A theocrat's prayer to end democracy
Looking up into the dome of the state capitol building in Topeka. (Max McCoy/Kansas Reflector)
It was a time of great and fervent excitement. By act of Congress, citizens were asked to turn to their Creator in supplication and meditation. This national day of prayer was to be celebrated in statehouses across the land, with every individual invited to offer hosannas or amens or other holy words of praise. The places of lawmaking were transformed into houses of worship, where the symbols dear to the faithful festooned the galleries and holy banners fluttered from balconies.
When the appointed day arrived, lawmakers made thunderous speeches and pounded their desks in protestations of righteousness. There was no louder din than in the capitol building of an interior province, a region known as much for its piety as for the bountiful harvests of wheat and corn. Under a great copper-sheathed dome, choirs of young people sang the praises of the One who made the sky while lawmakers clustered elbow to bended elbow and murmured their approval.
Few remembered the ancient day when the day of supplication became the law of the land, or the war that had prompted its passage, or the innkeeper and the lawmaker who had championed it. An ambassador of this interior province, was not yet born when the day was proclaimed, but from a dais in the capitol rotunda he addressed the assembled flock.
His face was stern as he clutched his holy book and urged the assembled to celebrate the land's deliverance from the rule of the godless. At long last the battle for theocracy had nearly been won. The faithful were in power under the great copper dome. It would be a small matter to extinguish the infidels entirely. No true patriot could doubt the land was specially ordained by the Almighty for greatness. Victory was at hand. The ambassador bowed his head and asked the One to bestow wisdom on the leaders of the land. He unashamedly asked this for all in the name of peace and love.
No one could remember a more passionate or powerful sermon.
Then an aged stranger approached. She moved silently down the aisle and mounted the platform, her chalky robe swirling like smoke. Her white hair fell in rivulets to her shoulders. Her face was as pale as those of the statues of long-dead statesmen in the alcoves of the rotunda.
The stranger touched the ambassador on the arm and bid him step aside, which the startled man did. She grasped the lectern with skeletal hands and surveyed the congregation with eyes burning with uncanny light.
'I am sent from the Throne,' she said, her voice solemn and deep. 'The One has heard your prayers, and they will be granted — if you wish. But know that for every prayer answered, another must be dashed. Each request for favor brings with it the unspoken plea that another be disfavored. All supplications for earthly power are wishes both selfish and damned.'
Her eyes smoldered.
'You have asked the One for victory,' she said, 'so that you might rule this land in the way which pleases you. Very well. I will repeat your prayer, as it falls upon the ears of the One above the clouds.'
There were calls for the capitol guards to remove the stranger, but they stood as transfixed as the crowd.
'Almighty One, grant us the power over our political enemies, so that we may not only exalt You but punish them,' she said, her voice growing stronger. 'Let us make laws that take the food from their mouths, the homes of their families, and their ability to pay for medicine and doctors to see them through sickness. Grant us the power to choose in their stead the governing of their bodies and their minds. Allow us to restrict the means of controlling conception and then force women to bear unwanted children, even when violated.'
The stranger paused and clutched the robe to her breast.
'Let us purge from their libraries those books we deem to be improper or impious. Allow us to deny our enemies the ability to seek redress by controlling the manner in which their leaders are selected. Grant us the right to banish from our shores those who utter seditious dissent.'
The crowd grew still.
'Let our enemies live from this day forward with fear in their hearts,' the stranger said. 'Let them fear the loss of their positions if they speak of equity or inclusion, make them cower if they dare say azure instead of crimson, allow them pain if they insist on choosing how they shall be called by others. Make their nights sleepless in expectation of a knock at midnight's door. Grant them freedom of worship only if they worship as we do, deny them public office if they refuse any manner of worship, and enforce the social and marital codes of a society these thousands of years dead.'
The ambassador attempted to mutter 'blasphemy,' but the word caught in his throat. The stranger regarded him for a moment with pity, then turned back to the crowd.
'Allow no truth to free a human soul,' the stranger continued. 'Shutter the great houses of learning lest a whisper be made against the ambassador or his earthly king. Make a virtue of intolerance and paint it as just. Make retribution the supreme law of the land, power the only virtue, and chaos the only mode. Force them to abandon the sacred civic code that once governed this land, just as we have, and accept in their stead whimsy, nonsense and malice. Allow the land to wither beneath tariffs on foreign things, the fear of strangers, and the rapacious hunger of misers and kings.'
The stranger shook her head and her hair floated cloud-like about her face.
'Finally, Greatest One, ignore the prayers of the meek, the young, the sick and the old,' she said, her voice growing soft. 'Comfort not those who pray with pure hearts. Reward not those who thirst for righteousness. Punish those who seek the truth. Banish those who challenge power with fact. All are enemies of the state, Greatest One, and are therefore your enemies. Damn their hopes, dash their dreams, and make their eyes wet with tears. Deny them comfort, afflict their spirits, and fill their hearts with lead. Smite them and their generations to come. Forever make them inequal to us. Grant us the end of history and relieve us of the will to change. This we implore of You, in the name of love.'
The stranger paused.
'This is the prayer of your secret hearts,' she said, her voice a quaver. 'If you still desire it, speak! The messenger of the One awaits.'
It was reported afterward that the old woman was a lunatic, because there was no sense in what she said. On the way to the asylum, a copy of Mark Twain's 'The War Prayer' was found in the folds of her voluminous robe.
Max McCoy is an award-winning author and journalist. Through its opinion section, the Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.
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