It is impossible to not comment on the political stuff that is all around us. Dark speeches and hateful speech, unhappy, worried people, all that verbiage heaped on one speech and the commentators who do the heaping are usually the ones who say that the sky is falling. They call this a dystopian vision. Interestingly one of the definitions of dystopian is “believing that you are not being treated fairly”, I would say that one party has pretty much got the stranglehold on dystopians. They pander to folks who are unfairly treated in everyway from having to listen to threatening speech on campus to feeling bad about where they use the toilet. Anyway here is a first century letter that I found amazing – pretty dystopian.
For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all (others) ; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table; but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonoured, and yet in their dishonour are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honour; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they ,rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred. (From the Epistle to Dioqnetus, author unknown.)
