More Providential: Dr. Seuss Predicts Gov. Palin's Career?

On September 4, 2009 - a year and a day after Gov. Palin gave her Vice Presidential Acceptance Speech - I wrote Providential: Dr. Seuss Predicts Gov. Palin's Career?. I wrote that in Oh, The Places You'll Go, Theodor Seuss Giesel - Dr. Seuss - appears to have predicted Gov. Palin's life with 100% accuracy. I noted then that Dr. Seuss did not know Gov. Palin and wrote Places for all of humanity.

Since Gov. Palin just concluded a whirlwind tour that took her to India, Israel, and Naples, Florida last week, now is a good time to take a little stock of where Gov. Palin was versus where she is now, and where she is heading. Perhaps, everyone whose lives Gov. Palin touched might also do well to take some introspective on the changes in our own lives brought about by the changes in her own.

Oh, the Places Gov. Palin Went!

When Providential: Dr. Seuss Predicts Gov. Palin's Career? was written, Gov. Palin had resigned from office only 35 days prior. She had just crossed the Rubicon. She made a leap of faith into a brave new world. She asked us - her supporters to trust in her, and assured us it would all be good. She had not even delivered her first speech for the Washington Speakers Bureau. So much has changed since that September day over 18 months ago. Oh, the Places Gov. Palin Went!

Seeing Great Sights, Soaring to High Heights

Since the time I wrote about Dr. Suess predicting Gov. Palin's career, she went on to author two best-sellers accompanied by major book tours. She is a Fox News Contributor. She produced an eight-part documentary series for the Learning Channel - Sarah Palin's Alaska. She has spoken to audiences all over the United States and in Hong Kong, Canada, and India. She was one of few private citizens anywhere in the world to meet with a country's prime minister to discuss foreign affairs. She held this meeting during the Jewish holiday of Purim, which celebrates Esther, a figure in the Old Testament, Gov. Palin most closely resembles. She endorsed candidates with an overall success rate of over 67% and a success rate of 90% for a sub-group in 20 targeted districts. She conducted interviews not just in the comfort zone of Fox colleagues, but with enemy hosts.

“You’ll be on your way up! You’ll be seeing great sights! You’ll join the high fliers who soar to high heights” (Giesel, 1990, p. 12). Dr. Seuss continued, “You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed. You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead. Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest” (Giesel, 1990, p. 14).

The Lurch and the Slump

Gov. Palin's life during this time was not all supersonic flights and broken glass ceilings left in her wake. She has been savaged in the media. Death threats to Gov. Palin and her family are routine. She's the butt of sexist and misogynist comments from both the left and the establishment right. She was blood-libeled. A stalker moved next door to her and spent last summer penning a hit book on her. Though he's gone, another more dangerous stalker is the subject of a restraining order. She was knifed in the back by supposedly loyal supporters over endorsements they did not agree with, interviews with talk show hosts that did not meet with their approval or jobs they felt were due them as a reward for their prior work. Several times daily, we're treated to Alinsky-esque "reports" on slipping poll numbers, or how "the GOP will use Gov. Palin then discard her with the trash as they nominate some dark horse candidate."

"I'm sorry to say so but sadly it's true that Bang-ups and Hang-ups can happen to you. You can get all hung up in a prickle-ly perch. And your gang will fly on. You'll be left in a Lurch. You'll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump. and the chance are, then that you'll be in a Slump. And when you're in a Slump, you're not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done" (Giesel, 1990, pp. 16-18)

The Waiting Place and Moving Mountains

In a certain sense, even as she flies high, Gov. Palin is now in the Waiting Place - that hybrid of purgatory and limbo - as she considers answering her summons to Revive, Renew, and Restore Reagan Conservatism by running for President in 2012. But, I believe her time in the Waiting Place ultimately will lead to Dr. Suess's final prediction, and his final words in the book that was his final gift to humanity:

Kid, You'll Move Mountains!

In many Gov. Palin already has moved mountains in her lifetime of accomplishments, and yes this prediction has been fulfilled in terms of those. But, her biggest mountains yet await. There are more mountains for Gov. Palin to move, that will make her prior ones seem like mere foothills - these new mountains are why she is now in the Waiting Place.

When she moves her next mountain, Gov. Palin will also build a new one. What used to be a glass ceiling will be a mountain of broken glass when the biggest sonic boom and roar ever heard causes the world to shake and tremble as she flies high overhead and shows the world what a woman can do.

Supersonic Sarah: The Last Glass Ceiling

References

Giesel, S. T. and Giesel, A. S. (1990). Oh, the Places You'll Go! (New York: Random House).