He shall be like a tree: Happy Birthday to Scott

 The most important person in my life is turning 65 on Wednesday. First of all I am thankful he’s reaching that milestone. As we grew up, “65” was considered the legitimate end of a working life, the transition point to retirement, much like 18 was the line between child and adult. Starting this 2025 year with a new diagnosis of Stage IV cancer made the birthday an aspirational milestone. And he hadn’t exactly taken the “safe” route for the 64 years prior either, working front-line in two different Ebola epidemics, riding a tank into a war zone to bring aid, gritting out diseases and injuries far from the centers of care, or just the most dangerous reality of decades on high-mortality roads. So today we celebrate not just survival, but the person formed by it. And whether or not you read my thoughts, please feel free to open the comments and leave your name with a word or sentence of witness to who Scott has been so far to you.

65 finds us uprooted from the house where we raised our family and spent 23 of our 38 years of marriage (Bundibugyo, the other 15 were Chicago/Baltimore for training, and a long stretch in Kenya), and falling back on the farm inherited from my family. So the transition from the primary learning/working years to the final stretch of life is a threshold not just of time, but of place. God often moves in those liminal zones to get our attention. This year He’s certainly grabbed ours. Not a day goes by that I don’t affirm that I’d rather be in the whirlwind of uncertainty (Stage IV sounds final, but so is life) with Scott than anywhere else without him.

Birthdays and diagnoses leave us pondering: love is stronger than death, AND death’s limiting inevitability is God’s chosen context to refine our souls. So a birthday tribute to Scott is called for. I once wrote a whole retreat on the image of the tree, and this week our Burundi team is basing their retreat on a Tim Keller sermon on Psalm 1 we listened to, plus it’s peak Fall and we’re surrounded by acres of forest. So some thoughts about Scott, my tree, from my heart today.

Stable roots: Scott is dependably present and not easily blown down. He anchors our family and our Area in his trustworthiness. None of us wonder if he’ll abandon his people or his reality. Those roots have spent a lifetime burrowing into the Rock of Ages, holding and being held. We all count on him to do what he says, and to operate out of truth and service. We know he’s choosing what is good for us, not what is easiest for him. We can lean on him, and we do. I wanted to be supporting him this year, but he’s had to carry me through two broken arms. Which he does, for many, without fanfare and without complaining, a stable presence.

Curious branches: Scott’s roots and branches fork and extend continuously: by research, data, reading, talking, listening, engaging. One way he loves his kids is by going to great lengths to understand what they are interested in, to keep up with it, to try. He has always been an athlete, but an American football/baseball/swimming/track star who then embraced soccer, rugby, racing, climbing, and marksmanship as his kids’ and community’s passions led him there. He has always been a stellar student, but he doesn’t rest on laurels for any new problem. He finds the tools and expertise to address new issues in new ways. He loves to work with his hands, to mend, to create, often with a YouTube video teaching him how.

StrOng trunk: One of the hardest challenges of cancer is the severe impact of treatment on core body capacity. Scott has always been someone who can do hard physical labor, and who enjoys strenuous exercise. Some men abandon treatment for these impacts, which is a legitimate metric of accepting a shorter life but opting for a quality important to them. It is difficult to choose the uncertain forward arc of physically diminished but longer days. He has done that for us, and we are deeply grateful for the soul strength that grows paradoxically by limits and suffering.

Tranquil shade: Scott is a person other people like to be around. He has solid friends from every phase of his life. We rest in his leafy shade, because he’s inviting and communal, he does not horde, he welcomes. He hasn’t based his life on pruning back inefficiency to produce wealth. He’s a family medicine doctor, the path of lower prestige but broader capacity. He’s willing to stretch out his arms further to protect more.

Tactical fruit/seed: The Tim Keller sermon on Psalm 1 points out that fruit is seasonal. Our biologic and our Ugandan “fostered” kids are fruit that will have their own seasons, as will the mothers and babies with HIV, the women saved by timely C-sections, the many hundreds of students nurtured by a school whose mentorship and finances he has long carried, team leaders and members in Serge which have grown from a handful to a crowd in his years. Working remotely now feels a little more pine-coney to us, not spectacular fleshy mangoes as fruit but tiny dry potential seeds. 65 years is not long enough to know all the hidden good that Scott has brought to this world, and that’s as it should be. His part is to be rooted, branching, strong, inviting, productive … but earthbound and time bound views are partial. Faith rests on an outside perspective that will make sense of even prostate cancer.

Celebrate 65 years of Scott by leaving a comment, or saying a prayer. I'm selfishly asking for many more.