PAGE ELEVEN

They planted and sowed and trusted in the Lord...

On page eleven of Going Rogue Sarah continues with her account of the character and times of her forebears. Her grandpa "CJ" is a particularly fascinating figure to me because, as we learn elsewhere from Sarah, he had a love for the Latin language! However, I would like to cite here what she says about her grandmother, Helen.

"My grandmother Helen studied at the University of Idaho, then put her talent and intelligence to work as a homemaker, raising six active kids while working for the Red Cross...She worked tirelessly. My aunts tell me she was the hardest-working housewife they ever knew; they'd come home from school to see Grandma's bloody knuckles from her reupholstering projects...She laid the foundation for volunteerism in the family."

What a beautiful testimony to a great testament!!!

What was it that our Sarah said to Chris Wallace on Super Sunday back in February, when he asked her, during his Fox News Sunday interview, what she most wanted to do for her country? As I recall, she said that first and foremost she wanted to be a good mom, and to raise happy, responsible, independent kids. This is a legacy and troth and trust passed on through the generations that is more lasting and firm and enduring than any legacy of gold and silver!!!

"Gold and silver," that is, money, has a certain fecundity (though Aristotle begged to differ!); money begets money; wealth begets wealth. There is nothing wrong with a just return on one's money. We are not obama "redistribute-the-wealth" socialists here!! However, I do wonder if an even more lasting legacy was planted and set in place by Sarah's ancestors.


Let us ponder for a moment those long, long years of Grandma Helen's labors in the quiet obscurity of the citadel of a home. Let us think of the hidden, but precious to the All-Seeing Lord, labors of Sarah's other ancestors.

They patiently planted and sowed and trusted in the Lord...

They patiently planted and sowed and trusted in the Lord...

They patiently planted and sowed and trusted in the Lord...

They patiently planted and sowed and trusted in the Lord...

They patiently planted and sowed and trusted in the Lord...

Just as cat begets cat, dog begets dog, lion begets lion, and yes, dollar begets dollar, so, I believe, the obscure, hidden, silent suffering and labors of Helen, of Helen's own forebears, of Sarah's own mom, have, at length, brought forth...what...what...?

A lady marked by Heaven to be not only mom to her own kids, but Mother of Her Country.

Ah, how, I suppose, any haters on the Left who may see this will mock it and rail at it and ridicule it. However, I don't give a DAMN!!! I only want to know if this is not perhaps the truth. I think it is. There is something in Sarah's great heart, her mom's heart, that has prepared her, descending as she does from a long line of undaunted keepers of the flame of the home, to play a role parallel to that of George Washington, Father of His Country.

And here at length is the final rebuttal to the hypocrisy of some on the Left who, suddenly conceiving a concern for "family values," would bleat out, "No, no, Sarah cannot be President; she has to be at home with her kids." Yeah, right, like they care!!

No, no, Sarah, I believe, has a special calling to be POTUS and mother of her country, and will best serve her own kids, and all the children of our great land, by assuming a mantle that only she can bear, because the Lord Himself, in conjunction with and in cooperation with generations of her ancestors, has woven it thread by patient thread for her, all through the lonely, dusty path of these long years. Now, at length, He is revealing it, and is preparing to place it on her strong Alaskan shoulders, in these fateful days through which we are living.

Invincible and perfect and eternal are the words and works of the Lord!!


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.

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