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Sunday, October 23, 2011

64. Contradictions

Had some out-of-town visitors last week so I put them up in our condo and I stayed in the spare one. My wife had gone to check on her animals. I had some time to kill so I was sampling a bit of Maker’s Mark, reading some Mencken, and enjoying our city’s skyline when I heard a knock on the door. I assumed it was one of our guests with a question.

No such luck.

It was a man dressed as a priest so I new it had to be C.W.

“Come in,” I said.”

“Thank you my son.”

“Give me a break.” I had already begun to resent the intrusion.

“Blessed are those who seek righteousness,” he said.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Answers to questions.”

“Such as?”

He reached into his robe and produced a worn copy of the Christian New Testament. It had multiple bookmarks and “sticky-notes” waved like little pennants from every edge. He flapped it in front of my face for effect.

“This Jesus that so many of your species claims to worship.”

“Yes,” I said. “What about him?”

“A truly remarkable person … if all this is true.”

“I suppose.”

“Do your people really claim to revere his teachings?”

I sensed a trap. “Many do,” I said cautiously.

“Have they ever read this?” He flapped the volume in front of my face again.

“Would you stop that?” I said. “I don’t know how many have actually read it. I suspect not many.”

“Well I have,” he said with a great show of pride. “Want to know something?”

“I am quivering in anticipation.”

“Assume not ye the guise of fools,” he said. “For they do not find grace.”

“Where does that appear?”

“Oh, that’s mine,” he said. “But look here.” He leaned into my face and took on a solemn tone. “Want to know what three things really got his goat, this Jesus?”

”Of course.” I was hoping this would hasten his exit.

“Rich people, divorce, and dumb thinking.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes, especially the last. I mean the disciples flat drove him up the wall.”

“I seem to remember that.”

“So,” he said. “I have a question for you.”

I sighed. “Fire away.”

“Name three things that your species is really fond of … that they practice above all else.”



You folks got some "splainin" to do.
  “Well, they don’t exactly work at dumb thinking, do they?”

”Have you not watched any of the presidential debates?”

He had me there. “So what is your point?”

“Just this. I have to make my quarterly report to the Falloonian Elders and I must still state that the greatest single ability of your species is to hold completely contradictory beliefs in your heads with no apparent damage.”

“Well we have to be good at something,” I said, returning to my Mencken.

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