Saturday, March 25th, 1995

Dear God:
    Just got off of the phone with Mom.  She called this morning to
interrupt my lazing about in bed this morning -- the hazy tendrils
of sleep floating about.  
    I had some dreams last night.  An earlier dream went like this:
I drempt of a stylized Europe, I think... some
kind of German feel to the dream.  There was some violence in this earlier
part of the dream.  I (or someone I closely followed about like a spirit)
was having trouble justifying pacifistic ways.  All young men were being
called to get into a sailboat, a rather small skiff to travel across a
lake (or an ocean?) with a few coaching-type of men.  We had all been
living in some kinds of dormitory arrangement, it seemed, and there were
two men responsible to see to it, I think, that I was convinced to take
the entire journey, along with the rest.  Did I go on the boat with the
rest?  I don't think so.  At least not the first time.  (That probably 
didn't set well with the coaching men.  I remember a trip, though, across 
the waters... having been harried by these two men to change my mind, then 
being bugged by them all the way on the sailboat/skiff to disembark at 
the destination.  The expectations and pressures seemed very big -- but 
even with the hell they put me through, I still didn't do as they wanted, 
and so came back with them to receive more torment from them.  
    The (war?) became over and time seemed to pass.  I remember getting
involved with a few younger hang-about, neat, and brilliant young women,
so it seemed ... at least for one meeting, but they seemed like old friends.
We went out to some kind of malt shop, it seemed; the streets were narrow,
the day was bright and cheerful; the setting was a smalling downtown area,
either of a small town, or one of many such areas of a metropolis.  The
streets were kind of curved and windy.  The proceedings seemed sexually 
charged, which was exciting.
    A little later on, we ended up meeting another friend of theirs--an
older friend who had been someone I knew at Bishop Hogan, perhaps a
teacher.  She had incidentally ended up marrying one of the men who had
been one of my tormentors, and somehow had had news through the years
that such torments were what had been happening to me-- or at least to
one of her friends' friends (who were among the female friends I was with
that day).  She hadn't known he was a tormentor and I was one tormented
by him.  She became very angry with her new husband, putting two-and-two 
together.     
    A little later still, we all ended up being together.  The place was
like a combination of the malt shop+bar+dormitory.  Somehow, war erupted
again -- and a store of vacuum tubes needed protecting from either the
war or an earthquake.  The way to protect them was to jump into a gunny
sack with these huge tubes.  (I think the tubes were essential to a
nuclear war effort.)  The man who was the tormentor jumped into a gunny
sack in which its tube broke.  The shattering of the tube had glass
go everywhere in the sack.  He laid on the floor bleeding to death, and 
no one helped him.  It eventually killed him.  His wife didn't even seem 
to care.

   Another set of dreams last night -- I remember
in one of them, I was at K-Mart looking for clothing in a certain
section.  Christa Carroll was there working, and I asked for her
assistance in finding something to buy.  Somehow I had ended up
purchasing a number of bundles of cloth diapers earlier in the dream --
and these were special ones, with leather velcro straps on the back.
But back to K-Mart.  They didn't have much on the shelves out in the
customer area, so she invited me to come back into the stockroom.
I remember thinking that customers typically aren't allowed into the
stockroom, but also thought that, with a clerk, it must be okay.  She
left me, though, to fend for myself -- and I saw another clerk I knew
at store #4350 who always worked in either Hardware or Automotive --
he was behind a desk for auto parts (I think) where only other clerks
could get to him back in the stockroom.  "What a cushy job," I thought,
"only having to work with other employees -- not typically the public."
After Christa left me alone, no one tended to me there.

    There ended up being some cars on the showroom floor, for which I
could sign up to buy.  I wanted another car, had plenty of money with
which to buy it.  So I plunked down some to have a new car for awhile.
I ended up driving around a beautiful maroon Cadillac, a Sedan deVille,
I think.  It had maroon upper upholstry and dark grey lower upholstry.
I ended up back in there looking at another car -- a Grand Am GT, I 
think.  Sleek as the dickens, dark blue, with some blue and white
kind of freebird embazened (or painted) in the hood.  I just looked
at that one.
    At another point in the dream, I was driving the old '73 Impala
Station Wagon from the back seat (no one else was in the car), and on
the dashboard on the right-hand side was a computer tube of a hobby
computer (like the PDP-11's we have?) that I was playing with/com-
municating through the Internet with.  It became more difficult to
drive as I drove by the old Rhodes house in Sedalia (they were having
roofing done) when the tube slipped over to the driver's side.
    At one point in the dream, I was back in Sedalia, driving down
Highway 50, to take a left at Hwy. 65.  I think the tube was on the
driver's side here too.  It was annoying to have to lean to see.
    At another point in the dream, I was at a restaurant on Hwy. 65,
with someone somehow linked to the other dream.  Maybe it was the people
at the next table.  I think pasta was being served there, and someone
made the comment about how much uglier it was here on 65 with all the
restaurants here the many Real Estate Services.  It was remarked,
though, that all the restauranteur traffic seemed to come this way
on 65; that a restaurant owned by the people at the next table failed
utterly because no one went that way.
    Later on, I was staying at a Grandmother's-like house that existed
on a circle (like where Charlie Hawkins used to live in the basement
of a doctor's house).  The Impala was there, and Victor came by to
borrow it -- letting me know he was borrowing it as he was pulling
out.  I didn't much like that.  But Mom & Dad, I think, appeared,
pulling into t driveway, driving through the garage that turned into
a carport and out the back of the carport (I was with them) down a
little gravel road that went on back into the back yard from there.
The road gave out, and there was much land to be seen here from this
glade--but Mom or I insisted that he turn back to get back on the
(short) gravel road before we got stuck in mud or something.  So we
went back.  I wanted to explore back there because, although it was
my house (I think), I had never explored back there, and I found it
to be beautiful.
    At one point, I was dealing with the bank from my car -- perhaps
with a female banker that I knew well, via a cellular phone.  I believe
by this time, I owned a number of automobiles; I drove only the 'mobile
that suited me at the time, kind of like picking out a suit of clothes
to wear for the day.  I remember telling myself at that point that I
felt greedy -- perhaps even telling you that, God, in written form
as I am now doing.
    And I am greedy.  I want it all, it seems.  And this week, one of
my desires was fulfilled -- in that Carfax finally agreed to my post-
billing of $2.50 more per hour for my work.  I am not sure I really
feel good about how this all transpired this week with them.  But this
dream felt a little like a warning -- although the whole dream, from
pacifism to multiple-car-owner, with Christa Carroll visiting in the
middle, was very calm for me as observer in it.  My soul was insulated
from much of the emotions I think I would have felt had any of these
situations come to me in real life.
    I got it though.  Carfax (Ewin Barnett) finally did agree to accept
the terms of my billing, although it felt sudden to all concerned.  Ewin
told me on Thursday, when he signed my bill, that it was like the phone
company suddenly deciding to bill me $50 a month for my usage of the
phone, without making prior arrangements with me.
    Talked to your servant Gary Clark earlier.  He was in town for a
convention about for mentally retarted people.  He talked to me about
the Christian Campus House -- how he and some others went to a Wednes-
day night meeting over there, and very much enjoyed himself/themselves.
They sang, he said, and listened to the witness of some missionaries.
I feel led to explore over there.  I also feel led to seek out some old
acquaintances (potential friends) today, if at all possible.  It looks
sunny out -- and I pray for your help in letting it be sunny in -- in
the disposition of my soul, today.
					Love,
					David