EIGHTY-EIGHT

"How she has loved..."

On p. 88 of GR, Sarah continues her discussion of her actions in 2002, when she supported other candidates for Mayor of Wasilla against Todd's stepmother, Faye Palin, a choice that she confesses and admits was wrong.

She writes, "The truth was, I had let the heat of politics get in the way of family. Faye would never have done that to me. In fact, even though we disagree on some issues, when I later ran for VP, she worked incredibly hard for John McCain and me, traveling around the nation to campaign for us. She and Jim helped lead successful efforts in some of the western states.

"But that's what politics can do to you if you don't catch yourself: the heat of battle causes a little core of self-centeredness to harden in your heart, so subtly that you're not even aware of it."

I would like to focus this morning on one word from this citation: "self-centeredness." On the natural level of the universe, self-centeredness is essential to the normal order of and working of the cosmos.

From the atom to the solar system and beyond, we see that bodies tend to draw and drag elements, via the pull of gravity, into their orbit. IMHO, the Lord, on the supernatural level, has established a contrary force to the CENTRIPETAL impetus, the "self-centeredness," that is regnant and regular in the natural order and nature of things.

We are enjoined and commanded in the Great Commandment to love the Lord and to love our neighbor; we are commanded to REACH OUT, to stretch forth, to get out of ourselves. We are to be CENTRIFUGAL!!

It is this centrifugal force and impulse that establishes those RELATIONS that hold societies together, just as the centripetal force of gravity on the natural level holds the vault of the cosmos together.

Our pious relations with the Lord; Our pious relations with our families and with our friends; Our pious relations with our local communities; Our pious relations with our home States; Our pious relations with our country; These are the relations without which we would have, not a society of any kind, but total chaos.

Our dear Sarah humbly admits, in the passage that is quoted above, to what was, IMV, a very small fault and delict in the matter of Faye Palin and the 2002 Wasilla mayor's race. In contrast to this one tiny slip and stumble, witness the ardent, self-sacrificing, CENTRIFUGAL force of her whole brave and gallant life!!! How she has loved her Lord and God!!!

How she has loved her husband, her parents, her siblings, her precious children … all of her family and her friends!!! How she has loved Wasilla, and has done so much good for her hometown!!! How she has loved her dear Alaska, and has done probably more than any other Alaskan ever to spread far and wide knowledge of and appreciation for the multi-faceted treasures and wonders of the Land of the Midnight Sun, the Great Land!!!

How she has loved, with a fearless, intrepid, fiery, unquenchable, self-sacrificing ardor and flame, these United States of America--hers is the love of the Great Eagle for her eaglets: All of the ordinary men, women, and children of this land of ours!!!

The Lord, IMHO, has established these two forces and impulses of the natural power of the centripetal and the supernatural force of the centrifugal to hold the cosmos, physical and spiritual, in balance and equilibrium.

If the Lord grants it, the God-centered, family-centered, Wasilla-centered, Alaska-centered, America-centered, NOT SELF-CENTERED life of our brave Lady of the North Country will help lead us out of the wilderness and exile of the obama years and into a bright new day and dawn of Freedom!!

Whenever the gravity and weight and sorrow of these troubled times presses heavily upon our shoulders and upon our souls, let us counter it and respond to it as Sarah has: With an inextinguishable outreach of charity for the land that we love. DEO VOLENTE, SARAH 2012!!!


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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