Peggy Noonan

I was at a wedding, standing just off the dance floor, when a pleasant young man in his 20s approached, introduced himself and asked where I’d had my hair done. I shook his offered hand and began to answer, but before I could he said, “I’m gay, by the way.” I nodded as if this were my business, but thought: I wonder why a total stranger thinks I want to know what he wishes to do with his genitals? What an odd way to say hello.

We live in a time in which people routinely violate their own privacy.

I don’t think the young man lacked a sense of privacy. I suspect if I’d said, “Tell me your annual salary,” he would have bridled. That’s personal.

Maybe he wanted me to approve (“That’s wonderful!”) or disapprove (“Unclean!”). Maybe he felt compelled to announce his orientation because homosexuals are so often told that not to declare is to be closeted, and to be closeted is shameful. Maybe he was doing what he thinks he must to do to show integrity.

Whatever his thinking, it has occurred to me that in the old, clucking, busybody America it was not unusual to meet people who needed to be told, “That’s none of your business.”

But in the new and infinitely stranger America there are a lot of people who need to be told, “Buddy, that’s none of my business.”

Or, as people began saying about five years ago, “Too much information!”

*   *   *

Yet there is one change in the national conversation that has been beneficial. It is one case in which the sharing of personal information has struck me as a big step forward.
This is the demystification of illness, especially cancer. It is being demystified by the number of people who have lately come forward to tell people they were ill and to ask for their help. Tony Snow of Fox is one, Peter Jennings of ABC another. Melissa Etheridge came out at the recent Grammy Awards and rocked the house with her brilliance, energy and bald-from-chemo head.

And there is Laura Ingraham. Laura was, as pretty much everyone who reads this column knows, recently diagnosed with breast cancer. At first, like everyone in such circumstances, she was shocked. Then she did an amazing thing. She told friends and family exactly what was happening; then she told her listeners on her popular radio show and asked for their prayers. She gave daily treatment updates on her Web page. Before April, Laura hadn’t been to a gynecologist in 3 1/2 years. Now she is reminding women not to be as “moronic” as she was.

Laura is funny, irreverent, beautiful and about to be married. She once told me that before she met her excellent fiancé she’d met her share of frogs. I teased her that it wasn’t a few, it was more like the ending of “Magnolia.” Her laugh filled the restaurant and made people stare. After she was diagnosed she took a week off from her radio show. But she called in from outside the operating room to report she’d just asked the surgeon if he was offering a lift with the lumpectomy.

It is not possible that her beautiful spirit—and Tony’s, and Peter’s, and Melissa Etheridge’s—isn’t helping people.

*   *   *

Illness used to be considered a personal and intimate matter, and of course it is. But publicizing your struggles with it can save the lives of strangers. The other day the Associated Press reported that more than one-fourth of those who were aware of celebrity urgings to get cancer screenings had gotten such screenings.

Certain illnesses, and cancer is one, have been treated as if they were obscurely shameful. In “Illness as Metaphor,” Susan Sontag said disease arouses dread. An illness “that is treated as a mystery and acutely enough feared will be felt to be morally, if not literally, contagious.” She quoted Kafka writing from his sanitarium: It was hard for him to get accurate information on his tuberculosis because in discussing it “everybody drops into a shy, evasive, glassy-eyed manner of speech.”

In the past people have acted as if illness were an evil predator and not what it is, a condition that can be treated.

So why not open the windows, air it, let everyone know? Why not let those who choose to talk to God talk to God for you? Laura had full convents praying for her. The day of her operation, a Mass was said for her at a small church in Brooklyn, where strangers very specifically prayed for her full recovery.

The other day I called in to welcome her back to her show and she mentioned a friend had questioned her approach. Was it wrong to be so public?

No. It was healthy.

The case of John Bolton is about politics (unhousebroken conservatives must be stopped), payback (you tick me off, I’ll pick you off) and personality. People who have worked with him allege he is heavy-handed, curmudgeonly and not necessarily lovably so.

I don’t know him, but I suspect there’s some truth in it. Do the charges disqualify him to serve as American ambassador to the United Nations? If reports of his behavior are true—he is tough, pushes too hard, sends pressuring e-mails and may or may not have berated a coworker as he threw paper balls at her hotel door—the answer is no.

*   *   *

Bad temper is a bad thing, but in government it’s a flaw with a long provenance. Bob Dole once slammed a phone down so hard it is said to have splintered. Bill Clinton, George Stephanopoulos tells us, used to go into “purple rages.” There is a past and possibly future presidential candidate who would regularly phone one of his staffers at home and ream that person out by screaming base obscenities. (I was impressed to learn the staffer felt free to respond in kind, and did.)

Harry S. Truman, as president, once threatened in writing to kick the testicles of a journalist (a music reviewer who had been nasty about the talents of Truman’s daughter). Lyndon Johnson would physically crowd people and squeeze their arms painfully as he tried to get them to do what he wanted; in his case arm-twisting was really arm-twisting. Richard Nixon is said to have snapped to an aide who came to him with some issue, “You must have me confused with somebody who gives a sh—.” He also physically pushed and humiliated his press secretary, Ron Zeigler.

And so it goes, and all the way back. Jefferson was a man of public dignity and the meanest private plotting. Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton. (I here invite all readers who work in government to give, in one paragraph, their memory of Most Obnoxious Hissy Fit by or Most Appalling Style of any unnamed government official with whom they have worked, and what they learned from it.)

Bad temper is a bad thing in a public servant, but it is not the worst thing. Worse is the person who judges all questions as either career-enhancing or career-retarding, who lets the right but tough choice slide if standing for it will make him controversial and therefore a target. Mr. Bolton apparently never does that. Worse is the person who doesn’t really care that the right thing be done, as long he gets his paycheck. That’s not Mr. Bolton either. Worse still is the cynic who is above caring about anything beyond his own concerns. And that isn’t Mr. Bolton either.

*   *   *

What is interesting to me about the charges against Mr. Bolton is that he has not, apparently, been self-protective in the Washington way. People in government (and media, and the office tower across the street) are often courteous not because they believe deeply in the moral necessity of treating others with respect, but because they know rudeness is impractical. It makes enemies; it gives them something they can use against you. Government is inherently full of disagreement; why look for personal ones? It has long been said that in Washington a friend is someone who will stab you in the front. Mr. Bolton, again if the charges are true, has been a friend to many. He tells people off to their faces. That’s refreshing. As a human tic, if that’s what it is, it is probably more individually controllable than the temptation to damage people behind their backs, which is what people in intense environments more commonly and destructively do.

John Bolton is conceded by all, friends and foes alike, to be very smart, quite earnest, hardworking and experienced (undersecretary of state, former assistant secretary of state, treaty negotiator, international development official and old U.N. hand; he played a major role in getting the U.N. to repeal its 1975 resolution equating Zionism with racism). He is also known as jocular and tough-minded. He has been highly critical of the United Nations. These are all good things.

If he is confirmed he will walk into the U.N. as a man whose reputation is that he does not play well with the other children. Not all bad. He will not be seen as a pushover. Good. Some may approach him with a certain tentativeness. But Mr. Bolton, having been burned in the media frying pan and embarrassed, will likely moderate those parts of his personal style that have caused him trouble. He may wind up surprising everyone with his openness and friendliness. Fine.

Or he’ll be a bull in a china shop.

But the U.N. is a china shop in need of a bull, isn’t it? The Alfonse-Gaston routine of the past half century is all very nice, but it’s given us the U.N. as it is, a place of always-disappointing potential. May not be a bad thing to try something else.

There were many moving and dramatic moments in Rome two days ago, but this is the one I think I’ll remember: the sight of them running.

Did you see them running to St. Peter’s Square as the bells began to toll?

They came running in from the offices and streets of Rome, running in their business suits, in jeans with backpacks over their shoulders. The networks kept showing it in their wide shots as they filled time between the ringing of the bells and the balcony scene.

So many came running that by the end, by the time Benedict XVI was announced, St. Peter’s and the streets leading to it were as full as they’d been two weeks ago, at the funeral of John Paul II.

Why did they run? Why did this ancient news—”We have a pope”—representing such irrelevant-seeming truths and such an archaic institution—send them running?

Why did they gather? Why did they have to hear?

*   *   *

The faith is dead in Europe, everyone knows that. So why did they come?
You say, “They just wanted to be there. It’s history. People are experience junkies. They wanted to take pictures with their cell phones.”

That would be true of some. But why did so many weep as the new pope came out? Why did they chant “Benedict, Benedict” as he stood at the balcony? Why were they jubilant?

Why were so many non-Catholics similarly moved? And why in America, where the church is torn in divisions, did people run to the TV and the radio when word spread?

People are complicated. You can hit distracted people with all the propaganda in the world, you can give it to them every day in all your media, and sometimes they’ll even tell pollsters they agree with you. But something is always going on in their chests. Some truth is known there; some yearning lives there. It’s like they have a compass in their hearts and turn as they will, this way and that, it continues to point to true north.

We want a spiritual father. We want someone who stands for what is difficult and right, what is impossible but true. Being human we don’t always or necessarily want to live by the truth or be governed by it. But we are grateful when someone stands for it. We want him to be standing up there on the balcony. We want to aspire to it, reach to it, point to it and know that it is there.

Because we can actually tell what’s true.

We can just somehow tell.

*   *   *

John Paul II was a great man. We all knew that. Funny how we all knew. And so when word spread that he was dead, they came running.

And because they came running, because four million people engulfed Rome after his death, the eyes of the world were suddenly trained on John Paul’s funeral, which was suddenly an event.

Because the world watched the funeral, they noticed the man who celebrated the mass and gave the eulogy. John Paul II had picked him for that role. He spoke with love. He said John Paul, the old man who always came to the window to greet the crowds and pray with them, was now, today, right at this moment, at the window of his father’s house. It was beautiful and poetic and people—cardinals—who watched and listened to the speaker thought: Yes, that’s true. And the man who was speaking, who even 10 years ago was considered too old and controversial for the job, was suddenly seen by his fellow cardinals, one after the other, as the future pope.

It was impossible. But it happened. No one was really considering Cardinal Ratzinger until that mass.

Those who are pursuing John Paul II’s canonization, please note: his first miracle is Benedict XVI.

*   *   *

We are living in a time of supernatural occurrences. The old pope gives us his suffering as a parting gift, says his final goodbye on Easter Sunday; dies on the vigil of Feast of the Divine Mercy, the day that marks the messages received by the Polish nun, now a saint, who had written that a spark out of Poland would light the world and lead the way to the coming of Christ. The mourning period for the old pope ends on the day that celebrates St. Stanislas, hero of Poland, whose name John Paul had thought about taking when he became pope. We learned this week from a former secretary that John Paul I, the good man who was pope just a month, had told everyone the day he was chosen that he wanted to be called John Paul I. You can’t be called “the first” until there is a second, he was told. There will be a second soon, he replied.
It is an age of miracles and wonders, of sightings of Mary and warnings, of prophecy, graces and gifts.

The choosing of Benedict XVI, a man who is serious, deep and brave, is a gift. He has many enemies. They imagine themselves courageous and oppressed. What they are is agitated, aggressive, and well-connected.

They want to make sure his papacy begins with a battle. They want to make sure no one gets a chance to love him. Which is too bad because even his foes admit he is thoughtful, eager for dialogue, sensitive, honest.

They want to make sure that when he speaks and writes, the people of the world won’t come running.

What to do to help? See his enemies for what they are, and see him for what he is. Read him—he is a writer, a natural communicator of and thinker upon challenging ideas. Listen to him. Consult your internal compass as you listen, and see if it isn’t pointing true north.

Look at what he said at the beginning of the papal conclave: It is our special responsibility at this time to be mature, to believe as adults believe. “Being an ‘adult’ means having a faith which does not follow the waves of today’s fashions or the latest novelties.” Being an adult is loving what is true and standing with it.

This isn’t radical, or archconservative. And the speaker isn’t an enforcer, a cop or a rottweiler. He’s a Catholic. Which one would think is a good thing to have as leader of the Catholic Church.

You are a cardinal of the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, a modern man, and for the past seven days, in private conversations in Rome with cardinals you trust, you’ve been admitting what you would never say in public.

You were shocked at the outpouring for John Paul II. You were shocked at the four million who came to Rome, at the line that stretched across the Tiber, at the tears.

You had no idea.

Not that you didn’t have real affection for the old man. He was probably a saint. All that suffering, dragging his broken body into each day the past five years. That’s a long time on the cross.

But you thought he was yesterday’s news. Everyone had already said goodbye to him at those big audiences in the Paul VI hall. And let’s face it, the church under John Paul was slammed every day as conservative, ossified, reactionary.

Here’s another strange thing. In the polls on churchgoing and belief it’s always Catholics on the street in Europe and America who say they want change and reform. They’d been saying it for years! And yet it was Catholics on the street from Europe and America—real nobodies, not to be impolite but just regular Catholics—who engulfed Rome to weep and yell Santo, Santo!

*   *   *

You sit and think: We have to consider what the crowds signified, what the outpouring meant. Maybe God was telling us something.

You try to walk through the data. Everyone says John Paul was popular because he was a rock star. He had a special appeal to the young. People loved him because he was so vibrant and dynamic.

Then you think—or rather that part of your mind that habitually questions your main themes on any given day tells you—Wait, the guy could barely walk, he couldn’t even move his face. He looked like, God forgive me, the Hunchback or something. He was writing encyclicals and telling people what seems to be good is not good, and what seems to be old is true. That doesn’t sound like a rock star.

You think: The fact is, John Paul was not an expression of his times, he existed in opposition to the times. He defended church doctrine and moral teaching because he thought they were true! He wouldn’t abandon the truth. In the Catholic colleges of America they didn’t see the truth he spoke as true. They thought it was archaic. Catholics in colleges and newsrooms, on campuses and on TV, are always going on and on about the world needs contraception, we need married priests, we need women priests. Now it’s the right to die.

*   *   *

The cardinal was getting a headache. So many colliding thoughts. Worse, they were thoughts at odds with the common wisdom. And the cardinal doesn’t like to be any more at odds with the common wisdom than he absolutely has to be. Life is tough enough.

He goes to dinner at a fine Roman restaurant with a handful of cardinals. He has a glass of Chianti, and then two. The service is excellent. Rome knows how to treat a cardinal. And Rome appreciates the burden that faces them: how to replace John Paul, the man the church just found out is considered irreplaceable.

The cardinals’ conversation turns to the funeral.

A Cardinal from South America says, “I had a thought. When the crowd kept applauding during the Mass—to me, looking out at them, it seemed as if they were saying: ‘We’re not just observers anymore, we’re the Church, Hear us!’ It seemed to me possibly quite significant.”

Silence as they all considered this.

An old cardinal with what seemed a German accent cleared his throat.

“What they want, I believe, is a healthy church. For all John Paul’s illness, they thought he was a healthy man. Emotionally and psychologically healthy in a way modern culture is not.

“It seems to me the meaning of the crowds, the meaning of the cries at the mass, is this: ‘We loved this hero of truth, and we want a hero of truth.’ They want someone who won’t bow to the thinking of the world. They want someone who will clean the stables, too. The corruption and worldly values of the church, the sex scandals—these must be dealt with.”

At this point an American cardinal made an indignant sound, and tried to interrupt. But the old cardinal raised his hand and continued.

“The church needs someone who’ll clean the church, defend it and refresh it. At the same time we need a man who can engage the world intellectually on the coming bioethical dramas and explain why trying to create human life in a Petri dish will be the end of us, the end of humanity. For man will do what he can do, and when he can grow replacement humans to give people new hearts that will allow them to live forever, well, that’s what they’ll do. We’ll have human fetal farms, you wait.

“But even more important than any of this, the new pontiff must have a holy soul. He must be a man who prays to God, is led by God, loves God above all. And here’s the great problem for us: this person may not be the most charming or accessible person in the world.”

A young cardinal leaned forward. “I don’t disagree, my friend, but in order to teach the world you must draw its eyes and ears! We need someone who captures the imagination of the world. We can’t lead unless they look and listen. For that we need a rock star.”

Silence again.

Then a young cardinal from Asia said, “Excuse me, but I have less knowledge about our brother cardinals than you. Is there a man who has all that is needed plus he’s a rock star?”

The cardinals thought. “No,” said one. “Or not that we know.”

“If that is true,” said the cardinal from Asia, “It would seem our duty is to choose a great man who is not necessarily a dramatic or endearing figure. The Holy Spirit will give him voice. Our time will need greatness. ‘For nowadays the world is lit by lightning.’ “

There was silence again.

Someone called for the bill.

*   *   *

Outside was an enterprising crew from NBC.

“Your excellencies, how are the bishops thinking? After the outpouring of love the past 10 days, are you thinking that you need a dramatic figure, a rock star who’ll capture the imagination of the world?”

“The Holy Spirit will decide,” said the old Cardinal with the German accent.

And our modern cardinal walked home to the Vatican, met with his aides in the suite, lay down with his headache, which was now very bad, closed his eyes and thought: Now more than ever. He dragged himself up, and knelt by the bed.

Everyone has spoken this past week of John Paul II’s role in the defeat of Soviet communism and the liberation of Eastern Europe. We don’t know everything, or even a lot, about the quiet diplomatic moves—what happened in private, what kind of communications the pope had with the other great lions of the 1980s, Reagan and Thatcher. And others, including Bill Casey, the tough old fox of the CIA, and Lech Walesa of Solidarity.

But I think I know the moment Soviet communism began its fall. It happened in public. Anyone could see it. It was one of the great spiritual moments of the 20th century, maybe the greatest.

It was the first week in June 1979. Europe was split in two between east and west, the democracies and the communist bloc—police states controlled by the Soviet Union and run by local communist parties and secret police.

John Paul was a new pope, raised to the papacy just eight months before. The day after he became pope he made it clear he would like to return as pope to his native Poland to see his people.

The communists who ran the Polish regime faced a quandary. If they didn’t allow the new Pope to return to his homeland, they would look defensive and frightened, as if they feared that he had more power than they. To rebuff him would seem an admission of their weakness. On the other hand, if they let him return, the people might rise up against the government, which might in turn trigger an invasion by the Soviet Union.

The Polish government decided that it would be too great an embarrassment to refuse the pope. So they invited him, gambling that John Paul—whom they knew when he was cardinal of Krakow, who they were sure would not want his presence to inspire bloodshed—would be prudent. They wagered that he would understand he was fortunate to be given permission to come, and understand what he owed the government in turn was deportment that would not threaten the reigning reality. They announced the pope would be welcome to come home on a “religious pilgrimage.”

John Paul quickly accepted the invitation. He went to Poland.

And from the day he arrived, the boundaries of the world began to shift.

*   *   *

Two months before the pope’s arrival, the Polish communist apparatus took steps to restrain the enthusiasm of the people. They sent a secret directive to schoolteachers explaining how they should understand and explain the pope’s visit. “The pope is our enemy,” it said. “Due to his uncommon skills and great sense of humor he is dangerous, because he charms everyone, especially journalists. Besides, he goes for cheap gestures in his relations with the crowd, for instance, puts on a highlander’s hat, shakes all hands, kisses children. . . . It is modeled on American presidential campaigns. . . Because of the activation of the Church in Poland our activities designed to atheize the youth not only cannot diminish but must intensely develop. . . In this respect all means are allowed and we cannot afford any sentiments.”

The government also issued instructions to Polish media to censor and limit the pope’s comments and appearances.

On June 2, 1979, the pope arrived in Poland. What followed will never be forgotten by those who witnessed it.

He knelt and kissed the ground, the dull gray tarmac of the airport outside Warsaw. The silent churches of Poland at that moment began to ring their bells. The pope traveled by motorcade from the airport to the Old City of Warsaw.

The government had feared hundreds or thousands or even tens of thousands would line the streets and highways.

By the end of the day, with the people lining the streets and highways plus the people massed outside Warsaw and then inside it—all of them cheering and throwing flowers and applauding and singing—more than a million had come.

In Victory Square in the Old City the pope gave a mass. Communist officials watched from the windows of nearby hotels. The pope gave what papal biographer George Weigel called the greatest sermon of John Paul’s life.

*   *   *

Why, the pope asked, had God lifted a Pole to the papacy? Perhaps it was because of how Poland had suffered for centuries, and through the 20th century had become “the land of a particularly responsible witness” to God. The people of Poland, he suggested, had been chosen for a great role, to understand, humbly but surely, that they were the repository of a special “witness of His cross and His resurrection.” He asked then if the people of Poland accepted the obligations of such a role in history.

The crowd responded with thunder.

“We want God!” they shouted, together. “We want God!”

What a moment in modern history: We want God. From the mouths of modern men and women living in a modern atheistic dictatorship.

The pope was speaking on the Vigil of Pentecost, that moment in the New Testament when the Holy Spirit came down to Christ’s apostles, who had been hiding in fear after his crucifixion, filling them with courage and joy. John Paul picked up this theme. What was the greatest of the works of God? Man. Who redeemed man? Christ. Therefore, he declared, “Christ cannot be kept out of the history of man in any part of the globe, at any longitude or latitude. . . . The exclusion of Christ from the history of man is an act against man! Without Christ it is impossible to understand the history of Poland.” Those who oppose Christ, he said, still live within the Christian context of history.

Christ, the pope declared, was not only the past of Poland—he was “the future . . . our Polish future.”

The massed crowd thundered its response. “We want God!” it roared.

*   *   *

That is what the communist apparatchiks watching the mass from the hotels that rimmed Victory Square heard. Perhaps at this point they understood that they had made a strategic mistake. Perhaps as John Paul spoke they heard the sound careen off the hard buildings that ringed the square; perhaps the echo sounded like a wall falling.

The pope had not directly challenged the government. He had not called for an uprising. He had not told the people of Catholic Poland to push back against their atheist masters. He simply stated the obvious. In Mr. Weigel’s words: “Poland was not a communist country; Poland was a Catholic nation saddled with a communist state.”

The next day, June 3, 1979, John Paul stood outside the cathedral in Gniezno, a small city with a population of 50,000 or so. Again there was an outdoor mass, and again he said an amazing thing.

He did not speak of what governments want, nor directly of what a growing freedom movement wants, nor of what the struggling Polish worker’s union, Solidarity, wanted.

He spokeof what God wants.

“Does not Christ want, does not the Holy Spirit demand, that the pope, himself a Pole, the pope, himself a Slav, here and now should bring out into the open the spiritual unity of Christian Europe . . .?” Yes, he said, Christ wants that. “The Holy Spirit demands that it be said aloud, here, now. . . . Your countryman comes to you, the pope, so as to speak before the whole Church, Europe and the world. . . . He comes to cry out with a mighty cry.”

What John Paul was saying was remarkable. He was telling Poland: See the reality around you differently. See your situation in a new way. Do not see the division of Europe; see the wholeness that exists and that not even communism can take away. Rhetorically his approach was not to declare or assert but merely, again, to point out the obvious: We are Christians, we are here, we are united, no matter what the communists and their map-makers say.

It was startling. It was as if he were talking about a way of seeing the secret order of the world.

That day at the cathedral the communist authorities could not stop the applause. They could not stop everyone who applauded and cheered. There weren’t enough jail cells.

*   *   *

But it was in the Blonie Field, in Krakow—the Blonia Krakowskie, the fields just beyond the city—that the great transcendent moment of the pope’s trip took place. It was the moment when, for those looking back, the new world opened. It was the moment, some said later, that Soviet communism’s fall became inevitable.

It was a week into the trip, June 10, 1979. It was a sunny day. The pope was to hold a public mass. The communist government had not allowed it to be publicized, but Poles had spread the word.

Government officials braced themselves, because now they knew a lot of people might come, as they had to John Paul’s first mass. But that was a week before. Since then, maybe people had seen enough of him. Maybe they were tiring of his message. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

But something happened in the Blonie field.

They started coming early, and by the time the mass began it was the biggest gathering of humanity in the entire history of Poland. Two million or three million people came, no one is sure, maybe more. For a mass.

And it was there, at the end of his trip, in the Blonie field, that John Paul took on communism directly, by focusing on communism’s attempt to kill the religious heritage of a country that had for a thousand years believed in Christ.

This is what he said:

Is it possible to dismiss Christ and everything which he brought into the annals of the human being? Of course it is possible. The human being is free. The human being can say to God, “No.” The human being can say to Christ, “No.” But the critical question is: Should he? And in the name of what “should” he? With what argument, what reasoning, what value held by the will or the heart does one bring oneself, one’s loved ones, one’s countrymen and nation to reject, to say “no” to Him with whom we have all lived for one thousand years? He who formed the basis of our identity and has Himself remained its basis ever since. . . .

As a bishop does in the sacrament of Confirmation so do I today extend my hands in that apostolic gesture over all who are gathered here today, my compatriots. And so I speak for Christ himself: “Receive the Holy Spirit!”

I speak too for St. Paul: “Do not quench the Spirit!”

I speak again for St. Paul: “Do not grieve the Spirit of God!”

You must be strong, my brothers and sisters! You must be strong with the strength that faith gives! You must be strong with the strength of faith! You must be faithful! You need this strength today more than any other period of our history. . . .

You must be strong with love, which is stronger than death. . . . When we are strong with the Spirit of God, we are also strong with the faith of man. . . . There is therefore no need to fear. . . . So . . . I beg you: Never lose your trust, do not be defeated, do not be discouraged. . . . Always seek spiritual power from Him from whom countless generations of our fathers and mothers have found it. Never detach yourselves from Him. Never lose your spiritual freedom.

They went home from that field a changed country. After that mass they would never be the same.

*   *   *

What John Paul did in the Blonie field was both a departure from his original comments in Poland and an extension of them.

In his first comments he said: God sees one unity of Europe, he does not see East and West divided by a gash in the soil.

In this way he “divided the dividers” from God’s view of history.

But in the Blonie field he extended his message. He called down the Holy Spirit—as the Vicar of Christ and successor to Peter, he called down God—to fill the people of Poland, to “confirm” their place in history and their ancient choice of Christ, to confirm as it were that their history was real and right and unchangeable—even unchangeable by communists.

So it was a redeclaration of the Polish spirit, which is a free spirit. And those who were there went home a different people, a people who saw themselves differently, not as victims of history but as strugglers for Christ.

Another crucial thing happened, after the mass was over. Everyone who was there went home and turned on the news that night to see the pictures of the incredible crowd and the incredible pope. But state-controlled TV did not show the crowds. They did a brief report that showed a shot of the pope standing and speaking for a second or two. State television did not acknowledge or admit what a phenomenon John Paul’s visit was, or what it had unleashed.

The people who had been at the mass could compare the reality they had witnessed with their own eyes with the propaganda their media reported. They could see the discrepancy. This left the people of Poland able to say at once and together, definitively, with no room for argument: It’s all lies. Everything this government says is a lie. Everything it is is a lie.

Whatever legitimacy the government could pretend to, it began to lose. One by one the people of Poland said to themselves, or for themselves within themselves: It is over.

And when 10 million Poles said that to themselves, it was over in Poland. And when it was over in Poland, it was over in Eastern Europe. And when it was over in Eastern Europe, it was over in the Soviet Union. And when it was over in the Soviet Union, well, it was over.

*   *   *

All of this was summed up by a Polish publisher and intellectual named Jerzy Turowicz, who had known Karol Wojtyla when they were young men together, and who had gone on to be a supporter of Solidarity and member of Poland’s first postcommunist government. Mr. Turowicz, remembering the Blonie field and the Pope’s visit, told Ray Flynn, at the time U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, “Historians say World War II ended in 1945. Maybe in the rest of the world, but not in Poland. They say communism fell in 1989. Not in Poland. World War II and communism both ended in Poland at the same time—in 1979, when John Paul II came home.”

And now he is dead. It is fitting and not at all surprising that Rome, to its shock, has been overwhelmed with millions of people come to see him for the last time. The line to view his body in St. Peter’s stretched more than a mile. His funeral tomorrow will be witnessed by an expected two billion people, the biggest television event in history. And no one, in Poland or elsewhere, will be able to edit the tape to hide what is happening.

John Paul gave us what may be the transcendent public spiritual moment of the 20th century. “We want God.” The greatest and most authentic cry of the human heart.

They say he asked that his heart be removed from his body and buried in Poland. That sounds right, and I hope it’s true. They’d better get a big box.

I have taken a few days off and gone to a place where there are beaches, palm trees, tan people, men in shorts and cotton-weave shirts, and women in sky-blue and pink and yellow dresses and broad-brimmed straw hats. It is nice here. The breeze is gentle and unstopping. In the houses you can smell gardenias. At night everything you touch is moist. There is a purple orchid in full bloom at the front door of the house where I’m staying. It doesn’t grow from soil but from the air. Its roots are exposed and hang below the flowers in two feet of gray tangle. It’s ugly-beautiful.

Every night a big white gambling boat goes out beyond the three-mile limit and stays there for hours; it has a long string of white lights stem to stern, and it looks like a New York bridge with all its lights on, floating out there in the darkness. Everyone here is still recovering from the hurricanes of the fall, and half the palm trees are propped up by long two-by-fours as they attempt to reroot themselves. Naturally and in the midst of all this beauty and regeneration all talk at dinner turns to politics.

All my life people have been talking politics at the dinner table, if they talked. I do not remember when it was not so. We all know the old saying, “Never discuss politics, sex or religion,” but that of course is precisely what Americans do discuss, along with sports and business. I actually don’t know what people talked about before these, but I wonder if it was something like, “What do you think is the most reliable path to personal satisfaction in the world we live in?” and “I saw a big bright yellow rose today and had the most wonderful thought, or at least it was wonderful for me, for I am no genius and do not normally go in for big time reflections on beauty,” and, “Did you have a happy childhood or an unhappy one, and if you had the latter what is the best thing it gave you, that unhappy start?”

I’d better tell you what I picked up about politics the past few days.

*   *   *

Republicans—I have been among many—are now in the stage of the Hillary Conversation in which they are beginning to grouse about those who keep warning that Mrs. Clinton will be a formidable candidate for president in 2008. She won’t be so tough, they say. America will never elect a woman like her, with such a sketchy history—financial scandals, political pardons, the whole mess that took place between 1980 and 2000.

I tell them they are wrong. First, it is good to be concerned about Mrs. Clinton, for she is coming down the pike. It is pointless to be afraid, but good to be concerned. Why? Because we live in a more or less 50-50 nation; because Mrs. Clinton is smarter than her husband and has become a better campaigner on the ground; because her warmth and humor seem less oily; because she has struck out a new rhetorically (though not legislatively) moderate course; because you don’t play every card right the way she’s been playing every card right the past five years unless you have real talent; because unlike her husband she has found it possible to grow more emotionally mature; because the presidency is the bright sharp focus of everything she does each day; because she is not going to get seriously dinged in the 2008 primaries but will likely face challengers who make her look even more moderate and stable; and because in 2008 we will have millions of 18- to 24-year-old voters who have no memory of her as the harridan of the East Wing and the nutty professor of HillaryCare.

The Hillary those young adults remember will be the senator—chuckling with a throaty chuckle, bantering amiably with Lindsey Graham, maternal and moderate and strong. Add to that this: Half the MSM will be for her, and the other half will be afraid of the half that is for her. (You think journalists are afraid of the right? Journalists are afraid of each other.) And on top of all that, It’s time for a woman. Almost every young woman in America, every tough old suburban momma, every unmarried urban high-heel-wearing, briefcase-toting corporate lawyer will be saying it. They’ll be working for, rooting for, giving to the woman.

I am of course exaggerating, but not by much.

Can a Republican beat her? Sure. She’ll have to make mistakes, and she will. And he (it will be a he; it’s not Condi, because the presidency is not an entry-level political office) will have to be someone who stands for big, serious and solidly conservative things, and really means it, which will mark a nice contrast with Mrs. Clinton, who believes only in herself. He will also have to be able to do the delicate dance of running against a woman without seeming scared, patronizing, nervous or macho. It isn’t going to be easy. But it’s doable.

*   *   *

There is more of politics to discuss, of course. There always is. But I am about to walk in the waves. With one parting thought, which has to do with politics and loss. Everyone is upset about Terri Schiavo. Everyone should be. Even Republicans who say Congress and the White House should have no role in this case are uncomfortable with what has been wrought, as are many, many Democrats. A great nation does not like to see an innocent woman put to death. Everyone seems aware: It is not like us. Her death, if it comes to that, will be a big loss. We will ponder what happened here for years to come. The fight for life has many fronts, and the war will not be over in our lifetimes.

For now, may those who fought for life be honored. May Jesse Jackson be honored, and all who fought the fight in Florida. From David McCullough’s “John Adams”: “Adams had, however, arrived at certain bedrock conclusions before [his] end came. He believed, with all his heart, as he had written to Jefferson, that no effort in favor of virtue was lost.” Onward.

God made the world or he didn’t.

God made you or he didn’t.

If he did, your little human life is, and has been, touched by the divine. If this is true, it would be true of all humans, not only some. And so—again, if it is true—each human life is precious, of infinite value, worthy of great respect.

Most—not all, but probably most—of those who support Terri Schiavo’s right to live believe the above. This explains their passion and emotionalism. They believe they are fighting for an invaluable and irreplaceable human life. They are like the mother who is famously said to have lifted the back of a small car off the ground to save a child caught under a tire. You’re desperate to save a life, you’re shot through with adrenaline, your strength is for half a second superhuman, you do the impossible.

That is what they are trying to do.

They do not want an innocent human life ended for what appear to be primarily practical and worldly reasons—e.g., Mrs. Schiavo’s quality of life is low, her life is pointless. They say: Who is to say it is pointless? And what does pointless even mean? Maybe life itself is the point.

*   *   *

I do not understand the emotionalism of the pull-the-tube people. What is driving their engagement? Is it because they are compassionate, and their hearts bleed at the thought that Mrs. Schiavo suffers? But throughout this case no one has testified that she is in persistent pain, as those with terminal cancer are.

If they care so much about her pain, why are they unconcerned at the suffering caused her by the denial of food and water? And why do those who argue for Mrs. Schiavo’s death employ language and imagery that is so violent and aggressive? The chairman of the Democratic National Committee calls Republicans “brain dead.” Michael Schiavo, the husband, calls House Majority Leader Tom DeLay “a slithering snake.”

Everyone who has written in defense of Mrs. Schiavo’s right to live has received e-mail blasts full of attacks that appear to have been dictated by the unstable and typed by the unhinged. On Democratic Underground they crowed about having “kicked the sh— out of the fascists.” On Tuesday James Carville’s face was swept with a sneer so convulsive you could see his gums as he damned the Republicans trying to help Mrs. Schiavo. It would have seemed demonic if he weren’t a buffoon.

Why are they so committed to this woman’s death?

They seem to have fallen half in love with death.

What does Terri Schiavo’s life symbolize to them? What does the idea that she might continue to live suggest to them?

Why does this prospect so unnerve them? Again, if you think Terri Schiavo is a precious human gift of God, your passion is explicable. The passion of the pull-the-tube people is not.

I do not understand their certainty. I don’t “know” that any degree of progress or healing is possible for Terri Schiavo; I only hope they are. We can’t know, but we can “err on the side of life.” How do the pro-death forces “know” there is no possibility of progress, healing, miracles? They seem to think they know. They seem to love the phrases they bandy about: “vegetative state,” “brain dead,” “liquefied cortex.”

*   *   *

I do not understand why people who want to save the whales (so do I) find campaigns to save humans so much less arresting. I do not understand their lack of passion. But the save-the-whales people are somehow rarely the stop-abortion-please people.
The PETA people, who say they are committed to ending cruelty to animals, seem disinterested in the fact of late-term abortion, which is a cruel procedure performed on a human.

I do not understand why the don’t-drill-in-Alaska-and-destroy-its-prime-beauty people do not join forces with the don’t-end-a-life-that-holds-within-it-beauty people.

I do not understand why those who want a freeze on all death penalty cases in order to review each of them in light of DNA testing—an act of justice and compassion toward those who have been found guilty of crimes in a court of law—are uninterested in giving every last chance and every last test to a woman whom no one has ever accused of anything.

There are passionate groups of women in America who decry spousal abuse, give beaten wives shelter, insist that a woman is not a husband’s chattel. This is good work. Why are they not taking part in the fight for Terri Schiavo? Again, what explains their lack of passion on this? If Mrs. Schiavo dies, it will be because her husband, and only her husband, insists she wanted to, or would want to, or said she wanted to in a hypothetical conversation long ago. A thin reed on which to base the killing of a human being.

The pull-the-tube people say, “She must hate being brain-damaged.” Well, yes, she must. (This line of argument presumes she is to some degree or in some way thinking or experiencing emotions.) Who wouldn’t feel extreme sadness at being extremely disabled? I’d weep every day, wouldn’t you? But consider your life. Are there not facets of it, or facts of it, that make you feel extremely sad, pained, frustrated, angry? But you’re still glad you’re alive, aren’t you? Me too. No one enjoys a deathbed. Very few want to leave.

*   *   *

Terri Schiavo may well die. No good will come of it. Those who are half in love with death will only become more red-fanged and ravenous.

And those who are still learning—our children—oh, what terrible lessons they’re learning. What terrible stories are shaping them. They’re witnessing the Schiavo drama on television and hearing it on radio. They are seeing a society—their society, their people—on the verge of famously accepting, even embracing, the idea that a damaged life is a throwaway life.

Our children have been reared in the age of abortion, and are coming of age in a time when seemingly respectable people are enthusiastic for euthanasia. It cannot be good for our children, and the world they will make, that they are given this new lesson that human life is not precious, not touched by the divine, not of infinite value.

Once you “know” that—that human life is not so special after all—then everything is possible, and none of it is good. When a society comes to believe that human life is not inherently worth living, it is a slippery slope to the gas chamber. You wind up on a low road that twists past Columbine and leads toward Auschwitz. Today that road runs through Pinellas Park, Fla.

It appears we’ve reached the pivotal moment in the Terri Schiavo case, and it also appears our politicians, our senators and congressmen, might benefit from some observations.

In America today all big stories have three dimensions: a legal angle, a public-relations angle and a political angle. In the Schiavo case some of our politicians seem not to be fully appreciating the second and third. This is odd.

Here’s both a political and a public-relations reality: The Republican Party controls the Senate, the House and the White House. The Republicans are in charge. They have the power. If they can’t save this woman’s life, they will face a reckoning from a sizable portion of their own base. And they will of course deserve it.

This should concentrate their minds.

So should this: America is watching. As the deadline for removal of Mrs. Schiavo’s feeding tube approaches, the story has broken through as never before in the media.

*   *   *

There is a passionate, highly motivated and sincere group of voters and activists who care deeply about whether Terri Schiavo is allowed to live. Their reasoning, ultimately, is this: Be on the side of life. They remind me of what Winston Churchill said once when he became home secretary in charge of England’s prisons. He was seated at dinner with a jabbery lady who said that if she were ever given a life sentence she’d rather die than serve it. He reared back. No, he said, always choose life! “Death’s the only thing you can’t get out of!”

Just so. Life is full of surprise and lightning-like lurches. The person in a coma today wakes up tomorrow and says, “Is that you, mom?” Life is unknowable. Always give it a chance to shake your soul and upend reality.

The supporters of Terri Schiavo’s right to continue living have fought for her heroically, through the courts and through the legislatures. They’re still fighting. They really mean it. And they have memories.

On the other side of this debate, one would assume there is an equally well organized and passionate group of organizations deeply committed to removing Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube. But that’s not true. There’s just about no one on the other side. Or rather there is one person, a disaffected husband who insists Terri once told him she didn’t want to be kept alive by extraordinary measures.

He has fought the battle to kill her with a determination that at this point seems not single-minded or passionate but strange. His former wife’s parents and family are eager to care for her and do care for her, every day. He doesn’t have to do a thing. His wife is not kept alive by extraordinary measures—she breathes on her own, is not on a respirator. All she needs to continue existing—and to continue being alive so that life can produce whatever miracle it may produce—is a feeding tube.

It doesn’t seem a lot.

So politically this is a struggle between many serious people who really mean it and one, just one, strange-o. And the few bearded and depressed-looking academics he’s drawn to his side.

It is not at all in the political interests of senators and congressmen to earn the wrath of the pro-Schiavo group and the gratitude of the anti-Schiavo husband, by doing nothing.

So let me write a sentence I never thought I’d write: Politicians, please, think of yourselves! Move to help Terri Schiavo, and no one will be mad at you, and you’ll keep a human being alive. Do nothing and you reap bitterness and help someone die.

This isn’t hard, is it?

*   *   *

At the heart of the case at this point is a question: Is Terri Schiavo brain-dead? That is, is remedy, healing, physiologically impossible?

No. Oddly enough anyone who sees the film and tape of her can see that her brain tells her lungs to breathe, that she can open her eyes, that she seems to respond at times and to some degree to her family. She can laugh. (I heard it this morning on the news. It’s a childlike chuckle.) In the language of computers she appears not to be a broken hard drive but a computer in deep hibernation. She looks like one of those coma cases that wind up in the news because the patient, for no clear reason, snaps to and returns to life and says, “Is it 1983? Is there still McDonald’s? Can I have a burger?”

Again, life is mysterious. Medicine is full of happenings and events that leave brilliant doctors scratching their heads.

But in the end, it comes down to this: Why kill her? What is gained? What is good about it? Ronald Reagan used to say, in the early days of the abortion debate, when people would argue that the fetus may not really be a person, he’d say, “Well, if you come across a paper bag in the gutter and it seems something’s in it and you don’t know if it’s alive, you don’t kick it, do you?” No, you don’t.

So Congress: don’t kick it. Let her live. Hard cases make bad law, but let her live. Precedents can begin to cascade, special pleas can become a flood, but let her live. Because she’s human, and you’re human.

*   *   *

A final note to the Republican leadership in the House and Senate: You have to pull out all the stops. You have to run over your chairmen if they’re being obstructionist for this niggling reason and that. Run over their egos, run past their fatigue. You have to win on this. If you don’t, you can’t imagine how much you’re going to lose. And from people who have faith in you.

Bill Frist and Tom DeLay and Jim Sensenbrenner and Denny Hastert and all the rest would be better off risking looking ridiculous and flying down to Florida, standing outside Terri Schiavo’s room and physically restraining the poor harassed staff who may be told soon to remove her feeding tube, than standing by in Washington, helpless and tied in legislative knots, and doing nothing.

Issue whatever subpoena, call whatever witnesses, pass whatever emergency bill, but don’t let this woman die.

Ashley Smith and Brian Nichols were together for seven hours. This is Nichols’s mug shot. This is Nichols’s face after he gave himself up to police Saturday.

Something changed.

Something happened.

*   *   *

This is from the transcript of Ashley Smith’s testimony when she met with reporters in her lawyer’s office on Sunday, March 13:

It was about 2 o’clock in the morning. I was at—I was leaving my apartment to go to the store. I noticed a blue truck in the parking lot with a man in it pulling up. And he parked in the parking space. And I really didn’t think too much about it because I just moved into that apartment, you know, two days prior. So I thought maybe he was a neighbor coming home or something.

So I left and went to the store. And I came back to my apartment about five minutes later. And the truck was still there. And he was still in it. . . . And I kind of got a little worried then. I thought there’s somebody still in that truck. So I got my key to my house ready. And I opened up my car door, and I got out and shut it. And I heard his shut right behind me. I started walking to my door, and I felt really, you know, scared. . . .

I started to scream, and he put a gun to my side and he said, “Don’t scream. If you don’t scream I won’t hurt you.” He told me to go into the bathroom, so I went to the bathroom. And he followed into the bathroom and he said, “Do you know who I am?” and I said no because he had a hat on. And then he took his hat off, and he said, “Now do you know who I am?” And I said, “Yeah, I know who you are. Please don’t hurt, just please don’t hurt me. I have a 5-year-old little girl. Please don’t hurt me.”

He said, “I’m not going hurt you if you just do what I say.” I said, “All right.” So I got—he told me to get into the bathtub, so I got in the bathtub. And he said, “I really don’t feel comfortable around here. I’m going to walk around your house for a few minutes just so I get the feel of it.”

I said, “OK.”

He said, “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt anybody else, so please don’t do anything that’s going to hurt you.” He said, “You know, somebody could have heard your scream already. And if they did, the police are on the way. And I’m going to have to hold you hostage. And I’m going to have to kill you and probably myself and lots of other people. And I don’t want that.”

And I said, “OK. I will do what you say.”

He looked around my house for a few minutes. I heard him opening up drawers and just going through my stuff. And he came back in. And he said, “I want to relax. And I don’t feel comfortable with you right now. So I’m going to have to tie you up.”

He brought some masking tape and an extension cord and a curtain in there. And I kind of thought he was going to strangle me. I was—I was really kind of scared. But he told me to turn around and put my hands behind my back. And he wrapped my hands in a prayer—in a praying position, so I did that. And he wrapped masking tape around my hands. And then he told me to go into my bedroom. And I sat down on the bed like he asked. And he wrapped my legs with masking tape and an extension cord. . . .

He said, “Can you walk?”

And I said, “No.”

And so he picked me up and took me to the bathroom. And he put me on a stool that I have in my bathroom. He said he wanted to take a shower.

So I said, “OK. You take a shower.”

He said, “Well, I’m going to put a towel over your head so you don’t have to watch me take a shower.”

So I said, “OK. All right.”

He got in the shower. Took a shower. And then he got out of the shower. And he had the guns laying on the counter. But—I guess he really wasn’t worried about me grabbing them because I was tied up.

He asked me if I had a T-shirt. I told him where to find one.

So he got dressed. He put on some clothes that I had in my house that were men’s clothes. And then he came back in the bathroom.

He said, “Can you get up?”

So I got up.

He said, “Can you walk now?”

I said, “No, but I can hop.”

So I hopped to my bedroom and sat on the bed. And he cut the tape off of me, unwrapped the extension cord and curtain. I guess, at that point, he kind of made me feel like he was comfortable enough with me that he untied me. So—we went back in the bathroom. That’s where he felt more comfortable—in the bathroom away from the front of the house, I guess. And we just talked.

I asked him if—I told him that I was supposed to go see my little girl the next morning. And I asked him if I could go see her. And he told me no.

My husband died four years ago. And I told him that if he hurt me, my little girl wouldn’t have a mommy or a daddy. And she was expecting to see me the next morning. That if he didn’t let me go, she would be really upset.

He still told me no. But I could kind of feel that he started to—to know who I was. He said maybe. Maybe I’ll let you go—just maybe. We’ll see how things go.

We went to my room. And I asked him if I could read.

He said, “What do you want to read?”

Well, I have a book in my room.” So I went and got it. I got my Bible. And I got a book called “The Purpose-Driven Life.” I turned it to the chapter that I was on that day. It was Chapter 33. And I started to read the first paragraph of it. After I read it, he said, “Stop, will you read it again?

I said, “Yeah. I’ll read it again.” So I read it again to him.

It mentioned something about what you thought your purpose in life was. What were you—what talents were you given? What gifts were you given to use?

And I asked him what he thought. And he said, “I think it was to talk to people and tell them about you.”

I basically just talked to him and tried to gain his trust. I wanted to leave to go see my daughter. That was really important. I didn’t want him to hurt anybody else.

He came into my apartment telling me that he was a soldier. And that people—that his people needed him for a job to do. And he was doing it.

And—I didn’t want him to hurt anybody else. He didn’t want to hurt anybody else. He just told me that he wanted a place to stay to relax, to sit down and watch TV, to eat some real food.

I talked to him about my family. I told him about things that had happened in my life. I asked him about his family. I asked him why he did what he did.

And his reason was because he was a soldier.

I asked him why he chose me and why he chose Bridgewater Apartments. And he said he didn’t know, just randomly.

But after we began to talk, he said he thought that I was an angel sent from God. And that I was his sister and he was my brother in Christ. And that he was lost and God led him right to me to tell him that he had hurt a lot of people. And the families—the people—to let him know how they felt, because I had gone through it myself.

He told me that he didn’t—he didn’t want to hurt the agent that he hurt. He begged and pleaded with him to do things his way, and he didn’t. So he had to kill him. He said that he didn’t shoot the deputy, that he hit her. And that he hoped she lived. He showed me a picture of the—the agent that he did kill. And I tried to explain to him that he killed a 40-year-old man that was probably a father, a husband, a friend.

And he really began to trust me, to feel my feelings. He looked at pictures of my family. He asked me to—if he could look at them and hold them. . . .

I really didn’t keep track of time too much because I was really worried about just living. I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want him to hurt anybody else. And I really didn’t want him to hurt himself or anyone else to hurt him. He’s done enough—he had done enough. And he really, honestly when I looked at him, he looked like he didn’t want to do it anymore.

He asked me what I thought he should do.

And I said, “I think you should turn yourself in. If you don’t turn yourself in,” this is what I said, “If you don’t turn yourself in, lots more people are going to get hurt. And you’re probably going to die.”

And he said, “I don’t want that to happen.”

He said, “Can I stay here for a few days? I just want to eat some real food and watch some TV and sleep and just do normal things that normal people do.”

So, of course, I said, “Sure. You can stay here.” I didn’t want—I wanted to gain his trust.

Most of my time was spent talking to this man about my life and experiences in my life, things that had happened to me.

He needed hope for his life. He told me that he was already dead. He said, “Look at me, look at my eyes. I am already dead.”

And I said, “You are not dead. You are standing right in front of me. If you want to die, you can. It’s your choice.”

But after I started to read to him, he saw—I guess he saw my faith and what I really believed in. And I told him I was a child of God and that I wanted to do God’s will. I guess he began to want to. That’s what I think.

He got to know me. I got to know him. He talked about his family. How—he was wondering what they were thinking. He said, “They’re probably—don’t know what to think.”

We watched the news. He looked at the TV and he just said, “I cannot believe that’s me on there.”

About 5:30, 6—well, 6, 6:30—he said, “I need to make a move.” And I said, “A move?” He said, “I need to get rid of this car before daylight, this truck [the agent’s].” I said, “OK.”

I knew that if I didn’t agree to go with him, follow him to get the truck—he’d just take the truck, then one thing—or two—one of two things. He would kill me right then, and say, “All right, well, if you’re not going to help me, then I won’t need you anymore.” Or the police would never find him, or it would take longer. And someone else would get hurt, and I was trying to avoid that.

So I went . . . I said, “Can I take my cell phone?” He said, “Do you want to?” I said, “Yeah.” I’m thinking, well, I might call the police then, and I might not. So I took it anyway. He didn’t take any guns with him. The guns were laying around the house. Pretty much after he untied [me], they were just laying around the house.

And at one point, he said, “You know, I’d rather you shoot—the guns are laying in there—I’d rather you shoot me than them.” I said, “I don’t want anyone else to die, not even you.”

So we went to take the truck, and I was behind him, following him. And I thought about calling the police, you know, I thought, he’s about to be in the car with me right now. So I can call the police, and when he gets in the car, then they can surround me and him together, and I could possibly get hurt, or we can go back to my house.

And I really felt deep down inside that he was going to let me see my little girl. And I said—or then when I leave, he can be there by himself, or he—he finally agreed to let me go see my daughter. I had to leave at 9, 9:30. And I really believed that he was going to.

From the time he walked into my house until we were taking that truck, he was a totally different person to me. I felt very threatened, scared. I felt he was going to kill me when—when I first—when he first put the gun to my side. But when I followed him to pick—to take the truck, I felt he was going to—he was really going to turn himself in. So he took the truck.

He got in the car and I said, “Are you ready now?” And he said, “Give me a few days, please.” I said, “Come on, you’ve got to turn yourself in now.” I didn’t feel like he might—I felt like he might change his mind, that he might not want to turn himself in the next day, or a few days after that, and that if he did feel that way, then he would need money, and the only way he could get money was if he hurt somebody and took it from them.

So we went back to my house and got in the house. And he was hungry, so I cooked him breakfast. He was overwhelmed with—”Wow,” he said, “real butter, pancakes?”

And I just talked with him a little more, just about—about—we pretty much talked about God . . . what his reason was, why he made it out of there.

I said, “Do you believe in miracles? Because if you don’t believe in miracles—you are here for a reason. You’re here in my apartment for some reason. You got out of that courthouse with police everywhere, and you don’t think that’s a miracle? You don’t think you’re supposed to be sitting here right in front of me listening to me tell you, you know, your reason here?”

I said, “You know, your miracle could be that you need to—you need to be caught for this. You need to go to prison and you need to share the word of God with them, with all the prisoners there.”

Then 9 came. He said, “What time do you have to leave?” I said, “I need to be there at 10, so I need to leave about 9:30.” And I sat down and talked to him a little bit more. And he put the guns under the bed, like . . . I’m not going to mess around with them anymore.

He gave me some money when I was about to leave. Just kind of like he knew. I said, “You might need this money.” And he said, “No, I don’t need it. I’m going to be here for the next few days.”

I basically said, keep the money. And he said, “No, I don’t need it.” He asked me if there was anything I could do—or he could do for me before I left, or while I was going. He says, “Is there anything I can do while you’re gone?”

I know he was probably hoping deep down that I was going to come back, but I think he knew that I was going to—what I had to do, and I had to turn him in, and I gave him—I asked him several times, you know, “Come on, just go with me.” He said, “I’ll go with you in a few days.”

But when he asked me, “Is there anything I can do while you’re gone, like hang your curtains or something?” And I said, “Yeah, if you want to.”

He just wanted some normalness to his life right then. He—I think he realized all this—all this that I’ve been through, this is not me. I don’t know, that’s my opinion of what he . . .

Then I left my house at 9:30. And I got in the car. And I immediately called 911. I told them that he was there, and she asked me where I was. I said, “Oh, I’m on my way to see my daughter.” I felt glad to just really be on my way to see my daughter. She said, “You’ve got to turn around and go to the leasing office.” So that’s what I did.

*   *   *

It is an idiot’s errand to follow such testimony with commentary. It’s too big. There is nothing newspaper-eloquent to say. We have entered Flannery O’Connor country, and only geniuses need apply.

Here are mere facts. They were together seven hours and each emerged transformed. He gave himself up without a fight and is now in prison. She reported to police all that had transpired, the police told the press, and now she is famous.

Tuesday evening on the news a “hostage rescue expert” explained that she “negotiated like a pro.” Actually what she did is give Christian witness. It wasn’t negotiation. It had to do with being human.

It is an amazing and beautiful story. And for all its unlikeliness you know it happened as Smith said. You know she told the truth. It’s funny how we all know this.

*   *   *

On CNN on Monday afternoon Kyra Philips focused on the angle of the book, “The Purpose-Driven Life,” that Ms. Smith had shown Nichols. She had a local preacher on to tell us more about the book, and more about Christianity. It was informative, loving, a beautiful moment of television.

The more the news played the testimony of Ashley Smith, the more each news show came to seem elevated, ennobled. The past few days the TV screen has been filled with some wonderful light.

Ashley Smith is a national hero—a brave, resourceful single mother who has suffered in her life, and who at a series of pivotal moments did the right thing and the kind thing and helped a killer end a killing spree.

Country songs will be written about her. She’s going to enter our folk lore.

Some people are unhappy to hear rumors she is going to write a book. This is understandable, but they are wrong. More is needed. I hope Ms. Smith reaches to a writer on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which was rocked by the story and did exceptional work covering it, and produces a book that answers these questions: How did she come to believe in Christ, who helped her know what she knows? How did this knowledge transform her? What did “The Purpose-Driven Life” tell her that she needed to know? Whose Bible was it she kept at home and read—one she bought or one she was given? Which book or part does she find herself going back to? What from the Bible did she read to Brian Nichols?

*   *   *

Is it a matter of happenstance, is it without meaning, that America was taken by this drama at Eastertide, in the days before Palm Sunday, when a wanted man rode by donkey to an appointment at Golgotha?

Is it an accident that a great but troubled country that yearns so to be good is given such instruction at this time?

Maybe we should be thinking: God loves all of us, every one of us most tenderly, even convicts, maybe especially convicts, who know what they are and hang their heads and one of whom, so long ago, looked up, and cried out to the man on the other cross, and received from him a promise of forgiveness and a promise that soon, very soon, they would stand together in a place without pain.

Maybe we should think: This is all quite a mystery, too big to be understood, too beautiful to be ignored.

I just feel like bowing to everyone, all the victims and all the survivors, the good judge, the good guards, the good woman, the reporters, all of whom became part of something big and without borders. The only lesson is love. I feel certain this is true.

Let’s think more about how America gets the news.

The network news organizations and their old flagship shows, the evening news, are in flux: falling ratings, an aging demographic, competition from cable, a general loss of prestige, Rathergate.

But it’s foolish to think the network evening news shows don’t matter anymore. Dan Rather’s show, which has long come in third in a three-way race, gets on an average night eight million viewers. Bill O’Reilly’s show, No. 1 on cable, gets three million viewers on a great night. The networks continue to have greater penetration, higher numbers, bigger budgets.

They’re important; they aren’t over, and they shouldn’t be. Especially during a crisis—and we live in an age of crises—they have a crucial role to play. It is actually in the nation’s interest that network news get better at gathering and telling the news.

Here, offered as a public service, are three suggestions for the owners of the networks. First, stop being mesmerized by Cronkiteism. Second, put your money in the field. Third, put down that copy of the New York Times.

Do these things and good results will follow, including higher ratings.

*   *   *

Last year NBC spent a ton (reportedly $10 million) to get a new anchorman, Brian Williams, to replace Tom Brokaw, who also cost a ton. Next week Dan Rather steps down from CBS, and those who run that network will be told to pay a ton to get a star.
Why do they do this? Because they’re mesmerized by a myth—the corny and no longer relevant belief that the anchorman makes the evening news, that if he’s popular it’s popular.

This is the myth of Cronkiteism. Decades ago everyone in the news came to believe the “CBS Evening News” was No. 1 in the ratings because of the magic of Walter. The truth is Mr. Cronkite took over the evening news in 1963, a bland, plump fellow, a veteran of United Press International with a nice voice. He took over from Douglas Edwards, who covered World War II with Edward R. Murrow. CBS News in those days was the Tiffany network, and they had a great evening news show. Cronkite fit in.

Then John Kennedy was shot, and suddenly, for the first time in the TV era, all eyes turned to television—to the Tiffany network, with the best coverage. And Walter did good work. Soon corporate headquarters realized the evening news could be a moneymaker, a profit center. They pumped more money into the news division, which was still dominated by the ethos of the Murrow Boys, the great journalists who witnessed and took part in Ed Murrow’s one-man invention of CBS News. They created the best broadcast. Mr. Cronkite was its front man. He came to be broadly respected because his show was broadly respected.

Mr. Cronkite became the first megastar TV anchorman, and a generation of programming executives misunderstood why. They thought this was the lesson: first the anchor, then the popularity. This was the opposite of the truth: first an excellent broadcast, then the anchor’s popularity.

Soon CBS will replace Dan Rather. They should hire a reasonable journalist at a reasonable price and then build a sterling, stellar broadcast around him. They should save the money they’d spend on a star and put it in the show.

They should forgo the temptation to blow out all the stops and drag the new anchor to every market in America as the new face of CBS News. They should forgo the temptation to spend a fortune on commercials promoting him. Just put him in there and let America find him. Then let him do interviews. At that point people will actually care what he has to say. People in America like to find stars on their own. Let them.

CBS should also forgo the temptation to spend millions and millions on a new set, new graphics and new theme music. Message to the executive producer: No one in America cares about a new set or new graphics. When focus groups say they notice such things, it’s only because such things have been shoved in their faces and a response requested. New anchors get new sets because anxious producers need something they can point at. The executive producer thinks he has to tell the news division president, who has to tell the company CEO: “We’re doing something big, changing the look of the show.”

It’s a way of covering up the fact that you don’t have a clue.

*   *   *

So take all that money and get yourselves some talented, hungry correspondents. A lot of them. They should be all over Africa, South America, the Mideast and Europe, with talented crews.

Stop with the Stepfordism. Don’t get bright young blondes named Kimmy, Kubby and Koopy. Instead, rehire the great old guys and women you started laying off in the 1980s because they were getting a little fat, a little old, a little untelegenic. They didn’t pop, so you popped them.

Hire them back. They’re all teaching in journalism schools, and they miss the game like you wouldn’t believe. They’ll be thrilled with a second chance, and they’d bring back some of the authority the networks have lost. This is a whole country that enjoys looking at Sipowicz on “NYPD Blue.” This is a whole country that’s aging. We don’t want to watch cupcakes on network TV. That’s what local is for. (Added benefit: when you rehire all these old pro’s it will be a story, get publicity, and the Disney Co., itself eager to return to its roots after decades of cynicism and scandal, will make a hit two-hour movie about it. Because it’s a good story!)

Then open it up—trust your correspondents in the field. Let them tell you the story. Don’t tell them what the story is from New York, after you’ve read the Times and the Washington Post. Let them tell you the story. Let them be our eyes.

What really happened today in Iraq, what are U.S.soldiers doing, what’s the mood in the green zone among people who’ve been there a while? What are they selling in the local candy store in Tikrit, what are young men doing for jobs, what are mothers making for dinner, what’s available to put in the pot, how are the schools going, is it usual for an 8-year-old girl to go to school each day or has that gone by the boards because of war? What do American soldiers think of what Americans back home think of the war, what is their impression of our impression? What does a “letter from home” look like now? Is it a DVD? What is it like to live in a place where everything’s been fine and calm for 10 days and you know you’ve turned a corner and just as you’re thinking this there’s an explosion 10 blocks away and suddenly you hear sirens and people are cowering in doorways?

*   *   *

If you allowed your fine and grizzled correspondents to find the answers and tell us, you would get a fresh and refreshing broadcast. But this does involve putting down your copy of the New York Times.

I worked at CBS 20 years ago and what was true of us then is true now, and true of every other network newsroom: They key evening news coverage off the front page of the New York Times. In Ken Auletta’s piece in The New Yorker this week on Dan Rather’s goodbye he has Mr. Rather in a “Front Page” mode, briskly asking his executive producer what the lead will be that night. Iraq, he answers, and part of the package keys off today’s Times report.

Why do they do this? Is it because the Times knows everything? No. And network producers know it doesn’t know everything. But the bosses of the producers read the Times. And the owners of the network read the Times. And the subordinates of the producers read the Times. They do this because it’s there. If it’s in the Times, it’s real. This is a thought-hangover from 30 years ago, but it lingers.

Thirty years ago this thinking was more understandable. The Times, infuriating on any given day or not, was acknowledged as the nation’s great newspaper. But the Times is now simply an esteemed newspaper. And more and more it plays to a niche, Upper West Side liberals wherever they are. It is not the voice of the age, it is a voice. So less reason than ever to key your coverage off it.

Worse, it kills creativity and enterprise. And it makes the news boring. Who wants a 7 p.m. newscast that reflects the newspaper that hit the Internet 18 hours earlier? The old excuse was, Yeah but we got moving pictures. Now however those pictures have been all over the news by the time it’s 7 p.m.

Turn this bad old habit on its head. Don’t make “It was in the Times” the reason to do a story. Make “It was in the Times” a reason not to do it.

*   *   *

To sum up. Beef up the correspondent staff, hire the best, spend bucks on bureaus, be more independent and creative in your coverage, settle back and let America discover your show.

People will notice in time. In time they’ll become regular viewers. This is the way to prestige and profits. This is the way out of embarrassment and scandal.

For the anchor, get a reasonable journalist and surround him with a great show. Soon enough, as respect and numbers grow, your anchor will be called a Cronkite. That’s how you get a Cronkite. You make the show the star and he becomes a star.

And do this to better serve the American public, which owns the airwaves that provide the platform for your product. Give them a better product. As a public service.