by Paul Cwalina
“We’ve had the opportunity to discuss so many issues that a great nation like ours needs to discuss and debate. They are all important and I look forward to discussing them further with you and Congress come January. Tonight, though, I want to talk to you about another issue, a deeper issue that I believe to be of paramount importance.
“It was back in September in this very city of Scranton, in my beloved home state of Pennsylvania, that a sixteen year-old boy shot and killed a taxi driver in cold blood. The taxi driver was, by all accounts, a good and simple man earning a living to support his family. When the boy was arrested, television reporters assembled at the courthouse, waiting for him to be brought before a magistrate to be arraigned. As he was led down the hallway, a reporter asked him why he killed the taxi driver. He very coldly responded, ‘He disrespected me.’
“A day hasn’t gone by in the weeks since that day that I haven’t thought about that shooting or the young man’s chilling response to his cold-blooded act. It is difficult to put into words how one feels about and reacts to something like that. I confess, I am at a loss for words.
“I am before you tonight, though, to say this. Ladies and gentlemen, we have lost our way. As a society, as a country, we have lost our way. When a sixteen year-old boy will point a loaded gun at the back of a man’s head and have no second thoughts about pulling the trigger to snuff out the unique life of a father, a husband, a son, a brother, we have lost our way.
“This is only one of so many similar incidents we see on the television and the internet that are happening and will continue to happen all across America, a country that I must say, as a sixty-five year-old man like myself, is barely recognizable from the one I knew in my youth. No, I’m not interrupting your favorite crime drama to talk about real crime or to announce any initiative or legislation aimed at curbing such violence. No bill or legislation, no matter how well-intentioned or designed, would have stopped this boy’s crime or any of the other senseless, violent crimes that are committed on a daily basis, because the root cause of the problem is one of the heart.”
Where is he going with this? He talks about crime, then says he’s not talking about any new policy or initiative to reduce crime.
“Our sixteen year-old murder suspect, my friends, did not form in a vacuum. He was created, in our very presence, guided along the way by the example set by our own collective hearts that have been ever-hardening against the very sanctity of life. His callousness is simply a more extreme form of our own. His crime was a manifestation of all the wrong that we have allowed into our society and the lesser things we have chosen to cherish in our society.
“The legendary football coach, Vince Lombardi, when he first took over as coach of the Green Bay Packers, wanted to break his new team of their losing habits and install his winning brand of football. He addressed his new team with the goal of stripping them of what they knew and to build them back up with his approach, his system and his playbook. Holding a ball in the air, he said to the team, ‘Gentlemen, this is a football.’ My fellow Americans, we must rediscover and understand the basics.
“Let us learn about life and its value once again. Life is that wonderful, mysterious animating force that makes us, and all of the animals, unique, with special roles and places in God’s creation.” When he said that, it sounded familiar. I flipped back in my notebook and found that I had written the exact same thing a couple months prior. Wow. That was cool.
He continued, “We are not trees that must forever stand in one place until we are felled by an axe, never knowing the value of friendship. We are not rocks that can neither feel a cool breeze on a hot day nor know what it is like to love or be loved. We are not dust that is at the mercy of the wind to determine where it will lie and when it will move. Life is what separates us from these things, what separates earth from all of the other planets, and we’ve lost sight of how precious that is.”
At that, I rose from my chair and felt my jaw drop as I again flipped through the notepad to find those very words. “He’s reading what I wrote…verbatim!” I said out loud to nobody.
“The question is, my friends, do we appreciate that? Do we respect the sanctity of it? Do we view it as divinely given or is it just another disposable material to be used, extinguished and tossed aside like a used paper towel or plastic fork?
“Here is what I find so fascinating and maddening all at the same time when I discuss this issue with people everywhere. There are such good, well-intentioned people who fight so hard in defense of animals and give a voice to those that are voiceless. They see the inherent value of the lives of those animals and are driven to make sure they are protected and respected. The people involved in these causes understand the connectedness and harmony of God’s design. They understand what animals offer to man and work to help open our eyes to what man can offer in return, and respecting their lives in the process.
“Yet, whenever they gather or travel to an event or a protest, they will undoubtedly pass an abortion clinic somewhere along the way, where the lives of human babies are being snuffed out, their bodies ripped from their mothers’ wombs. And while they will fight with their last breath for the well-being of a cat or a raccoon, they will also use that dying breath to make sure a mother can kill her pre-born human child.
“Likewise, my friends who fight in the pro-life cause —wonderful, gentle people — who assemble outside of abortion clinics and, like their counterparts in the animal rights movement, are there to give a voice to the voiceless as they are being led away to slaughter, and caution their unsuspecting mothers who are mostly unaware of the physical and long-term emotional risks to which they will be subjecting themselves. These selfless souls who volunteer their time for no reward or recompense, enduring scorn, mocking, and insults, and enduring being spat upon and threatened, recognize the inherent value and rights of those pre-born children and plead not only for mercy for those precious babies, but the well-being of those misguided mothers as well.
“Like their counterparts, their work is done in the shadows of animals being abused, their lives devalued, just to bring them cheaper and more convenient food. Hens that have had their beaks ripped from their faces and talons removed so they won’t injure their cage-mates, are stuffed into that cage never to walk the earth or see the sun, while their bodies are turned into feathered factories tasked with supplying more and more eggs until their bodies simply give out and are cast into the trash. Cows, vegetarian by design, are fed beef for the sake of expediency, convenience, and lower costs, while they mourn the loss of their young who were taken from them, just as happens to so many others in the animal kingdom for the sake of the mass production of our food supply and our entertainment.
“Can both sides not see that they are both right? Are we all so stubborn and wedded to our prideful adherence to each cause that we cannot see that both are right; that we both are working, however feebly, toward returning to God’s original design? Can we simply stop watching all of the talking heads on television, who are paid to divide us, and stop shouting and posting at each other on social media? Can we all finally just talk to one another?
“Folks, I believe the time has finally come to make life, and the respect for it, the central organizing principle of our country and everything it does. Is there anything more basic and true than that? How could anything wrong or non-productive come from having respect for life at the core of everything we do and every law we pass? If we, as people, as Americans, cannot come to a common agreement on that, I fear that all of what we have built as a nation is at risk and all will eventually be lost.
“If we cannot, or refuse to, respect life in all of its forms, will it really matter what our GDP is? Will it matter what our immigration policy is or what the NASA budget is? Have we not lost our way if we cannot agree on the simple yet profound issue of life? Is not the respect for life foundational to any public policy? If we cannot get that right, I submit to you that we cannot get anything right.
&n
bsp; “Throughout our history, we have sacrificed the lives of our soldiers in pursuit and defense of our collective freedom, yet we’ve sacrificed the lives of more than fifty-five million of our defenseless and voiceless brothers and sisters in pursuit of a false and selfish individual freedom. We marshal our resources to protect our money, our land and all of our material things in both peaceful and troubled times, but we refuse to do the same for the most vulnerable of those among us.
“If we worship the dollar alone and the only end game of capitalism is cheap goods, then we will turn a blind eye to animal cruelty for the sake of cheaper food. If we worship ourselves alone we will continue to turn the same blind eye to the dismemberment and slaughter of defenseless human babies for the sake of a nicer car or the false thought that life will be so much easier and better without a child. Did you know that in the time of Moses and Joshua and David, people sacrificed their children to a false god named Baal by dropping them into a fire? Baal’s promise to the parents was that their lives would be better and easier without their children, just like the false promises that our culture of death makes to mothers and fathers today. There is nothing new under the sun.
Okay, that last part wasn’t mine, but everything else….
“As I conclude, let me repeat what I said at the beginning. We have lost our way. The most disturbing part to me, though, is that we either don't recognize it or we refuse to do so. We believe ourselves to be just fine. We see each other as good enough that we can tolerate the bad we’ve produced. God the Father, though, does not see us that way. He sees us as that unrepentant sixteen year-old boy, breathing His air, drinking His water, and willfully cursing Him and disrespecting Him and his commandments on a daily basis. Yet, in spite of all of that, He so loved the world that He sent his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, to take the punishment from a just God for our sake, so that anyone who repented and turned away from their sins and placed their faith in Jesus Christ would be saved and enjoy eternal life.
“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for spending this time with me. May the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob bless you and may He also bless the United States of America.”
I was slack-jawed and stood staring at the television trying to comprehend what I had just witnessed. Governor John Peters had just committed political suicide, and he used my words to do it. I was a political Dr. Kevorkian.
Reaction was swift and it was brutal. Social media exploded with only about twenty percent of the people defending the speech. The other eighty percent vilified him, even many of his supporters. The political analysts and talk show hosts weren’t sure what to say at first. It seemed they all had the same look of disbelief on their faces. Once they got over the initial shock, though, they began their interactions with their equally surprised guests. The accusations and speculation were predictably wild, with some even suggesting that he must have been medicated.
I received over thirty texts in the minute or so after the governor signed off. I replied with one text to the whole group. ‘This thing is over! *HIGH FIVE*’
That feeling lasted a day or two until I saw one of the weekly news magazines that had as its cover a cartoon of Peters hanging on a cross with the headline “A Campaign Goes to Hell”. I wasn’t the kick-a-man-when-he’s-down type of guy. In spite of its tasteless cover, though, the sentiment was fairly accurate. Not only did our lead jump in North Carolina but two states, Florida and Michigan, which had been solidly in Peters’ column, became tossups. By election day, everyone knew it was over. The voting nearly turned out to be a formality.
At 11:30 on election night, Governor Peters made the concession call to Rick, who made his way to the stage with a smiling Vicki holding his hand and waving cheerfully to the cheering crowd. There it was. We had done it. I was part of electing a man president of the United States and leader of the free world. When I should have felt elation, though, I felt empty instead. The victory wasn't what I imagined.
I couldn’t put my finger on exactly why the victory was unsatisfying, but it became clear about a week and a half later. On the first Monday following election day, I received a call from a number in the seven-one-seven area code. I wanted to press the ‘ignore’ button, but pressed ‘answer’ by mistake. A woman, identifying herself as Ruth and executive assistant to Governor John Peters asked my name. When I confirmed it for her, she said, “The governor would like to meet with you this Friday in his office. He will pay for your flight and any other expenses. Will you be able to meet that day?”
Okay, where’s the hidden camera?
“Ma’am,” I said. “Are you sure you have the right person?”
“I am, and you can call me Ruth.”
“Ruth, you sound convincing, but who put you up to this? Did Greg get you to do this?”
“Sir, I assure you, I am Governor Peters’ executive assistant and he, indeed, wants to meet with you.”
“Can you tell me what it’s about? I mean, does he know I was a speechwriter for Rick Roman’s campaign?”
She chuckled. “Yes, sir, he is quite aware.”
“Um…okay, I guess,” I said. Even though I was taken aback, I had to go if only to find out how he got his hands on my notepad or essay.
“All right sir, give me your email address and I will send the airline ticket. We will have a car with driver waiting at the airport,” she said cordially.
I flew into Harrisburg airport that Friday morning, had a quick lunch with the driver and arrived at the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion ten minutes before my one o’clock meeting. My palms were sweating and my leg was twitching as I sat in a Victorian-style arm chair a few feet from Ruth. There was only one terrifying thought that kept running in a loop in my mind. I called this man a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal. I called him a backward, woman-hating, religious wingnut and extremist. Yeah, this should go well.
“The governor will see you now,” Ruth said professionally.
As we entered the governor’s office, Peters stood up and made his way around the desk. With a wide, warm smile and a very friendly handshake, he greeted me. As he did, I recalled the time that Jennifer told me about Judas kissing Jesus just before the Roman soldiers arrested Jesus.
“So good to finally meet you. I’ve been looking forward to this day,” he said, not at all as gloomy as man who just lost a presidential election a week prior should have felt. He pointed to the guest chairs in front of his desk and said, “Sit, please. Make yourself comfortable.”
I’ll sit, but I’m a long way from comfortable.
“Son, I won’t keep you long. I’m sure you must be wondering why I asked you here today,” he said
“Well, the thought had certainly crossed my mind. I can’t lie.”
“First, let me congratulate you and your team on your victory. That was a well-run campaign. You should be proud,” he said genuinely.
“That’s remarkably gracious of you, governor. Thank you.”
“Certainly. The real reason I asked you here, though, is so that I could thank you in person.”
“Thank me?”
“For the speech.”
“Well, I was hoping to ask you about that. I’m sorry, but before we go any further, I need to ask how you got that.”
“Well, you sent it to me, didn’t you? In fact, you sent a bunch of them. There was one sent to me here at the mansion, one sent to my wife, one sent to my attention at the capitol building, one sent to the speaker of the house with a note to give it to me, one sent to me at my campaign headquarters, one sent to my campaign manager, again with a note to give it to me…”
“Actually, I didn’t, sir,” interrupting him. “That’s what has me confused and curious.”
The governor then called Ruth and asked for all of the envelopes which were sent bearing a copy of the speech. She quickly brought them in and Governor Peters motioned to her to give them to me. As soon as she handed them to me, I recognized Jennifer’s handwriting. “I knew it. My wife is culprit,” I said.
&n
bsp; “So it was your wife who sent them?”
“Appears so,” I said with a smile. “I’m sorry if she bothered you.”
“Not at all. A good wife is such a gift from God. You’ve obviously been blessed with one.”