Peter, Marcy, Jed, and Jay

One-page handwritten letter on yellow lined paper.

Also in the same envelope, apparently unrelated to this letter: a torn scrap of white paper (with a curved edge; roughly the shape of a 3"-long slice of pie) that has written on it, in Peter’s handwriting, in pencil: “Rex Stout books P. didn’t read: “And Be A Villain”, “Three for the Chair”. On the back of the paper, in my handwriting, in small capital letters are some mysterious words and numbers: “DOCK, 2”, “CANYON, 3”, “CANAL, 1”—laid out around the perimeter of the circle in a way that makes me think I had made some kind of turn-a-circle-of-paper-around-an-axis kind of device.

8/9/78

new address

as of 8/16

New Palo Alto address redacted by Jed.

Dear Pop, Dad, George, Father, or Grandpa--

(please choose one or more)

O I was dismayed to hear of your alarming close shave--I remember how bruised & sore I was after getting hit riding my BMW motorcycle, years ago...

Well I am very grateful that you were protected from worse injuries than you received, which we heard were not too bad... maybe your, my, our ancestors were guarding you ... with a spiritual-plane “Gardol shield” of Light maybe ... [the ancestors are dead, long live the ancestors!]

So I phoned in a prayer that your suffering be relieved (8:30 pm 8/9/78) & your life filled with Light...

Anyway I hope you recover completely and rapidly, and that your “clouds” will have been burned off by this experience, sufficiently that you’ll never have to undergo anything of the sort again...

Must go study my DP books...

Love,

Peter

Notes

“close shave”

I assume George was in some kind of car accident, but I don’t know anything about it.

Gardol

Apparently an ingredient in toothpaste, supposed to protect your teeth?

timestamp for prayer

I’m guessing that Peter added the date and time in case George had undergone a miraculous healing at that exact moment.

“clouds”

Our church taught that our spiritual bodies were affected by “spiritual clouds” that caused us problems in the physical world. Those clouds were dissipated in any of three ways: by suffering; by appreciation of beauty (such as looking at flower arrangements); or by Johrei. So Peter is suggesting that George’s suffering caused some of George’s spiritual clouds to go away, reducing the need for future suffering.

“DP”

I assume this was short for Data Processing.