Chapter XXIV: Sunday Service (The Day the Dollar Died Series)
by John Galt
February 21, 2010
Just a reminder….the following is FICTION…..
February 28, 2010 10:00 A.M. Colorado Springs, CO
Wendy was not what you would call a very religious person, but her President had asked every American to take time out today to attend Sunday service and pray for the Republic. Wendy noticed a relative return to normalcy in her area with businesses starting to open back up but that pesky curfew keeping the nightlife she used to enjoy to a minimum. “Sigh, now I know what it was like during prohibition,” she muttered to herself.
The new government appointed attaché began to preach his sermon:
“Welcome one, welcome all to the Universalist Church of Colorado Springs, my name is Joseph Arientes, a Shepard the government has asked to come out of retirement to help bring peace to this little corner of our world during this time of great turmoil.. I know this is not your normal Catholic, Baptist, Islamic, Jewish or Episcopal service, but due to the diversity of this community, we will be praying for all in many forms and languages, and begging the Lord for forgiveness for our sins as a nation, and to the people of our community and country I beseech thee to help our neighbors and friends in their time of need. We of all faiths here in the state of Colorado are blessed by the fruits of the earth and the inner peace for which we have united behind our President, our Congress and our nation in need. God has given us all a chance for redemption and by growing together, as one nation united, not divided, driving forward into a new brighter future under the leadership of men who fear not a benevolent Lord, but fear a nation in collapse because religion and freedom are words used to guide the innocent into actions which harm the greater good.
Our lives, our unity, our society depends on protecting the weak, praying for the powerful, and helping the citizens in our little community assist those brave men fighting overseas or training to do so at the Academy up the road from us. Today has been declared by President Obama a Day of National Prayer. Join me please in this universal prayer for our Republic, being recited now from coast to coast, on military vessels and at bases everywhere, in the Lord’s name, we pray. Please bow your heads.
Dear God, please forgive our nation for the transgressions of the past,
Please help our citizens unite to save the poor, feed and clothe the needy, and aid the sick.
Dear God, please bring tolerance and understanding to our shores, teaching those who need to be taught the new way, so our people can provide for each other, in your name.
Dear God, please help our President spread the good word, to act as your servant on earth to save the Republic and lift all souls to new glories in thy name.
Dear God, please protect our protectors and open your doors to their untimely deaths, providing us all with hope, with glory and freedom at your hands. In your name, we act as your servant on this planet, to protect it, to save it, and to help each other without question or doubt, with you name leading us forth out of the darkness.
Amen.
Wendy began to weep. The gentleman next to her was wearing the uniform of a pilot in the United States Air Force and reached into his wife’s purse to hand Wendy a tissue. “Here you go young lady,” he began, “I hope that prayer resonates across the land before we fall too far, too fast.” Wendy dabbed the tears away from her face and looked up at him only to say, “Thank you sir, I pray you are never in danger. We need men like our President and yourself.”
February 28, 2010 6:45 A.M. just outside of Yazoo City, MS
A young pale man stood up in front of the gathered men, all on one knee in prayer and began to speak:
“My name is Pastor Lewis and today was declared a National Day of Prayer by the President of the United States. For his words, his actions, I shall offer a prayer, but not his prayer, not the words we are all being instructed to offer, but the Lord’s Prayer, the words from the Bible, not a government handbook. This service is not about a nation or a man, it is about forgiveness.
For the words of our leaders now ring hollow, for that I pray to God that they seek and receive forgiveness. For the words of the false prophets and leaders ring blasphemous, I pray for them and offer them my forgiveness. For those men who tortured and starved families and good men who I bore witness to, I forgive them and pray the Lord will also.
For the good men who came to our rescue in Arkansas and brought us to this last bastion of freedom, I thank thee. God works in mysterious ways my friends. A week and a half ago a friend of mine who opened a small Baptist church in Arkansas asked me to watch his flock and protect the property of the church while he attended a family funeral over a thousand miles away. Little did I know that all property in our nation was declared community property and that the country I love would abandon the Constitution, God’s gift to man on earth, a beacon of Freedom and Liberty that allowed us to pray and worship as we all saw fit.
This gathering before me is of men of violence, for which I can not condone nor bless the actions you are about to undertake, not without piercing my soul and violating my oath of non-violent action to save souls and protect those who seek my counsel. There are no atheists in foxholes nor are there non-believers who fight for a cause that is not just and proper. I pray for all of you. I pray for your families. I pray you can find another way but that the Lord finds a path for you and forgives all of you for the transgressions you have and are about to commit as you seek and ask guidance in the future in a nation divided. May you go in peace my brothers and thank you for believing in the word of our Lord. God Bless you all. Let us bow our heads together and recite the Lord’s Prayer.”
Mike actually was choked up after the service and decided to seek a moment with the Father as he knew this man, this frail almost ghost like figure, may be his last chance to get a message out to his wife and family should the worst occur in the next twenty-four hours. “Father Lewis, I believe you said your name was,” Mike asked innocently enough, “can I have a moment of your time?” The Father had those gaunt haunting eyes only seen in the documentaries about the concentration camps in the old World War shows and looked at Mike almost in shame as he said, “Of course my son. Of course you are old enough to be my father also. Perhaps we can counsel each other. Are you Catholic my son?” Mike nodded no and replied, “Lutheran sir, and yeah, I probably am old enough although I have done so much in my lifetime that you could hold a confessional for a week. So let’s just call it a draw and talk about the now and if you need to talk to me, please feel free to.”
Mike decided to keep it simple, short and to the point. “Father,” he started to say as he handed a piece of paper over to him, “here is the address and phone number where my wife is in hiding. By this time today my farm will be seized, my farm animals stolen, my property looted. I fear that she will be the target of retribution for my actions of the last twenty-four hours for abandoning the government and stealing food to give to some poor communities in Mississippi that were being ignored. I know I have done wrong in my past and I hope you understand. Now tell me Father, how did you get here and what counsel can I share with you?”
Pastor Lewis was stunned and had to put his feeble, now marked hand on Mike’s shoulder, “My son, I shall pray for you and do what I can to get word to your wife. Now, if I may, can I tell you about some men I want you to help, if you can?” Mike looked puzzled and said in calm manner, “Of course Father, who would need my help? I’m just the man who finds and ends trouble all of his life, one way or another.” The Pastor began to tell the tale of the people coming to the church, the seizure of his property by the Home Guard and the horrific tale of the tents, even though he was only there for a few nights. “Mike, if I may,” the Pastor continued, “when they took me back to the tents, they beat me, they kicked me, they taught me the horrors of our fellow man. During the two nights I was there when the temperature was below thirty degrees, they would turn hoses on to the ground under our feet, freezing the dirt so we woke up to an ice cold shelter in the morning. I am still recovering from pneumonia and bore witness to two men dying from frostbite as they would not provide any heat. These men hated us, yet we did not know them. They treated us like animals, yet none of these men had lifted a weapon in anger, nor attacked any of them. We did not understand. Then came the two companies from the Arkansas National Guard that switched side, and the horror worsened. The Home Guard was slaughtered and to our horror, the National Guard took no prisoners. They lined the bodies up on the ground and sprayed water on them, freezing them to the dirt for the powers in charge to see. They then rescued as many families as they could and headed across the border to where we are now, the last bastion as it is being called across America. We are now surrounded they said and only have the little corner of Southeast Arkansas, the central part of Mississippi and parts of Louisiana across the river.”
Mike was shocked at this bit of news. “How did you learn of all this Padre,” he asked incredulously, “and why are you telling me all this now?” The man of the cloth took a deep breath, then coughed violently, spitting up a little blood in the process. “Are you going to be okay Father?”, Mike asked. “I’ll be fine my son,” Pastor Lewis replied while wiping his mouth, “I’m going home anyways in all probability if we don’t get some anti-biotics here soon. The reason I know is that I was there, I was warned, I was told they were going to get all of us for daring to oppose the changes. I did not even have a card that they issued, I was so out of the loop. And for that act they got even more crude and violent towards me. They will not stop and now, please Mike, I beg you, I need your help.” Mike said it point blank to the Father, “If the commander lets me, I will help you.”
Father Lewis was a good man and instead of running to the commander he laid out to Mike the dilemma he was facing. Mike looked at the Pastor, then skyward and lit up a cigarette donated by one of the volunteers who appreciated the food they had left for the poor black families in the north of the state. “I’ll go talk to Tim, if he says I can go, I’ll do it,” Mike replied and finished by saying as he tossed the butt of the smoke on to the ground, “and I will be praying for you also Padre.”
February 28, 2010 10:55 A.M. McRae, GA
After a long night of slaughtering dairy cows and cutting the meat up for distribution to the people throughout the town, Lillian and her family welcomed the Sunday services in this small town where America still seemed to be full of life, and the concerns of the world seemed millions of miles away. “Amen!”, the reverend yelled from the pulpit and then instead of dismissing the crowded church or following the dictates from the Department of Information and the prayer they supplied, he spun around to the American flag to the left side of the stage and there a Boy Scout lifted it up straight, above every other flag but below the Cross so as to illuminate it in a golden shower of light. The reverend began:
“I pledge allegiance, to the flag,
Of the United States of America,
And to the Republic, for which it stands,
One nation under God,
Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for ALL!”
Tears were streaming down the faces of almost everyone in the church. The reverend removed his hand from over his heart, grabbed the Bible off of the pulpit and held it against the flag and over the din of people sobbing and talking yelled out, “I shall not let anything come between God and Country. When these are separated by force, our freedoms have died. Stand strong my friends for we must be united as one. God Bless everyone.”
Tom felt like he had been punched in the head as he looked at Lillian and asked, “Was our government just dictating religion now? Are we going to have a new system of laws for speech and religion?” Lillian shrugged, grabbed his hands and said simply, “Yup. Buckle up my son.” Sandy was glowing with hope and her mother did not want to break the spirit so she looked at her, put her arm around her and whispered to her, “I know you needed that.” Sandy kissed her Mom on the cheek and simply said to her Momma, “I love you Momma. I needed it more than you could ever know. I was losing hope. They have just beaten us down so much in just one week.”
The reverend called Tom over to his pickup truck and he met with three other gentlemen and a deputy from the county. They had a long conversation and Lillian was getting worried as she sat in the SUV which still had a bit of that dead cow smell in the back, so she pinched some chew into her gums that she received from one of the men in the church to clear the smell from her nose. “Momma, you’re not dipping are you? That stuff will kill you!”, Sandy said emphatically. “Honey, we’re all going to die now, I don’t want the last smell in my nose to be that of a dead dairy cow. You want some? I’ve got about two pinches left,” Lillian said to her daughter laughing a little with that nasty brown-green smile. “Ugh, no thanks,” Sandy said as she watched Tom come back from the meeting and hop into the truck.
“What is the news Tom? Should we get ready for more fun and games?”, Lillian asked. “Something like that. The President is speaking live tonight as per the newspaper. He is laying out the plan and which states are free states now and how the troublemakers will be dealt with. The county sheriff feels that we could have some unwanted guests from that Home Guard group as they have stabilized the Atlanta area by using brute force where they needed to,” Toms paused the lit up a cigarette to the horror of his wife, “and now he fears that they are on their way to South Georgia to lock up any opposition or runners.” Lillian spit out the window, leaned back in her seat and said to Tom, “So you volunteered to help the deputies, I hope.” Tom nodded in the affirmative and Sandy started to sob as she said, “First you start smoking and now you’re going to take a stand and I’ll be an old widow in the middle of nowhere. Why are you doing this Tom? We can just hunker down at the farm house.” Tom started the SUV, turned around and looked his wife in the eyes as her mascara started to run, “Sweetie, how long until you think they get out there and steal everything and lock everyone up? A day? Two days? We have to draw the line but let’s hear what the President says tonight. That will be the deciding factor the deputy said and we’ll be meeting at nine tonight in the town square to figure out what to do.”
February 28, 2010 9:42 A.M. Sarasota, FL The Slough
Somehow, some way, the Good Lord took the President’s idea and blessed the newly labeled “terrorists” in Sarasota by laying down a thick heavy layer of fog. My strategy of abandoning the trucks at the shopping mall and stealing a County Parks and Recreations vehicle was brilliant as it looked like it was supposed to be in this closed park and nobody would want to search in here while the fog was so thick. We heard the gunshots ringing out occasionally in the distance but the seven of us who left the area figured we were the group that was going to take the fall since we fled.
“John, what’s the plan?” I heard the voice then sighed as I only had a fleeting idea and thus I began. “We have to wait until dark, hold out here, clean your weapons, get some food but no fires, no cooking. Let’s all kneel, pray for forgiveness and rest. We will rotate guard posts every four hours. At the start of curfew we head southeast. If we play our cards correctly, we will make it to the Everglades next weekend, faster if we can find one of those patriot groups and can get a ride down there.” They all looked at me in horror but before they could say a word, I started to recite the Lord’s Prayer and bowed my head. It was eerily quiet in the fog and as I said “Amen” the church bells rang out at ten o’clock on the money, just as the President had requested.
One of the wives of the neighbors who actually understood what I was advising began to talk, “Should we listen to the President before acting or just get out of Dodge?” I looked at her and my wife who was very concerned by now and told her, “We are wanted men in perfect times, the walking dead according to this leadership. We listen and run but we do so quietly. Most of the nation will be fixated on the speech so we could get out of the city limits and free while they are listening to him pontificate. This could work to our advantage plus we could hit a few small stores on the way out of town and grab more food and water.” Everyone nodded in agreement and set up their bedrolls to grab some sleep. I put an earpiece into my ear to listen to the talk radio programs from the government talking heads discuss a speech that has not even begun. As I scanned the horizon, every now and then the flashing blue lights would zoom by in the fog. This was a time for eternal vigilance and not a time for compromise. I was finally alive, free to defend what I believed in. After tonight the question I was waiting to hear an answer for would be solved:
“What would be the cost?”
