The Great Debaters

This week while I am away, I will be bringing back a few of my favorite posts, in no particular order.




Driving in the car yesterday, I had a funny thought about what Judgment Day would have looked like with my family present. (Why, you ask? I have no idea, my brain moves in mysterious ways...)

No doubt everyone behind the Lewises in line would have a long wait. We'd all be debating with God regarding our lists of sins.

My mother would be trying to weasel her way out of her sins by complimenting the Lord on what a nice job He did making flamingos, that they turned out to be just the loveliest shade of salmon. And she'd be all, "I just love what you did with magnolias too, I would have made them EXACTLY the same way!"

My brother Andrew would be trying to make God laugh by agreeing with all of his sins, and telling the story of each one in his witty, self-deprecatory style, elaborating wherever he could to try to make light of the ACTUAL sin. God would be in tears at the end of each story, laughing so hard that He'd have forgotten why He was so upset with Andrew in the first place.

Amy, with her amazing memory, would just keep saying, "Oh yeah! I totally forgot about that one!"...."Really? Are you SURE I did that? What year was that? I have absolutely no recollection...". She'd be making God re-tell the stories of each one, and she'd be laughing at herself and slapping us all on the arms, "Can you believe I did that?? How funny is that?!!"

ELew would be playing Devil's Advocate with the Lord, doing his "well yeah I did that, but it's no different than (insert inane analogy that has no bearing on the situation but takes you on such a long journey you forget the original premise)". And he'd do it so well that Satan himself might pop his head up and ask God,"Yo, you wanna play a little Let's Make A Deal? I gotta have that dude on my team, he's gooooooood!" (Satan always has a Brooklyn Italian, Danny Devito-esque accent in my mind.) ELew would end with "Besides, that guy was an ESTP, so what I did had no effect on him. Is it really a sin if the person you're sinning against isn't affected by it??"

My Dad would be trying to explain what he was thinking during each of his sins, where he was on his spiritual journey at that particular point in time. He would want to help God understand why he thought the way he thought so he'd be quoting the scriptures he was studying at that time, and explain how he'd interpreted them, and God would be all, "Lewis, you do realize I WROTE that goddamned book??". (Yes, God will say goddamned. It's like how white people can't call black people niggers, but black people can call each other niggers.)

My husband would be turning each situation back around on the Lord. He'd pull out the "Well, if you think about it, you created me to sin. So in reality this is all YOUR fault!!". Then he'd use the, "You gotta admit that one was pretty creative, I have to get extra points for that...!!"

And I would be prepared with my spreadsheets full of percentages and Venn diagrams, research information and rational justifications. I'd have prepared my closing arguments during everyone else's turn, and I'd have come up with a speech full of zingers and sound bites. And at the end, I'd try to put on the too small glove, and God would have to throw up his hands in complete awe at my preparation and my eloquent and passionate delivery.

Either that, or God would have realized there was no way He could spend eternity with such a big bunch of yahoos, and changed His mind about the lot of us...