First Impressions

May 31st 2038

Letters from the Front

05/31/38

Dear family,

It feels wrong to start any letter off, with anything apart from saying “Thank you”. I am sure that as time goes on, this may seem to get stale, but please let the thanksgiving born from the tips of my fingers as I type, be as fresh in your hearts as they were the first time you heard them.

Thank you.

I have been here at The Vote for one week now, and nothing in my training could have ever prepared me for this. I am happy that I chose to send one letter per week, because it has taken me this entire first week to have a “first impression.”

The first citizen to cast their vote, if you haven't been following the coverage, is a man from East Oklahoma who goes by the name David Jawson. He’s 104 years old, and him being “randomly selected” from the entire population, reeks of a publicity stunt. As you all know, there are many people who refuse to join the circus of our current Government, and never vote. Lately, at least in my opinion, they have become more and more vocal than before, which is why I am questioning the randomness of Jawson’s name being selected. They have erected a stage like I have never seen, here at The City of The Vote, with crowds of people just to watch him be the first to cast. I know it is always an event when the first ballot is cast, but this year, with this man, it's something else. There’s a band, other people around his age, telling stories in little circles of people who have gathered, each one of them draped in the black and blue of The Demos. It couldn't get more nationalistic if it were fiction. The stage he is on, lit from every angle and with more cameras aimed at him than anywhere else in the crowd, is directly across the reflecting pool from the the voting booth. 

Or course, the military is here, guarding it.

The pomp surrounding Jawson being the first to vote, is not what I was referencing though. I was prepared for showmanship and pageantry. It's absurd, yes, but I can stomach it. What I can’t digest, though, is the lengths to which others who claim that they stand with us will go to, to let everyone around me know…that they aren't like me.

“Yes, I am a person of the Book, yes of course…but not like him.” They seethed.

Not like me. Now that I have had time to think about it, however, I guess what surprised me the most, was the number of people claiming to be of The Way, who opposed me. I was expecting a few. A handful. Maybe even a small crowd. But there are hundreds. Close to a thousand if I had to put an exact number on it. All of whom claim to believe but refuse to stand against the tyranny of The Demos. For that is what this is. It is cold tyranny, in the same sense that the war in the 1940s and 50s was “cold”, yes, but it is Tyranny nonetheless.

To ensure that you know exactly what kind of Missionary I am, I must make it plain that the current government we live under is tyrannical. We, children of The Way, People of The Book, whatever name you wish to call ourselves, are living under a Cold Tyranny. 

And I feel that this is the dividing line between us and others who claim our name but live contrary to our beliefs. Where is the highest authority? To whom does it belong? Did it belong to the black robed justices of the old United States? I would say that the emergence of The Demos has proved that wrong. Their robes are as forgotten as their names now. Well then, where is the final authority? When laws and courts exist to punish evil; when peace officers enact those actions they deem necessary to live into their names; when militaries roll tanks and fly planes across borders physical and metaphysical; under what authority do they stand? What gives them power to act? When the federal government sanctions, encourages, endorses, and financially funds the murder of the innocent because of the choices of their parents…in public…what authority do they appeal to that gives them the permission to act?

Children of The Way know the answer. Others, who hijack our name, have another answer.

“The people!” They shouted at me, as if the volume of their voice would negate my words. “The people are the final authority. We make laws, we make morality.” 

That was their chant, on repeat, for five continuous hours as I stood and preached.

“We make laws, we make morality. We make laws, we make morality.” Over and over and over again.

Nothing I said could get through to them. Even when I pointed out that the jewelry they wore around their necks and the verses they had plastered on their signs, silently spoke against their rally cry.

I hate to close this letter with news such as that, but it is not bad news. Troubling? Sure. Foreboding? Possibly. But bad? Not at all. It is good news that people who wear our faith as an accessory to decorate their selfish lifestyle, aren’t actually Christians. For if it were Christians, those within whom the Holy Spirit lives and who will be declared “innocent” by the King of the Universe on their day in His mighty Court, who went forth into this tyrannical country, then this tyrannical country would have no hope.

But there are. 

You, Christian, whose voice may be as small as the actions you have taken in this fight, are not alone. The World may be trying its damndest to convince you that you are alone; the Devil, in all his disgusting glory is as well; and your old nature, your sin, your flesh, the old man that lives within the basement of your heart, is undoubtedly offering up to you just as many doubts as he is sins and temptations. 

Don’t listen to any of them.

You were made for this fight. Ephesians 2:10 says that the works you are going to do…preexisted you, and that you were made on purpose to go and do them.

You were made for this fellow Christian.

Shawn Polemos

Missionary to The Vote