corrie was commissioned into the Air Force and she’s off at instrument and multi-engine rounds of flight school. Last week, Alex kicked butt graduating from college a semester early even while teaching gen chem, organic, and physics (she’s a freak). This summer, 14-year-old Breck started learning to drive. (Okay, we’ve been driving off-book for six years — but now we’ve got paper to make it street-legal.) I couldn’t be more grateful to constantly get to bear-hug this motley crew of sinners and saints.

There’s not a good time to tell your peeps you’re now marching to the beat of a faster drummer — but the season of advent isn’t the worst. As a Christian, the weeks running up to Christmas are a time to orient our hearts toward the hope of what’s to come.

Not an abstract hope in fanciful human goodness; not hope in vague hallmark-sappy spirituality; not a bootstrapped hope in our own strength (what foolishness is the evaporating-muscle I once prided myself in). Nope — often we lazily say “hope” when what we mean is “optimism.” To be clear, optimism is great, and it’s absolutely necessary, but it’s insufficient. It’s not the kinda thing that holds up when you tell your daughters you’re not going to walk them down the aisle. Nor telling your mom and pops they’re gonna bury their son.

A well-lived life demands more reality — stiffer stuff. That’s why, during advent, even while still walking in darkness, we shout our hope — often properly with a gravelly voice soldiering through tears.

Such is the calling of the pilgrim. Those who know ourselves to need a Physician should dang well look forward to enduring beauty and eventual fulfillment. That is, we hope in a real Deliverer — a rescuing God, born at a real time, in a real place. But the eternal city — with foundations and without cancer — is not yet.

Remembering Isaiah’s prophecies of what’s to come doesn’t dull the pain of current sufferings. But it does put it in eternity’s perspective:
“When we've been there 10,000 years…We've no less days to sing God's praise.”

I’ll have more to say. I’m not going down without a fight. One sub-part of God’s grace is found in the jawdropping advances science has made the past few years in immunotherapy and more. Death and dying aren’t the same — the process of dying is still something to be lived. We’re zealously embracing a lot of gallows humor in our house, and I’ve pledged to do my part to run through the irreverent tape.

But for now, as our family faces the reality of treatments, but more importantly as we celebrate Christmas, we wish you peace: “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned….For to us a son is given” (Isaiah 9).

With great gratitude, and with gravelly-but-hopeful voices,
Ben — and the Sasses

[Ryan McKenna @rmckenna19]

@ally_sheehan Have they given you any update word on the issue? :)

[IMAX @IMAX]

Get tickets now to experience the first IMAX 70mm screenings of #TheOdysseyMovie - A film by Christopher Nolan. In theaters 7 17 26. https://t.co/B6z1mqBRA2

[Ryan McKenna @rmckenna19]

@icecube They confiscated it because lithium batteries aren’t allowed in checked bags. That’s why they ask EVERY time you check a bag if there are batteries inside.

[Ryan McKenna @rmckenna19]

@BizNasty2point0 This didn’t age well

[Ryan McKenna @rmckenna19]

@DanRussellST @Sportsnet A national game in Canada that involves a Canadian team and a non-Canadian team should feature an announcer rooting for the Canadian team. Last time I checked LA wasn’t in this nation.

[Ryan McKenna @rmckenna19]

@RandPaul Congress CAN do something about this….

[Ryan McKenna @rmckenna19]

@CaptainKaye42 I mean, I don’t think there are a lot of duds on the list of best animated feature winners but these were very different off the board picks.

[Ryan McKenna @rmckenna19]

@yegwave They do know there’s already a Fox Drive right?

[Ryan McKenna @rmckenna19]

@CaptainKaye42 For real.

[Ryan McKenna @rmckenna19]

@JDVance Spare me the sob story that you care about any of these issues. If you did, you’d set the standards for removing tariffs. You’d also tariff China and other bad actors way more aggressively. Free trade used to be a common sense conservative value. This situation is a stupid joke

[Empire State Building Observation Deck @EmpireStateBldg]

Rest in Peace Lord Vader

[Ryan McKenna @rmckenna19]

@yegwave Too little too late. We had a chance at a World Cup game and the City and Province threw it away

[Ryan McKenna @rmckenna19]

@diegoprbarros Best line last night by far

[Jesse Pollock @jpolly22]

Two of the final four remaining NHL teams in the playoffs have no state income tax.

One of the other two remaining teams plays in the most desirable city in the league.

The other has arguably the best 1-2 punch the NHL has ever seen.

It is really, really, really, really hard to make it to the Stanley Cup final as a small market team, particularly in Canada.

[Duolingo @duolingo]

verstappen do you need a streak freeze? #f1 #MaxVerstappen #AustraliaGP

[Edmonton Oilers @EdmontonOilers]

⭐️ DOUBLE VOTING DAY! 1 REPOST = 2 VOTES ⭐️

Send Zach home for All-Star!

#NHLAllStarVote Zach Hyman 💫

[Ryan McKenna @rmckenna19]

@MercedesNewsUK Black