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My friends,
I ran into Sarah Palin a week or so ago.
Well, not the Sarah Palin — and not comedian Tina Fey, either. Temporarily away from my mission work and visiting old friends at an Irish parish, I was enjoying the (rare) sunshine after Mass, greeting parishioners as they left church, when I noticed a young mother pushing her daughter in a baby carriage. Her child — like all children — was radiant to me, with a shock of orange hair and a smile of beautiful wonderment at just about everything. Her head rolled back and forth as if taking in every bit of Creation around her.
But the young mother’s face was tired and careworn, and she looked many years older than the years she had lived so far.
Her lovely baby clearly had Down Syndrome. As does Sarah Palin’s son, Trig.
“Isn’t she a rose!” I exclaimed as I walked over to them. The mother, who said her name was Bridget, brightened a bit and introduced me to to her daughter, Mary. “She’s ‘special,’ you know, Father. I was late for Mass — could you give her a blessing?”
“She is as blessed as you are, Bridget,” I said, drawing the Sign of the Cross on Mary’s forehead, and then, on her mother’s. She thanked me with great kindness, then hurried away.
I remembered this moment after I made the long journey back to my work, and read about Sarah Palin’s new book, and, inevitably, of the darts thrown at her — sometimes with what seemed great cruelty.
Now, Sarah Palin is a politician, and she has given as good (or as badly) as she gets. Such is the sad reality of a life in the public eye — or is it the public lie? In truth, there is probably not a great deal about her politics and mine that match.
Or that matter.
Life and love do matter, though — more than anything. For they are gifts from Our Loving Father. Politics, while it occupies an important place in this strange world we have created as a poor substitute for God’s Perfect World, is built from human perception. God does not perceive anything; He knows.
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