Okay I just woke up from a dream that started with:
My dad getting a call from his pastor telling him that my dad's test results showed that he had intestinal cancer.
I was hired to persecute a gay couple that I think had gotten illegally married
- on the way we had an incident in a boat with an alcoholic whale that would capsize people trying to get their alcohol
- also we kept seeing people with these newhairstyles where they would make these big styles with fake hair similar to what you see now, but would put a fake dolls face in it that looked like their own face and it would have a hairstylejust like theirs. It was really weird. It was like 2 tiers, the first being their face with their hair and the fake hair styled around it and the second tier above was a doll face with the exact same style framed around its face.
- I was talking to the people at the club (as I was investigating that gay couple) and a lady whose boat was destroyed by a whale thought the styles were "redic" (rediculous) I'm not sure where I was but people had weird accents and slang. I'm thinking I might have been in the Carribbean, lots of booze cruises for whales to attack and get alcohol from.

Anyway, there was the showdown at the end where I found the gay couple and called my back up guy to bring them in. This started a gun fight - the gay guys had guns and my backup didn't. He ran at them dodging the bullets. I realized that someone was going to get killed and this was rediculous so I ran after the 3 of them fighting. They started shooting at me but the bullets were so slow, I could dodge them too. I grabbed a piece of plywood and could deflect the bullets with it. Finally, I reached and captured the guys and my backup got them in handcuffs. The media had arrived by now and I was supposed to visibly put them in the police car so all of the gay folks would know how our country didn't tolerate them. However, I realized that I was setting a prescedent and instead of making an example of them for intolerance. I announcd that under our laws they could be imprisoned for their marriage, but I was taking the cuffs off and letting them go free to show that our police department would no longer be persecuting gays.

Somewhere in there my dad's brother and family came to visit my dad to see how hs treatment was coming. it was weird my cousin Jason had like shoulder lenght hair and kinda seemed like he'd become a hippy. Everyone else seemed fine. I told my dad that once they remove the huge tumors from his gut at least he'd be loosing weight.

Anyway, all of this random weird stuff actually ties in to things that have happened in my life recently. -except for the alcoholic whale....

Against Corporate Domination

and American Indifference

We cry to you for justice, O Lord, for our soul is weary

with the iniquity of greed. Behold our Wall Street magnates,

our Gordon Gekkos who bestride the commercial

world as if it were their own. It is they who defy you and

drain their fellow Americans for gain; it is they who grind

down the strength of workers by merciless toil and outsource

or downsize them whenever the markets permit

such actions. We cry out against them and against the

slumlords and developers who manipulate and exploit the

poor and make dear the space and air that you have made

free; who paralyze the hand of justice by corruption and

blind the eyes of the people with lies about welfare queens

and illegal immigrants; who nullify by craft the merciful

rent-control and minority contractor laws that we by the

better angels of our nature have passed in order to protect

the weak; who, sometimes in collusion with the church

have gentrified the city against the interests of the poor

38 / PRAYERS FOR THE NEW SOCIAL AWAKENING

010 Iosso Text (1-186) 1/11/08 2:29 PM Page 38

and have brought upon your church the contempt of the

world, all for progress, profit, and ease.

For the oppression of the poor by unrighteous and

greedy televangelists who have cloaked their extortion

with the gospel of your Christ and name-it-and-claim-it

theologies, we cry out for relief and for mercy. We know,

O Lord, that you love the weak and poor and hate the

grasping and that your doom is upon those who grow rich

on the poverty of the people.

Yet we too are afraid, O Lord, because we too seek to be

like Donald Trump rather than like Jesus. The thundercloud

of your wrath is even now booming over our heads and in

our ears, for we share the greed and lust of corporate domination

of the poor. In the ruins of dead empires we have read

how you have trodden the winepress of your anger when the

measure of their sin was full. We know clearly how much we

are like them, so we know that the press of your wrath is for

us a cup running over. We live as an unjust empire on borrowed

time, relying on your undeserved mercy and patience

as we pursue life, liberty, and happiness instead of your reign

and the year of Jubilee. Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief!

Lord, we are sorry, and we repent; but we have put away

our sackcloth and ashes in favor of Gucci and bling. Save us

from ourselves, from our commitment to mammon, from the

indifference we the middle-class have towards the wretched

of the earth. Save us from our leaders, whom we have chosen,

who have committed us to be the worlds' police and to

chase terrorists with unlimited violence while lusting for foreign

oil.

Help us to repent of our ways, to cease and desist from

our sins. Help us to turn back to your law lest the mark of

the beast, already etched on the right hand of our nation,

already drenched in the blood of other nations, becomes a

permanent mark of our rebellion against you. Help us to

wash that hand by exorcizing our demonic public policy

and evil foreign policy, lest our feet be set on the downward

PRAYERS OF PROTEST AND SOLIDARITY / 39

010 Iosso Text (1-186) 1/11/08 2:29 PM Page 39

path of darkness from which there is no return forever.

Lord, we believe. Help our unbelief!

Finally, Lord, in our new-and-improved, internet-driven

global village, help us to turn to you with all our hearts and

all our souls and all our minds, loving the widow and orphan

and sojourner in our land, not as a pastime or hobby, or a

charity, but as a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a light upon

a hill-a hill that has overturned the tables of the money

changers of Wall Street in favor of a genuine solidarity with

your blessed poor. We ask, O Lord, that they and the meek

inherit your earth. Hear our prayers, O Lord!

Amen.

DARRYL TRIMIEW is the chair of the Department of Philosophy and

Religion at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York.

Previously, he was dean of the black church studies program at

Crozer/Colgate Rochester Divinity School. Dr. Trimiew is the author

of God Bless the Child That's Got Its Own: The Economic Rights Debate

(1997) and Voices of the Silenced: The Responsible Self in a Marginalized

Community (1993).

You've guessed correctly, this entry is another weird dream!

I was transfered to a strange and alternate dimension called Myspace. Probably via my computer because I sit in front of it so much. Anyway, in the dream everything was dark, it was eternally night in Myspace and gloomy. There was a heavy evil vibe that I felt lurked out there somewhere in the night and I wanted to get away. I was in a suburban forested park and was walking around looking for a way out. I found a wristband on the ground and picked it up. I saw a cab whizzing by and ran to it waving my arms. I caught it and jumped in. As I looked back through the window I saw a pack of ghostly people drifting to the spot where I had just been standing (probably wanting me to listen to their band, read their poetry or see their photos; consume my life with their friend requests!) anyway the cabbie was a nice older black guy that was named Johnny, something- I've forgotten a bit since this morning and he was solid and real, not like the ghost people.

I asked him to get me out of Myspace! He noticed the wristband that I had on- it was one of those paper bands that they put on you when you go to an amusement park or club that's neon green or pink and you have to wear if you leave to get back in. He said I was lucky because the wristband would allow me to exit almost anywhere, otherwise I'd have to try and leave through the gate I'd entered through and they seldom let people out, once they come in.
We drove down the streets of Myspace and people were clustered in groups in the parks we passed. Some clusters were freinds, some shared common interets, some shared favorite movies, etc. Suddenly the park was filled with a huge cluster. There were ghostly people milling about everywhere! They were on the seesaw, all over the grass, there was a tent set up that they were under their and cluster continued on the other side of the street.  They noticed my fearful eyes looking out at them as we glided past in the cab.

Johnny, said that we wouldn't be able to drive through, too many of them would be in the street and once we stopped, we'd be caught.  He reversed back down the street. "Abandon the cab," he yelled and we jumped out ducking low and ran across the street to a building. I could hear the murmur of approaching hoards requesting friendship , wanting to leave a comment, inviting me to an event! Johnny found my wrist and told me to hold onto the wristband and think of home. I placed y hand over the band and began to imagine myself floating back through space out of this horrid dimension. I could see shining neon pink light through my eyelids, the band was working! I could feel the teleportation happening when I suddenly remembered that my brother was still there in Myspace! Arthur was there too! Oh, no- I couldn't desert them! I zapped back- the light shut off and Johnny was sitting there looking at me with a questioning concern in his eyes. I said lets go, I can't leave with out my friends!

Unfortunately, the band was a bit damaged from the aborted journey and no longer sealed shut. I wrapped it up in my hand, because if I lost it, I'd be stuck there forever.

So the dream continues - I find my brother, he doesn't want to leave of course. I find Arthur, we try to escape, I loose Johnny, because my search is too dangerous and he won't help anymore. Eventually I get out and end up at Bryn Mawr! weird! and everything is different- They've added a movie theater and a mall and a Mc Donalds to the campus! First I'm trying to find a dorm room that's free so I can have it for the semester- the only free ones are in the basement. Then I'm trying to get to breakfast and end up lost in the crowds of people that now come to campus to shop or take classes. I run into a group of black guys in scrubs that look like they know where their going and one points me in the right direction. I end up at the movie theater where the tickets are $30 but you get to see 6 films. I end up in a theater of a Gerge Clooney movie and George Clooney is in the empty theater- he's the only one there to see his new blockbuster-

Anyway- strange stuff!