SEVENTY-FIVE
"I drove down to a local café to have breakfast with the regulars..."
On p. 75 of GR, Sarah continues with her reminiscences of her days as Mayor of Wasilla. She writes, "Every Friday morning, I drove down to a local café called the Country Kitchen to have breakfast with the regulars….
"My kids still remember going there with me for an occasional treat before school. They'd have pancakes and I'd drink coffee, sitting with all these lovable old dudes who owned the plumbing store and the construction company and the septic pumpers, and younger blue-collar workers who were actually building the town. I would just listen to what they had to say about how the town's business was being handled.
"They loved to gripe about this and that and tell me how to do my job. I loved listening to their ideas and showing them that I cared. I usually agreed with their take on the world. I learned a lot from them, mostly that I wasn't off base in my thinking about what the people expected from their government. They just wanted it on their side.
"I finally slowed down on that Friday-morning routine when I was pregnant with Piper. Nearly every pregnant woman has something that can make her instantly ill, and the cigarette smoke inside the café kind of nauseated me. Instead of supporting a much-talked-about citywide smoking ban at the time, though, I just stopped going to that restaurant. It eventually went smoke-free on its own, which is the way things like that should work."
Wow: What a wealth and width and breadth of personal and political wisdom and sagacity are contained and comprised in these few deceptively brief and simple words!!
First, Sarah actually LISTENED to her fellow citizens. Don't you guys get the impression that, today, many people are so busy talking and opining and spouting off that they never take a short pause and a quiet moment to listen to and reflect upon what others are saying? BTW, this is one thing I love about C4P: The wonderful dialogues and exchanges of opinions, in a respectful way, that so often take place here!
Let us think about the EARS that the Lord has formed and shaped and created for humankind. Their design and architecture are indeed intricate, indeed so intricate that the ears of his little daughter excited the admiration of the great Whittaker Chambers and helped lead that great man and lofty soul and noble spirit away from the darkness of Communism and to the luminous Throne of the Lord God.
However, unlike many of the animals, we humans (with a few exceptions) cannot actually move our physical ears. I think that there may be a deep lesson and purpose behind this Divine Design. We do not require the keenness and fineness of mere auditory perception that so many of the beasts depend upon for survival.
However, this does not mean that we are not meant to MOVE our ears. IMHO, the Lord asks us to move our ears not physically, but mentally, but morally, but spiritually. He asks us to move, not our outer ears, not even our inner ears, but rather our INTERIOR ears. He asks us to be attuned to, to be open and receptive to, the wisdom that comes our way through our ears, and to MOVE those ears on the moral and mental plane through good, and fruitful and noble actions.
The animals hear sounds and move their ears; we human beings hear sounds but perceive IDEAS, and we then move, not our ears, but our hearts, our spirits, our souls.
This is just what we see Sarah doing here, as she LISTENS TO AND LEARNS FROM her fellow citizens.
Can you imagine the haughty and arrogant Leftist politicians or the pompous, stuffed-shirt "conservative" politicos ever deigning and stooping to learn anything from mere "peasants"!?! Never!!
These pseudo-"aristocrats," these all-knowing "nobles" are already omniscient. Indeed, if they were not born all-wise, they certainly became so the moment they accepted that diploma from Harvard or Yale or Brown!!
Sarah, however, is so very different. She treated and treats her compatriots as human beings who are worthy of respect; worthy of attention; worthy of--dare I say it?--LOVE!!
LOVE THY NEIGHBOR!!!
Let us also observe Sarah's reaction and conduct and behavior when she found that she could not tolerate the cigarette smoke of the Country Kitchen café. She simply stopped going to the place!!
She did not support a smoking ban; she did not try to interfere with the business of the owners of the establishment. She simply stayed away from the source of her nausea. Eventually, the café went smoke-free, but it did it on its own, at the choice of its proprietors…FREELY, not by government compulsion or edict or enactment!!
MAGNA ERAT MINIMIS IN REBUS;
MAGNA ERIT MAXIMIS IN REBUS!!
Great was she in the least of things;
Great will she be in the greatest of things!!
Brothers and Sisters, let us pray and pray and pray for Sarah and for her family that, if it be the Lord's will, she may RECONSIDER her decision.
America needs this noble lady with a servant's heart, who will listen to her people; who will respect her people and their God-given Liberty; who will LOVE her people…always!!!
