So last night I had a pair of dream sequences several hours apart that oddly caught my fancy. Usually when I dream I dream about people or places, but this time I was essentially delivering speeches the entire time (or, at least in the parts I'm going to mention). The first sequence had me visiting a fire-and-brimstone church of the Religious Right (a faction of "Christianity" I've never liked). I don't remember why I got sent there in the first place, but my mission was to talk to some people about their faith and why they believe what they believe. I remember the first person I ran to was a rather subdued personality but very much set in his ways. No matter what argument I tossed at him he would always come back with something else. As the worship service continued (I pretty much spent the entire time hanging out in what one might call a "narthex" in more traditional churches... basically the common area -- a room adjacent to the worship space), I ran into another, more animated personality, and when I asked him the question, "do you think human beings are 100% bad? Do you think you are 100% bad?" I finally started making some headway. We had been on the topic of sin and how people sin so much, and I think I was attempting to tell him my story about how I learned from related experiences. But he stopped and realized, you know, loving other people is important. I managed to run into the first person again, and posed the same question to him (for some reason I didn't think to ask it the first time around). He too came around. I then asked if I could pray for them, that God would give them understanding.
The dream sequence peters out from here. I have no idea if they definitively said yes, but in knowing how fruitful the discussions had finally become, I imagine they would have accepted. Also, the worship service was ending, so more people started to file out into the common area.
The second sequence that I want to share today more or less begins while I'm out at a park where a lot of children are playing. There was a town event focused on recycling that was about to start. I saw a bunch of adults, basically comprised of people that I've run into the last month-plus (well, everyone except for the Vineyard folks and the 'rents), so I decided to join them and see what was going on. At first it seemed we were going to play a game (volleyball, anyone?), because as soon as I joined the circle people started counting off in twos ... one, two, one, two ... and so on. But before we broke into our teams, one of the adults started making some brief introductory remarks -- you know, the "welcome," and "we're glad you were able to make it out here," etc. statements -- and at the end he opened the floor for anyone else to make any remarks. I jumped on the opportunity to make an impassioned speech about recycling while commemorating my high school physics teacher who had died just a year earlier. This went on for about five minutes, during which I'm sure the others spent the whole time waiting for me to wrap up.
Looking back at these particular sequences, I feel like my brain conjured up different mishmashes of memories from the last month and put them together. I suppose that's the mode I'm in now. Yesterday I restarted yet another attempt to write my fictional story, and this time I fished for all sorts of tangents to round it out. This particular version is going to make the actual story much longer than I had originally planned, but I have to say I'm quite well-pleased with it this time around; I think it's a keeper, length and all.