Finagling a Respite

How Scott conjured a ‘’blizzard’’

My friend Chuck is a “by The Book” Christian.

My friend Scott is a paradoxical Christian.

A board member of the National Baptist Convention, Scott hosts visiting missionaries; he turns over his living quarters and camps on a cot in the cellar.

Scott supports local churches by tending to repairs and menial tasks but rarely attends services; he is unimpressed by what he considers simplistic ideology and insipid sermons. Scott doesn’t expect, nor hope, to go to heaven; he yearns for oblivion.

Scott cannot reconcile God’s purported benevolence with His omnipotence. Famous quotation: “What kind of sonof@b!t(h sends his son to get tortured?”

His cognitive dissonance notwithstanding, Scott persists in seeking an explanation of God’s mercurial nature. He has faith that there is an explanation despite that it continues to elude him.

Enter Chuck.

Disturbed by contemplating the ramifications of Scott’s oxymoronic belief system, Chuck has taken it upon himself to enlighten him.

Nearly every Saturday, over the course of two years, Chuck would show up at Scott’s repair shop three minutes before closing time with a pair of religious CDs for Scott’s edification.

Scott found the CD preachers pompous and bombastic. His quest never-ending, Scott would suffer through the diatribes, ever hopeful for resolution.

After a year of relentless demoralization, Scott was desperate for a break from the self-important spewers of purple prose.

One Saturday morning last January, noticing flurries, Scott turned on the news for a weather report.

Noting the predicted accumulation and wind speed, he hurried to phone Chuck to warn him not to come over, given the snowstorm pending.

Whilst speaking to Chuck, Scott muted the television lest Chuck should overhear:… expected dusting, ceasing by two p.m.