Well, now, then, there, she stood and spoke truth to power. Her truth. Our power. And when we – read: me and my friends only, nobody else -- stand and speak truth to power, it is our truth to their power. Only in our particular speaking to power, the response is: "We are truth." That's the usual ending of any kind of dialogue of laity and hierarchy. Our "we" has a voice, sure, Vox Clamantis in Deserto – A Voice crying in the desert. Me and my friends, that "we, " rarely speak truth to power politics in state, usually hanging in there to speak truth to power in church, keeping both separate, of course, as an unofficial American Doctrine. The other "we" are Democrats and Republicans alike, those who vote, and are not aligned with a rigid Governor from a frigid state. Them's Alaskans. We's Americans. There is a difference.
And so it is, as Governor Palin manifested. Republicans bash Democrats, with Democrats slashing back in matching force and invective, each side with similar weapons: insult and demeanery, lipstick on pit-bulls, distort biographies, destroy reputations, assassinate with jabs and digs. A lot of us watch on, amused, titillated, enthralled at the constant in-fighting, above and below the belt, while both sides are barking and baring their teeth, in a make-believe fight to the finish. And when it's over the lamb will cuddle up to the lion.
In olden times, we -- read: now I mean all of us who went to Jesuit schools -- think of such discourse as Rhetoric, out of the Ratio Studiorum, a/k/a English Comp 102. Weaned on Demosthenes and Cicero, fed Pablum from early Fathers and Doctors of the Church in the first 3 or 4 centuries, smashing down Gnostics, Arianists, sundry other heretics – i.e. no truth, no power – we settled in with two, just two of the best and the brightest: Saints Augustine, 5th century, and Aquinas, 13th. Doesn't seem to be a giant since, not even a tall one. Though, Suarez, SJ, was an in-house favorite for a while. In our time, last century that is, we had a Lonergan, SJ. In our time, 2008, now, nobody. A Karl Rahner, perhaps a Hans Kŭng? As far as I can see or read or hear about, standing speakers now are just a bunch of cockamamie lay people, a bit fired up about taking back our church. We – read: me and my friends, again -- sort of fancy a return to our roots, the tradition before traditions began later on. The First Christians in the First Century, and not thereafter, give or take a decade or two. Saints Peter and Paul and the Apostles, men and women, a large group of women, without caste distinction. Lots of truth, no power, until elders became bishops and bishops grabbed the power and gave it to the one in Rome.
We – read: First Christians and descendants -- muddled along, growing we thought, until the 10th and 11th centuries when papal primacy established itself as The Power. And all bowed down, humbly, meekly, because most of us couldn't read, not even Vernacular, let alone Latin. From there on, it was just a rumble to the Absolute Power so skillfully held tight in fist by Pope John Paul II, and a lesser kind of wishy-washy clutching by his successor, Pope Benedict XVI.
Thus, like Governor Palin of Alaska, we – read: RCC's laity, the few who got fired up, me and my friends, that is -- who stand to speak truth to power, sense an opening and are beginning to steady our feet, after standing for about 5 years. She is just beginning. We're a bit more experienced, bloody, as they say, but unbowed. She's armed, though, with religion and guns. We have but words and hopes, our religion is in tatters, and we're gunless. We're goody-do-goodies. She's a female Constantine, out to shred separation of church and state and make Evangelicalism the religion of state, by which neat strategy, not a little tactic, it will become the state. And all will be one. Her way.
We – me and my friends – pray, in the unity of separation, for her selector: "Poor John McCain. He meant well. Should have tried a Holiday Inn Express after that Hanoi Hilton." One of my friends added. "A heartbeat, they say? Just one?" His best friend, with lipstick, smiles: "He's 72, right? And she's, what? 44?"
Is a campaign like a disputation of theses? A professional, detached, scholarly even, discussion of issues? An exchange of views from around the circle of the political spectrum? Does it resonate like our Classical Education? Demosthenes to Obama. Cicero to Palin. Lesser lights, like Biden and McCain, standing by and watching their champions go at it. And we – read: we the people with votes – think we will decide in November. We thought that before, too. Remember? Was it Florida? Or Ohio? Or that lurking Third Power, the Supreme Court, sort of a Paraclete ready to step in and correct errors of judgment? So to speak . . . infallibly. Ah! For the good old days when stuff was simple and politics was local . . .
In the meantime, it's going to be fun, while ducking the danger, to watch the cavemen and their women banging away with their clubs, setting loose a pit-bull here, a mad-dog there, with or without lipstick. And when it's all over, lions will lie down with lambs, because politicians always strange bed-fellows, from fear of having to sleep alone. We shall, as always, renew four more years of the current administration or change over to whatever it is being promised as a change.
Last, a close friend asks: "Doesn't make much difference who's president, does it?"
His better half responds: "Been there. Done that."
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