EIGHTY-ONE
Clean-up
On p. 81 of GR, Sarah is talking about 9/11. She writes about what her mom and dad did at the time of the terrorist attack. She writes, "My parents would travel from Wasilla to New York in the aftermath of 9/11 to work near the World Trade Center. Their temporary job with the USDA Wildlife Services involved keeping predators and pests away as detectives searched through evidence and remains transported to the nearby Fresh Kills landfill."
She then changes subjects: "By the time I was thirty-eight, my second term [as mayor] was winding down and I was about to be term-limited out of office. Meanwhile, several people approached me saying they hoped I'd stay in public service. Not politicos, just ordinary people.
"As president of the Conference of Mayors, I saw so many needs around the state, places where I felt I could help. But I had no interest in running for the state legislature. I did not think I would do well in a place where you had to scratch disagreeable backs in order to secure a nameplate in the caucus."
I think that, if we juxtapose these two passages, we may observe that Sarah and her family are true and veritable Servant Leaders; we see how they want to relate to their fellow human beings.
Let us take Chuck and Sally Heath first. While I cannot speak for them, I suspect that they might, under ordinary circumstances, have felt quite uncomfortable mingling in a society like that of New York City, in a world and in a milieu which is so starkly and strikingly at odds with the vigorous culture and life of the Great Land.
However, this was not the case when, because of the tragedy of September 11, relationships between people were lifted and elevated from the plane and level of the ordinary to the extraordinary. Sarah's parents came as Americans to bring help and charity to fellow Americans who had just been staggered under the vicious and diabolical blow of a common foe.
There is nothing mediocre or ignoble about the wonderful Heath and Palin families. When times are difficult, when the bitter and cruel winds of fate blow and swirl, biting gusts that try and test the timber and mettle and moxie of the souls of men and women, these are the hours when our heroes of the North Country excel and conquer!!
Whatever they do, wherever they are, there is something ROYAL about the souls and spirits of these blessed folks!! Even if they are carrying out the simplest of tasks, like hunting or fishing in Alaska, or like helping the victims of terrorism in NYC, they are servants who are never SERVILE but free, but brave, but gallant, but unbowed and unconquered.
I mean no disrespect if I make a brief comparison to the Son of God. Even at the moment when He was washing the feet of His Apostles on Holy Thursday, as an example of fraternal charity and love, even as He performed this "servant's" work, He remained King, He remained Lord!!
I think Sarah's family exemplifies this spirit. We are a Republic; we have no "royalty," no "nobility" of privilege and of blood. However, we can and we do possess a Royalty of Bravery, of Gallantry, of Self-Sacrifice, of Charity.
Sarah's family members are perfect exemplars of this phenomenon that goes back to George Washington. The gentleman warrior and statesman of Virginia refused to become "King of the United States of America"; however, he already was a "king," not with an outward crown of gold, but with the interior wreath and crown of a golden and noble and deathless spirit and heart!!
In this connection, let us briefly examine what Sarah says in the second passage here.
She did not want to become a state legislator, and play the game of mutual "back-scratching." Sarah's free spirit is best suited to EXECUTIVE positions, where she can sit in the saddle and lead people into battle.
We observe both in Sarah and in her parents a grandeur and greatness of soul. Whether they are performing the humblest of tasks, or leading a charge into a battle in which it may be necessary to lay down life itself, they always manifest servants' hearts; they are Servant Leaders. This apparent oxymoron "servant leader" in fact involves no contradiction, but instead designates and reveals the highest calling to which a man or woman can respond.
I think too that we may gain insight here into the question of whether or not Sarah would ever desire or seek an office like that of a US Senator. While one can certainly serve the People in such a position, I doubt that it would be suited and fitted to Sarah's gifts of mind and soul.
Let us conclude then by observing the Freedom and the Love that mark the relationships of Sarah and her family to their various communities. There is nothing sordid or mediocre or small or petty here. Instead we witness that they always make a Free Gift of themselves, wherever they are, whatever they do.
If anyone would question this statement, I would cite the testimony of the tens of thousands who have been privileged to meet Sarah in the last three-plus years, and have seen straight through her luminous eyes into her beautiful American soul!!
They are all clothed with the noble generosity of Freedom.
In 2001, Chuck and Sally came down from the far-distant Great Land to help New York City in its hour of supreme agony.
In 2013 may a gracious and merciful Lord send Sarah Palin from Wasilla to Washington, DC in our nation's supreme hour of peril and danger!!!
WASILLA TO WASHINGTON: DEO VOLENTE, SARAH 2012!!!!
