The Boaz Scorekeeper, written in 2017, is my second novel. I'll post it, a chapter a day, over the next few weeks.
Boaz lost its Saturday afternoon quarter-finals game to Anniston High School ending the best year ever for Pirates basketball.
Sunday morning, I met Wade Tillman outside First Baptist Church of Christ not really knowing why I had showed up. He thanked me for coming and led me to the second floor of the education building and the youth Sunday School Department. Mr. Neal Smith was a short and balding middle-aged man who knew his Bible and conveyed a respect for God and Jesus that I had never seen, other than Brother G of course. But, this Sunday, he did allow a few minutes for rehashing yesterday’s game.
James, Randall, Fred, and John were also present and, along with Wade, led the charge in the classroom nearly as well as they did out on the basketball court. I was surprised how engaging they were with Mr. Smith. It seemed that each of them had studied the lesson encased in a thick brightly colored book with a picture on its front cover of the crucified Christ hanging on the Cross.
I don’t think I really learned anything new in Sunday School that day, or during the preaching hour for that matter. It wasn’t because of poor teaching or preaching. All my life I had attended a Baptist Church. Although Clear Creek Baptist Church was probably only about a tenth as big as First Baptist, it taught the Bible as seriously as what I had just witnessed. Come to think of it, I guess I did learn something during my first visit. I learned that ‘the Flaming Five,’ as they were being called, had just as strong a faith in the Bible, God and Christ, as I did. They didn’t seem to have any doubts whatsoever that Jesus was God’s Son, born of a virgin, died for our sins on the Cross, was resurrected on the third day, and was now in Heaven sitting beside God waiting until Jesus’ return at the end of the ages. As for me, I did have a few little doubts, but I had always sized them up simply as a lack of faith, not as something to explore, and for sure, not something to share and talk about in a community that was so infiltrated by and immersed in Christianity that it would likely burn heretics at the stake.
The Pencil Driven Life 