PAGE SIX





"Please, Lord, just for
an hour, anything
but politics..."









On p.6 of Going Rogue Sarah is still at the Alaska State Fair in late August of 2008. In her mind, as a BlackBerry vibrates, it is just one more call for her to take before she can take Piper on a promised roller-coaster ride; in the Lord's dispositions, the supreme moment has come.

It is as if a giant, invisible hand is pointing down at her from Heaven, and the Lord is saying, "The hour has at length struck, my well-beloved daughter, Sarah! Now begins the great glory and the great fight of thy life, and of thy country's life; now shall the battle be joined in earnest. Behold the roller-coaster ride that I have prepared for thee!!"

Here is how Sarah describes those last moments of her old life, before God, acting through a Vietnam POW and Senator from Arizona, set the compass and course of her life in a fateful new direction:

"At that moment, one of my BlackBerrys vibrated me back to work. I was thankful for the excuse to hustle back into the sunshine. Piper tugged on my arm with sticky fingers, whispering reminders that I'd promised if she was patient I'd take her on a roller-coaster ride, too.

" 'Just this one last call, baby,' I told her.

"I ducked behind the booth, hoping it was my son Track calling from his Army base at Fort Wainwright. He was set to deploy to Iraq soon, and his sporadic calls were something I lived for.

"But in case it wasn't Track, I offered up a silent fallback prayer:

Please, Lord, just for an hour, anything but politics.

"I punched the green phone icon and answered hopefully, 'This is Sarah.'

"It was Senator John McCain, asking if I wanted to help him change history."

How utterly mysterious are God's dispositions for us!! Sarah utters a prayer that the incoming call may be about "anything but politics." Instead, the call was more clearly and unambiguously about politics than, probably, any other call she had ever taken in her life. So, the Lord did not heed, did not answer her prayer.

Or so it might seem at first glance.

But, if we think about the matter for a little while, we may find that, in lieu of not listening to and not granting a prayer, rarely has God more forcefully and positively answered a supplication!!

Think about where Sarah's thoughts and heart were at the instant when that BlackBerry was vibrating, vibrating, "knocking, knocking," at the chamber's door of her mind and of her heart! Her thoughts were all about Piper and Track, two of her beloved children; she was not plotting and "politicking" how she might advance her own power, inflate her own ego, swell her own coffers.

What did God, in effect, say? "THIS is the lady I have chosen for you, America, to inaugurate a season and a time which will not be about 'politics as usual,' but about love for your families, love for your communities, love for your States, love for your country!

"Sarah, my daughter, I hear and I grant thy prayer, on a level far deeper and more complete than thou couldst ever have imagined or conceived. For, during this 'hour' in the life of the United States of America, it shall indeed be a case of 'anything but politics!!!' "

Please, Lord, just for an hour, anything but politics.

After years upon fetid years of lies, of manipulation, of power-mongering, a season is granted unto us in which we can choose a real leader for our nation.

Please, Lord, just for an hour, anything but politics.

After decades of our witnessing the misdeeds and malfeasance of corrupt men and women at all levels of politics, people who at best are weak and misguided and at worst are bent on the explicit overthrow of our country as we have known it, the Lord has given us, in this "hour," a glimpse of a lady after His own Heart.

Please, Lord, just for an hour, anything but politics.

Ah, blessed hour!! For, truly, "what is in a name?" Time is different for the Lord than it is for us. As the Psalmist tells us, "Quoniam mille anni ante oculos tuos, tamquam dies hesterna"--"For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday." And conversely, a moment, a minute, an hour can be pregnant with the depths of the Lord's eternity.

Blessed hour for America...may this divine hour encompass and embrace many more summers, like Sarah's and Piper's warm, bright summer of '08, many autumns, many winters...many springs fecund with verdant hopes and veritable happiness!

An hour of combat...

An hour of testing...

An hour of trials...

An hour of labor...

An hour of striving...

And, yes, if we follow the paths He is opening up to us,...

An hour of never-to-be-forgotten triumph under the aegis and banner of the bright, brave, beautiful Lady of the North Country!!!

Please, Lord, just for an hour, anything but politics.


Read It For Yourself:

Read It For Yourself:

Other Great Sarah Books:

Other Great Sarah Books:

Palin Essentials:

Palin Essentials:

Credits:

All sidebar photos are from Wikimedia. I have tried to post all royalty-free images or to get permission, but in a few cases I could not locate the original source of a photograph or find a way to ask permission.


Contact info: bbrianus@gmail.com.

Other Great Going Rogue Reviews:

Jedediah Bila:

"Palin’s inviting first-person narration that is sometimes whimsical, often confident, and always patriotic...Going Rogue is truly one of those reads in which you put the book down after your eyes graze the final lines and you somehow feel like the writer is someone you’ve known all your life."
John Ziegler:

"I was simply blown away by Going Rogue on almost every level. For many reasons, this is by far the best book and greatest literary achievement by a political figure in my lifetime..."
Brigadier General Anthony J. Tata:
"Her book washes away all doubts that any reader might have had about her readiness to be president. She comes across as exceptionally bright, dedicated, and passionate about public service. Her moral compass is strong, pointing true North in this case. And she has a wicked sense of humor."
Don Surber:
"Conservatives know why Palin is still standing — and standing taller today than those who tried to bring her down. What does not kill you makes you stronger. Thank you, Tina Fey."

Sarah Palin is Coming to Town

Review by Stanley Fish:

When I walked into the Strand Bookstore in Manhattan last week, I headed straight for the bright young thing who wore an “Ask Me” button, and asked her to point me to the section of the store where I might find Sarah Palin’s memoir, “Going Rogue: An American Life.” She looked at me as if I had requested a copy of “Mein Kampf” signed in blood by the author....

A few days later...I had begun reading Palin’s book, and while I wouldn’t count myself a fan in the sense of being a supporter, I found it compelling and very well done....

First, the art. The book has an architectonic structure that is built around a single moment, the moment when Palin receives a call from John McCain inviting her to be the vice-presidential candidate of the Republican party. When we first hear about the call it is as much a surprise to us as it was (at least as reported) to her, because for six pages she has been recounting a wonderful family outing at the Alaska State Fair. When her phone rings, she hopes it might be a call from her son Track, a soldier soon to deploy to Iraq, but “it was Senator John McCain asking if I wanted to help him change history.”

And that’s the last we hear of it for 200 pages. In between we hear a lot about Wasilla, high school, basketball, college, marriage, children, Down syndrome, Alaska politics, the environment, a daughter’s pregnancy. The re-entry of John McCain into the narrative on page 208 introduces Palin’s account of the presidential campaign and its aftermath, especially her decision to resign the governorship before the end of her term....

Paradoxically, the effect of the neatly spaced references to the call is to de-emphasize it as a dramatic moment. It is presented not as a climax, but as an interruption of matters more central to Palin’s abiding concerns — her family, Alaska’s prosperity, energy policy. (She loves to rehearse the kind of wonkish details we associate with Hillary Clinton, whom she admires.)

Indeed, it is a feature of this narrative that events we might have expected to be foregrounded are elided or passed over. Palin introduced herself to the nation with a powerful, electrifying speech accepting McCain’s invitation to join the ticket. It gets half a sentence (“I gave my speech”)....

The only event that receives an extended discussion is her resignation. It is important to her because as an act it reflects on her integrity, and she has to be sure (as she eventually was) that she was doing it for the right reasons.

Resigning was a moral act for which she was responsible. The vice-presidential candidacy just happened to her; her account of it reads like an extended “what-I-did-on-my summer-and fall-vacation” essay.

For many politicians, family life is sandwiched in between long hours in public service. Palin wants us to know that for her it is the reverse. Political success is an accident that says nothing about you. Success as a wife, mother and citizen says everything...

I find the voice undeniably authentic...It is the voice of small-town America, with its folk wisdom, regional pride, common sense, distrust of rhetoric (itself a rhetorical trope), love of country and instinctive (not doctrinal) piety.

It says, here are some of the great things that have happened to me, but they are not what makes my life great and American. (“An American life is an extraordinary life.”) It says, don’t you agree with me that family, freedom and the beauties of nature are what sustain us?

And it also says, vote for me next time. For it is the voice of a politician, of the little girl who thought she could fly, tried it, scraped her knees, dusted herself off and “kept walking.”

In the end, perseverance, the ability to absorb defeat without falling into defeatism, is the key to Palin’s character. It’s what makes her run in both senses of the word and it is no accident that the physical act of running is throughout the book the metaphor for joy and real life. Her handlers in the McCain campaign wouldn’t let her run (a mistake, I think, even at the level of photo-op), no doubt because they feared another opportunity to go “off script,” to “go rogue.”

But run she does (and falls, but so what?), and when it is all over and she has lost the vice presidency and resigned the governorship, she goes on a long run and rehearses in her mind the eventful year she has chronicled. And as she runs, she achieves equilibrium and hope: “We’ve been through amazing days, and really, there wasn’t one thing to complain about. I feel such freedom, such hope, such thankfulness for our country, a place where nothing is hopeless.”

The message is clear. America can’t be stopped. I can’t be stopped. I’ve stumbled and fallen, but I always get up and run again. Her political opponents, especially those who dismissed Ronald Reagan before he was elected, should take note. Wherever you are, you better watch out. Sarah Palin is coming to town.

  © Blogger templates Sunset by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008

Back to TOP