(from The Tea Party Patriot)

                Jenny stood near the tall, wooden gate and listened. Tiny alarms sounded in her mind as she watched her pale, skinny limbs begin to glow under the cold-grey light. She glanced up, and saw the bright lunar monocle glaring back at her from between the clouds, exposing her as it seared through the thin, Florida haze. Now completely frozen, save for her deep green eyes, Jenny searched for exceptions to the surrounding midnight, all the time praying that more clouds would drift in before she’d completely replaced her resolve with panic. Jenny felt the thick cushion of dead St. Augustine grass crackle under her bare feet as she slowly willed herself one giant step back against the side of the house—her house. The sensation sent a shiver up through her heart, and out the tiny fuzz of hair and goose follicles on the back of her neck and arms.

               Now guarded by the eave of the roof, Jenny flattened herself against the rough stucco, her left arm just inches from the gate latch that would provide her access to the back yard, and some semblance of safety. She peered anxiously at the window of a house across the street—one of the few occupied houses on that street. Unless someone else was out after curfew, it was the only place she could possibly be seen from.

             Okay. Let’s just dive right into it, shall we? Saint Augustine? Who was Saint Augustine?

             Saint Augustine of Hippo, 354-430 A.D., a Latin church father, was a very important figure in the development of Western Christianity. He believed that the grace of Jesus Christ, (the concept as taught by the Apostle Paul that salvation is not earned, but is a gift from God), was essential to the concept of personal human freedom. He also framed the concept of “just war”, was a great influence to John Calvin, the Protestant Reformation, and therefore the founding of our country. St. Augustine summarily rejected the notion of Manichaeism: the idea that good and evil were equal and opposing forces, that evil was represented by the concept of “matter”, and that good was represented by the concept of “mind”.

             The words are specifically “dead St. Augustine” in the novel, which I thought was entirely appropriate for Jenny’s complete loss of personal human freedom.  In her world, the concepts championed by St. Augustine are dead. There is no personal human freedom.  Government is incapable of love, and therefore grace, on any level.  St. Augustine’s “death” gives rebirth to the concept of the “good mind,” a predecessor to the idea that what is good is not of God, but of human mind; it is the basis of humanism, liberalism, progressivism, communism, etc. It is the idea that “man” is the closest thing to “Infinite Intelligence,” not God; it summarily rejects the idea that basic human rights are not gifts from God, but from fellow man (and can therefore be taken away by man).

             But Jenny walks on… tramples on… St. Augustine? NO. She tramples on what represents the death of the above mentioned Augustinian concepts: a death, which would seem by all accounts as permanent, is still a complexity of strong, interwoven strands of ideas.  Those ideas, though they appear dead in this story, still support Jenny. Actual St. Augustine grass, even when it has died, is still the toughest foe to the motorized tiller. Only the heaviest and strongest tillers can mulch dead St. Augustine grass. The other tillers are too weak; they just bounce off the top of the formation, unable to penetrate the intertwined strands of even the dead grass.

             Also, Jenny is barefoot.  Though this could imply many things, including poverty, it also show’s her intimate involvement with the concepts of St. Augustine, even though these concepts now seem dead in her world.

             In the third sentence, Jenny is exposed by the bright lunar monicle? To whom? You can read about that, though I think the question should instead be, “By whom?” Who does the Moon represent?  Our Moon has had a longstanding connection with the concepts of insanity and irrationality. Plainly, only an insane authoritarian ruler would feel the need to criminalize and expose a woman for the act of sneaking into her own backyard in order to… (Oops. Had to stop myself there. If you’re curious, you really ought to read the book!)

*          *          *

            Now we’ll take a step back and see the novel.  Perhaps some other time we can examine more than just the first three sentences of the book.

            The novel is a tragedy: a duality of tyranny and hope offered to the reader in third person. At best, it’s an odd beginning to the story, given the title of the book. Or is it? The Tea Party Patriot is actually a novel comprised of two eventually interlinked stories. Jenny’s story, for the most part, takes place in the present. Her story is that of hope, faith, and charity within the confines of totalitarian tyranny. It is told from her perspective.

             The other half of the novel is about the experiences of Jenny’s husband, Jerry.  Jerry’s story, though recalled in the present and told from his perspective, is for the most part a recollection of the past. His story offers the reader snapshots of history, as he relives the chain of events that began in a time not unlike our own. A leader of the Tea Party movement, his insights offer an explanation of the events and philosophies that brought about a socialist, totalitarian American government.