Meet Scott.

The Pilgrim has a friend whom she doesn't see on all that regular a basis, but whose presence never fails to cheer her. He triggers, you might say, "good people radar" -- that sense of being drawn to persons who are, with an embarrassing simplicity that confounds all manner of anthropological insight, simply profoundly good, kind, warm and whole. They are attractive, in ways that go well beyond the sexual -- they draw others to themselves by virtue of the delight they inspire.

The Pilgrim isn't such a person ... but she knows a few, a very few, that are. Amongst them is aforementioned friend, a doctoral student in the field of ethics, a generous and cheerful man with a shock of salt-and-pepper hair, a boyish grin, kind eyes and a beautiful wife. A couple of weeks ago, he discovered that the irregularities in some of his tests were the results of liver cancer; five days ago, he learned that the cancer was inoperable. If things go well -- and the aggressive chemo "takes" -- he could life up to four years; if he does not act promptly, he will be dead in six months. He's 45.

I can't say I "get" any of this. I am no stranger to death; by the time I was 12, my family had buried both my brother and my grandmother, our primary caregiver. I've stood on the graveside of infants, teenagers and of highly accomplished not-yet-old men and women who flourished in the prime of their lives right up to the moment of their death. I am no stranger to death; and none of this makes sense.

Philosophy, according to Plato, is preparation for death; surely the same ought to be said about theology. On his blog, Scott writes:

"I’ve read books and seen movies whose closing paragraphs or scenes had the power to elevate a good story into a great one; I have to think that the manner in which one lives one’s final years, months or moments can have a similar force. As Charlie put it, it is a matter of affirming at the end of one’s life what one has affirmed throughout. In my case, this will call for continued attention to certain practices and disciplines by which I have sought to abide, if not always successfully, since my teen years: the daily habit of Scripture reading and meditation; the habit of choosing, when the choice is given to me, to express gratitude, to make space in myself for someone who is different from me, to forbear rather than to find fault; the mental discipline of referring life experiences and questions back to the central narrative of God’s self-revelation in Christ."

All flesh is grass. For the time being, however, I suggest you meet Scott.