The Word's Eye View

It seems that John McCain threw the Democrats an inside fastball with his pick of Sarah Palin as his running mate. It was one of those pitches that made it impossible to get the hands and bat in a hitter’s position quickly enough. In an effort to keep from looking foolish, the batter protested by claiming the intention was to brush the mighty Casey out of the box.

The managers of the media rushed from the dugout to ridicule Mrs. Palin’s lack of foreign policy experience. The shortstop sauntered to the hill to quip that Gov. Bill Clinton probably had less prior to his ascension to the White House unless you consider Arkansas a foreign country.

Strike two came when Mrs. Palin gave her speech with such style, grace and conviction that the opponent immediately cried “spit ball” and demanded an umpires’ investigation into the activities of a seventeen-year-old.

The Chicago bomber called for a timeout and received some new signals from the third base coach; perhaps a more subtle approach…say, a bunt from a fixed position. The insinuation that it’s entirely appropriate for a liberal woman to engage in politics, a career and anything else she desires, but a right wing female should stay home in her doublewide, barefoot, needing dental work, with a child in each arm…that implication will meet the challenge of the hurler.

The man on the mound must be prepared for this change in strategy. True conservatism finds its roots in the Scriptures, and so that should be the rule book for the team on the field. It’s true enough that the primary presentation of the Bible puts men in places of high authority in politics, military engagement and economics, but there are some notable exceptions that cannot be ignored.

In Judges chapter four Israel has been subjugated by the Canaanites for twenty years. Deborah, a prophetess and the wife of Lapidoth, was the Golda Meir or Margaret Thatcher of her day, and an oppressed nation harassed by enemies looked to her for leadership. She conferred with her five star general, Barak, and issued a declaration of war. Barak refused to go to the battlefield against Sisera, the opposing general, unless Deborah accompanied him. She accepted the demand with this prophecy, “I will surely go with thee: notwithstanding the journey that thou takest shall not be for thine honor; for the Lord shall sell Sisera unto the hand of a woman.”

The narrative continues with a description of the defeat of the Canaanites and the cowardly retreat of Sisera to the tent of someone he perceived to be an ally. The lady of the house, Jael, invited him in and implied safety. In his exhaustion she offered him milk and a place to sleep which concludes in verse 21, stated better that I can: “Then Jael Heber’s wife took a nail of the tent, and took an hammer in her hand and went softly unto him, and smote the nail into his temples, and fastened it into the ground: for he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.” I don’t know if she was wearing lipstick, but there is a real hockey mom!

In II Kings 22 Josiah the king was confronted with the words of the living God with the rediscovery of the Scriptures. Being distraught, his only conclusion was the great necessity of advice and help to make the wrongs of the nation right. His source of accurate information came from another prophetess named Huldah. Because of her direction Israel experienced a great reformation that brought exceptional benefits.

Proverbs 31 describes a “virtuous woman” who not only attends to all the needs of her family but engages in a variety of economic activities including a visionary entrepreneurialism.

Liberals attempt to paint conservative women into a box that the Bible systematically rejects. Could it be that a lady from the farthest corner of the country could be the upending of the coronation of Prince Obama? Could it be that John McCain’s inside fastball will be the pitch of the century and Casey will have to limp back to Mudville?