Former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse is in the middle of his own “last lecture” as he faces what he has called the “death sentence” of Stage 4 metastatic pancreatic cancer.
During a “60 Minutes” interview on Sunday, he shared reflections on what his sobering diagnosis has taught him, and commented about the plummeting birth rate in the modern world.
Telling the truth
“I hate cancer, but I’m also grateful for it,” Sasse said, calling his diagnosis “a touch of grace because it forces me to tell the truth.”
“The lie I want to tell myself is that I’m the center of everything and I’m going to be around forever and I can work harder and store up enough that I can atone for my own brokenness.
“I can’t,” he said. “I tell a lot more truth to myself than I used to.”
The prayer of pancreatic cancer
“Cancer has made you closer to God,” Scott Pelley of “60 Minutes” said, inquiringly.
“Definitely, because I can acknowledge my dependence in a new way,” Sasse responded.
The former senator cited the late New York pastor Tim Keller, who also died of pancreatic cancer a couple years ago. “I hate pancreatic cancer. I would never wish it on anybody. But I also would never want to go back to a time in life where I didn’t know the prayer of pancreatic cancer.”
More babies
Pelley asked Sasse to identify his priorities if he had the opportunity to live another 30 years. “I wish we’d had more babies,” Sasse responded. “We have three great kids. I wish we had four or five.”
Sasse said that in recent decades, all across the industrialized world, people have stopped having children. “We’re at replacement rate birth rates. Nowhere in the industrialized world, except Mormons and Jewish populations in Israel and some parts of the U.S. — except for those two categories, every other industrialized nation has stopped having babies.”
“Having a baby is a bet on the future,” Sasse said. “And almost everywhere in the world — and the world is richer and richer and richer statistically than it’s ever been — people have decided actually babies are kind of an inconvenience.”
Babies “have always been an inconvenience,” Sasse said, “and the most glorious thing you can do to enrich your family and to make a bet on the future.”
Less work
Sasse also said he would travel less for work. “I spent way too many nights in hotel rooms.”
The former senator described how he never threw away any of his old hotel keys. “I’d come back from every trip and I threw them in a box in a closet in my office and there are thousands and thousands of hotel room keys.
“Sometimes I just look at it and feel a heaviness of regret. I would make better decisions about that.”
Taking the Lord’s day seriously
Sasse said he would also approach Sundays differently.
“One thing I tell my kids a lot is, ‘Man, I wish I’d taken the Lord’s day more seriously more in my life, because it’s a really good antidote to all those idolatries,’” Sasse continued.
“God smashing idols for us is a blessing, and having a death sentence is a really good way.”
Leaving his family behind
Pelley recalled a near-death moment in his own life, where “the only thing that crossed my mind was leaving my family behind.”
The journalist asked Sasse how he has reconciled being separated from his family. After a long pause, Sasse spoke of Melissa Sasse, his wife of 31 years. “We’re going to be apart for awhile.”
“My daughters are 24 and 22 and they’re extraordinary. I want to walk them down the aisle when they get married. That’s not likely to be. That’s not the math of my time card.”
About his 14-year old son, he said with emotion, “I’m super bummed to not be there at 16 and 18 and 20 years old in his life — want to give him more advice than he wants. And I want to put my arm on his shoulder and I want his shoulders to get taller.”
“He’ll have other wise men and women to put a hand on his shoulder.”
Not a surprise to God
“But it’s not a surprise to God,” Sasse said after reflecting on his likely impending separation from his beloved family.
“And God, you believe, has a plan,” the reporter asked.
“Absolutely. There are no maverick molecules in the universe.”