I often felt like a zombie, a member of the walking dead, moving mindlessly through the weeks and expecting the fulfillment of the dream, but by the end of 1963 I still had life and, apparently, a reason to be alive. I decided the dream and letter that killed my dreams of the future with Beth must have been a message to me: I was to live a life of celibacy in service to others, never marrying nor having an intimate relationship with a woman, not just for 1964 but for the rest of my life.

I suppose my upbringing and current situation combined to convince me of the meaning and importance of my prophetic dream. I was raised in the teachings of the Church of the Brethren. Dancing, card-playing, premarital intercourse, and adultery that would bring down the wrath of God. In Haiti, the Baptist missionaries who I lived and worked with had similar beliefs. I was also immersed in a society of people who were baptized Catholic or Protestant but everyone believed in the voodoo spirits and their power. The Christian God was all powerful but one should never upset the spirits that could possess and use people. Whenever people talked about going somewhere, doing something, seeing someone later, they always made it contingent upon si deux vouloir, or ‘God willing’. By this time I had lost most of my early fears of God’s wrath and I did not believe that I needed to appease God or the spirits but I did believe that God was involved in my having the dream when I did.