EIGHTY-THREE

"Let there be a connecting string between You and me, so that I can fly high and safe...I will go where You want me to go. I'll be what You want me to be."

On p. 83 of GR, Sarah is discussing the time, near the end of her tenure as Mayor of Wasilla, when she was considering her political future. She writes, "Still, the lieutenant governor's spot seemed like a good next step for me. It was an administrative position where I could put my executive experience to good use.

"During that time, I was reading Willow a book called "The Flyaway Kite." The metaphor of this book worked its way into my spiritual life and my whole way of thinking. I wrote a contemplative prayer in my journal that summer that I recently came across.

"I had written: 'Let me not become disconnected from You, Lord. Like that red kite, let there be a connecting string between You and me, so that I can fly high and safe as You've created all people to do. With that string, I will go where You want me to go. I'll be what You want me to be. Thank You for Your grace.'

"Somehow I knew that God was working on something significant in our small-town life, and I felt myself seeking something ahead. Still, I prayed to be content with what I had, even if that meant that my political career would end in Wasilla City Hall."

What a powerful and scintillating testimony these words are to a servant's heart and to a beautiful and brave soul!!!

She is ready boldly to venture forth and aloft, like a kite, wherever the Hand and Scepter of Providence may lead her; yet she is also content to accept a decision of Heaven that will end her political career in the mayor's office, and that, like the string on the kite, will hold her back from advancing any further.

She is neither too timid and too afraid to tackle any future charge and task and office that the Lord may lay upon her shoulders, nor is she possessed of the selfish and overweening and destructive ambition that would take her along paths not destined and marked for her by Providence!!

And very importantly, however far and high she may sail, she will never sever herself from the loving and caring "kite string" of the Lord's will for her and for her life!

Behold, here is a heart like the great heart of the Father of Our Country, George Washington.

Behold, here is one who, precisely because she is reluctant to serve unless she is truly called to serve, is verily suitable and apt and fit for the highest office in our land.

Behold, here is one who, IMHO, has been marked out to fulfill, more than two centuries after the passing of the noble gentleman and patriot and warrior and statesman from Virginia, a parallel and complementary role to the one that fell to Washington, the office and glory of being the Mother of Her Country!!!

Let us notice a few other things too about this simple and yet profound passage.

We may perhaps hear a certain echo of St. Paul in Sarah's prayer that she may be content with what she has: "I prayed to be content with what I had." The Great Lion of God admonishes soldiers, for example, to be content with their pay, that is, they are not to augment their money by plundering and robbing from helpless civilians!

I think we see here that Art of the Perfect Balance that only very great spirits can maintain and keep: To be neither too cowardly to reach and grasp for the stars, nor too proud to do so against the dispositions and the will of the Lord!!

Finally, let us observe the wonderful tradition of literature that we witness here being passed down and transmitted in a beautiful family of readers and school teachers!! Sarah's own mom often read aloud to her. We observe Sarah doing the same thing here for her daughter, Willow.

I observed earlier in the course of these reflections how reading aloud animates and vivifies literature:

The First Dimension of the Word is books sitting silently and coldly on their shelves, unread and unheeded.

The Second Dimension of the Word is when someone reads a book silently and alone to himself or herself.

The Third Dimension of the Word is when someone reads aloud to someone else, and communicates, with all the puissance and power of the VOX VIVA, the living voice, the heart and essence of a beautiful piece of literature. Reading of this kind creates a bond of mind and heart and spirit and soul between the reader and the "readee"!!!

Along with the words read, the lector communicates and shares a part of him or herself with the auditor. Reading of this kind gives life, verdant and green life, to the words read, to the reader, and to the listener!!

We may observe yet again how foul and mendacious have been the slanders of the Left against Sarah, that she is unread and stupid!!! The horrible chris matthews was only one example of this vicious lying: On the occasion of the publication in '09 of Going Rogue, he asked how she could write a book, when it was doubtful she could even read one!!! What a terrible thing to say about a member of a family that loves literature.

Well, the lies will pass away, like chaff before the winds of the Spirit…

MAGNA EST VERITAS, ET PRAEVALEBIT--Great is Truth, and She will prevail!!!


Read It For Yourself:

Other Great Sarah Books:

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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