I’m Praying for Ben Sasse

In the interest of comity among our broad membership, let me state at the outset that I understand that former Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse is not everyone’s cup of tea. Mr. Sasse is using his recent diagnosis of stage 4 pancreatic cancer (among many other affected organs) to share with us his journey towards his certain death. As he says, death comes for all of us, but for him and others with terminal diagnoses, time is more finite.

I have many connections to his story. He taught for a time at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at UT Austin, where I became a professionally trained bureaucrat 40 years ago. He is 54 years old, the same age my father died. (Unlike Mr. Sasse, Dad was able to see both his sons marry well and met the first two of the family’s six grandchildren.) I have had my own brush with Stage 4 cancer—learning early about a slow-growing carcinoid tumor that affected my GI tract and lymph nodes—but which was successfully removed through surgery four years ago. This past February, I had another round of surgery to remove another tumor that was detected through diligent surveillance testing. I have two sets of scars on my much-too-large abdomen to remind me that I have been gifted with multiple miracles of healing.

I encourage you to read this note from former Richochet pod guest Rod Dreher in his Substack, which introduces and links to an hour-long conversation between Mr. Sasse and Ross Douthat (yes, of the NYT). Mr. Dreher and Mr. Douthat are also not likely to be universally popular among our group (but they certainly don’t qualify for King of the Hill derision by the Ruthless podcast fellas). Mr. Douthat, in particular, had his own brush with near-fatal illness and speaks with Mr. Sasse as a fellow believer.

My prayers for Mr. Sasse have nothing to do with his time in the Senate or as an academic, nor what he thinks of our current President. I am praying because he is a husband and a father of three and a man who is inexplicably leaning into his faith in his illness. Much as pastor and author Tim Keller said of the same experience, Sasse appears grateful for his “prayer of pancreatic cancer.” Like Mr. Dreher, the final minutes of the conversation with Mr. Douthat had me weeping, having been challenged to consider my own boundless gifts of grace. God says to me the same thing He told the Apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”