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I wanted to fly more than I worried about what I looked like.
On p. 8 of Going Rogue Sarah talks about an early memory from her childhood. She speaks as follows:
"One of those wooden sidewalks was the scene of one of my earliest memories: my attempt to fly. I couldn't have been more than four years old...I kept to the wooden planks that paralleled the town's main dirt road, and as the warm boards echoed under my feet, I got to thinking: I had seen eagles and dragonflies and ptarmigan fly, but I had never seen a person fly. That didn't make any sense to me. Hadn't anyone ever tried it before? Why couldn't someone just propel herself up into the air and get it done?
"I stopped and looked up at the summer sky, then down at the dirt road below. Then I simply jumped. I didn't care who might see me. I wanted to fly more than I worried about what I looked like. My knees took most of the impact, and I scraped them both.
"Well, that didn't work, I thought. So I got up, dusted myself off, and kept walking."
Simple words!! Yet, I think many pages of reflections could be written on different aspects of them. However, I would like to focus this early morning on the following:
"I didn't care who might see me. I wanted to fly more than I worried about what I looked like."
It is my contention that one of the greatest of spiritual evils flows from narcissistic self-love wedded to a concern for the mere outward appearance of things.
One of the most famous lines of the Greek dramatist Aeschylus is the following: --"For he does not wish to (merely) SEEM to be the best, but to BE the best." (the Greek has some accent marks and other things missing).
The antidote for one of the greatest of spiritual evils is here expressed in a very few words. We must strive for reality over mere outward appearance. The Son of God expressed this truth when he referred to the scribes and pharisees as "whited sepulchers." That is, they looked good ("whited," painted over with a clean, bright color) on the surface, but inside they held all the filth and horror of the grave!
When one looks at so many of these Washington politicians, I think the expression "whited sepulchers" would most readily come to mimd. Look at pelosi, for example: she smiles, and smiles, and smiles...but, while only the Lord can ultimately judge her soul, she seems to be all rot and horror within, a vicious, corrupt, thuggish brute of a politician, who long ago threw away her humanity for the pursuit of raw power.
What is it that Hamlet says, as I recall, about his murderous uncle, the usurping King Claudius? "Damnable, smiling devil...a man can smile, and smile, and smile and still be a devil; at least I know it is so in Denmark" I don't have the quote exactly right, since I am citing from memory, but the gist is correct, I think.
The whole crowd, obama, pelosi, reid, all of them, are truly WALKING LIES, LIVING CORPSES (yes, barack, you do pronounce the "p" in that one!!) For decades and decades they have carefully cultivated an appearance that has nothing to do with their reality.
(BTW, this does not mean that we may not sometimes legitimately conceal our feelings and thoughts behind the proverbial "poker face"; of course we can. There is a universe of difference and distinction between the momentary concealing, for a good purpose, of transitory thoughts and feelings, and the careful, deliberate crafting of a LIE about one's quasi-permanent character!)
OK, satis superque, "enough and more than enough," "enough already" about these Washington gangsters.
What about our Sarah?
For me, I would stake my very life's breath and blood on this fact: Sarah Palin of Alaska is who she seems to be; she is genuine; she is the "real deal."
And from a very early age she showed a bright, golden character that was/is the polar opposite of that of benighted, pitiful creatures like nancy pelosi and barack obama.
Just look at our passage in question. The four-year-old Sarah wants to fly: and she is not at all concerned or embarrassed about how she might appear to others; she just wants to get it done, if she can.
Has she not continued to follow those grooves and lines of character that she wrought and carved, by her free-will choices, into her own soul from a very young age? Truly, someone who carves a noble character out of his or her own soul is a greater artisan and sculptor than all the finest workers in marble, in stone, in wood from antiquity to the present age!!!
I didn't care who might see me. I wanted to fly more than I worried about what I looked like.
So she acted when she played on a stress-fractured ankle in the Alaska State High-School Basketball Championship game--she might not look smooth and swift on the wounded joint, but she wanted to help her team WIN, and damn the appearances!!
I didn't care who might see me. I wanted to fly more than I worried about what I looked like.
So she acted when, as chairman of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, she challenged the corrupt Randy Ruedrich and Frank Murkowski--she might look like a fool for taking on these "good ole boys," but principal mattered more than preserving a smooth, false surface appearance of "party unity."
I didn't care who might see me. I wanted to fly more than I worried about what I looked like.
So she acted when she "went rogue" during the '08 campaign, calling "a spade a spade," casting obama's radical associates like Bill Ayres and "Reverend " Wright in his face--even though she looked so "uncouth" to the slick, smooth politicos of BOTH parties.
I didn't care who might see me. I wanted to fly more than I worried about what I looked like.
So she acted when she resigned the job , the calling, she loved so dearly, her office of Governor of the Great Land, Governor of the Forty-Ninth State. Well she knew the insulting moniker of "quitter" with which her enemies would try to sear and brand her--but, but, she did what was right and best for herself, for her family, for her State, for her country!
I didn't care who might see me. I wanted to fly more than I worried about what I looked like.
So she has acted in recent months with her relentless denunciations of obama and his policies, especially through her Facebook "missiles"--no matter that she is made to seem outside the "mainstream" of the GOP
I didn't care who might see me. I wanted to fly more than I worried about what I looked like.
Dear Sarah, you ARE flying now, many years later: soaring aloft and carrying on your eagle wings, like the Wind-Lord Eagles in Tolkien, carrying Frodo and Sam to safety--carrying on your wings the hopes and resolve and love of your fellow citizens.
Yes, in the end, she did fly...she is flying!!
