I’ve admired Ben Sasse for many years.
I appreciated his respectful, moral and strong approach to public policy as a U.S. senator from Nebraska.
Dare I say it, he seemed to have wisdom and grace in the public square.
Outside of politics, his 2017 book, “The Vanishing American Adult,” has a prominent place on my bookshelf. His urgent approach to “our coming-of-age crisis and how to rebuild a culture of self-reliance” spoke to my deep desire to raise up strong, competent, upright children in a modern world that seems bent on twisting and stunting their growth.
Late last year, Sasse announced that he had advanced pancreatic cancer. It had already spread throughout his body. At 53, he only had a few months left to live.
He still has a young teenage son in the house. A father’s worst nightmare is to leave the most important job of his life — raising his children — unfinished. Sasse had to confront that. Thanks to a painful experimental treatment that left his face covered with bloody wounds, his initial prognosis has been extended by a few months, maybe as long as a year.
Fortunately for us, Sasse decided to spend many of his final days sharing his thoughts and journey with the public. I’ve watched a number of his videos (although I haven’t yet listened to his cheekily named podcast, “Not Dead Yet.”)
As we celebrate America’s 250th anniversary, I am so heartened, challenged and edified by the thoughts that Sasse has shared about living the good life, even when the clock is loudly ticking. He finds a remarkable way of speaking both as a person who deeply respects our pluralistic society where religion isn’t compelled or prohibited by government, and as a devout Christian who faces death with the faith of heaven.
The role of government is to provide a framework for ordered liberty, he said. Government and sound policy are important but shouldn’t be the center of things.
Indeed, he said the problems facing America today won’t be solved by politics. We need “thick community” — breaking bread together with flesh-and-blood humans you can hug and cry with, not “friends” on screens. We need to re-vivify and re-enchant that sense of place and real-life connection.
“The center of life is your neighborhood, your dinner table and your loves. It’s your family and your community,” he said on 60 Minutes. The increasing push toward identification with national politics at the expense of local community is harming us as individuals and as a society, he said.
Asked about his death sentence, he has moving meditations on the place of redemption in a broken world and for him, a sinner saved by grace. He said that while he hates cancer, he quotes the late Rev. Tim Keller (who also had fatal pancreatic cancer) who said that the depth of faith that came from it would make him never want to go back to his pre-cancer prayer life.
Looking back on what he would do differently in life, Sasse wishes he had done more to lead his family in taking the sabbath as a day of rest.
“The feast day of the soul is more important than I gave it attention to,” he said. “I want my kids to view the glory of not needing to strive from Saturday night to Sunday night as an incredible blessing.”
Accepting the Alexander Hamilton Award last month, he admitted that the brittleness we feel in our nation these days shows an America that needs renewal.
But that isn’t solved by government or policy. It comes from families who have thick community to help them raise souls and citizens to have wisdom and self-control.
“Here’s the truth,” he said to parents. “No one loves your kids as much as you do... Creating the habits that foster the love of the good, the true, and the beautiful begins and home.”
He speaks eloquently on the challenges of artificial intelligence, social media, and the firehose of information that overwhelms our senses and makes it hard to build up the wisdom we need.
Spend a lot more time around kitchen tables and a lot less time with devices, he advises us. Consider the really big questions about what you’re building for your family and the next generation.
He urges us to embrace the deeply meaningful callings of being a citizen, friend, neighbor and co-laborer.
“We are going through a moment of profound confusion about what it means to be human, and we're not preparing ourselves or the next generation for that,” he said. “Our citizenry is going to need to do that together. Little bits and pieces of that are going to touch on politics, but the vast majority of it is going to be about grit, gratitude, entrepreneurship and family.”
As America turns 250 and we say goodbye to a voice of wisdom, Senator Sasse has words that can continue to lead and inspire all of us as we build up the next generation of Americans, one strong child and family at a time.
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Brian Mittge is a community enthusiast who has written for community newspapers in Washington since 2000 as a reporter, editor and columnist. He can be reached at brianmittge@hotmail.com.
