If you don't know former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, he's the first to tell you these days that he wasn't ready for the fight of Washington, in some respects. He wasn't a politician — honestly, the man is a nerd in the best of ways. He believed in the nobility of public service. During his time in office, he was America's much-needed civics teacher.
Sasse is currently dying of cancer. He may not have long to live. These are precious months for, as Sasse understands it, "redeeming the time."
Sasse has been doing a lot of talking lately. In a recent interview with Ross Douthat for The New York Times, he appears bloodied. His face is broken. His skin isn't replacing itself.
He may be suffering, but Sasse has not lost his sense of humor, gratitude, love of God and appreciation for the American experiment. Sasse reminds us, in his podcasts and interviews, that life is a gift and is meant to be lived in love for God and his people. His priority is sharing the wisdom that has been forced upon him. Ross joked that pending death has Sasse, at 54, "where Henry Kissinger was at 100."
When the conversation turns to politics, Sasse predicts that the United States in 2026 won't be remembered for its insane partisan rhetoric. Instead, "[w]hat we're going to talk about is the fact that we were living through a technological revolution that was creating economic and cultural upheaval, and we were living through institutional collapse, and way, way, way, way, way below that, there's a whole bunch of political institutions that are part of that institutional collapse."
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About more eternal things, Sasse says: "I believe in the resurrection, and I believe in a restoration of this world." At the same time, he's honest about the human condition. "Death is terrible. We should never sugarcoat it. It is not how things are meant to be. But it is great that death can be called the final enemy. It's an enemy, but it's a final enemy, and there will then be no more tears."
It's his family that he grieves for. He and his wife have a teenage boy at home and two girls out of the house. He will not be around for his son during some pivotal years, he knows, and will not walk his daughters down church aisles should they marry. "I felt a real heaviness about that," Sasse recalls about learning he had cancer. "I've continued to feel at peace about the fact that death is something that we should hate. We should call it a wicked thief. And yet, it's pretty good that you pass through the veil of tears one time and then there will be no more tears, there will be no more cancer."
As I write, cancer has not killed Sasse yet. And it will never kill his soul. The bloody — and grace-filled — way he is dying is a mercy for all who look and listen: Christianity is real, can be tried, and will save us from the powers of hell, which are too real when we have no sense of perspective on the meaning of this time we have been given.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is a senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book "A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living." She is also chair of Cardinal Dolans pro-life commission in New York and is on the board of the University of Mary. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.
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