And on the Seventh Day, It Snowed

Then there's the school of thought that holds that God concentrates on the Big Stuff. He has better things to do than conjure up snowstorms as a test of people's faith.

Or perhaps there are some things God can't do. If He could stop a snowstorm -- or halt a tornado or alter the path of a hurricane -- He would. This is the "why do bad things happen to good people?" school of thought. God didn't mean to give you a zit on your nose the night of the prom. These things just happen.

Finally, there's the possibility that a Sabbath snowstorm is just a random occurrence, yet more proof that there is no God. (As if Paris Hilton and aerosol cheese aren't enough.) I asked Roger what Unitarians believe. "We don't require a particular belief," he said. "Each person can decide."

As for himself, Roger said he falls into the third camp: God can't control everything.

Eager for another explanation, I drove to the Washington Buddhist Vihara on 16th Street NW. The sleet had turned to fluffy, white snowflakes. The rain that the radio weather people kept promising was nowhere in sight.

Yesterday was supposed to be the Vihara's annual Asian food bazaar, but when I removed my shoes in the vestibule, I saw that there were only three other pairs, not the hundreds I'd expected. The bazaar had been canceled.

"We lost the Asian food bazaar, but we have the snow," said Bhante Maharagama Dhammasiri, the Buddhist monk who is the Vihara's president. "It's a blessing. We can enjoy the snow now. So we have a balance."

But aren't you disappointed? I asked.

"Of course we feel disappointment, but we know we can't do anything to change this," said Bhante Vidura, one of the five monks who live and meditate there.

"It is very easy for us, for we are fixed with shock absorbers," explained Bhante Dhammasiri. "That means the Buddha taught us about the impermanence of everything. So when we know that everything is impermanent, that knowledge works as shock absorbers."

Besides, God has nothing to do with snowstorms anyway, the monks said. Yesterday's snow was just an example of utu niyama, said Bhante Beligalle Dhammajoti, another of the monks. That's an expression best translated as "seasonal changing."

Said Bhante Dhammajoti: "It's just [the] nature of nature."

I tried to adopt the calmness of the Buddha as I drove home -- wheels spinning sickeningly in what had quickly become four inches of snow.

"It's just the nature of nature," I said after I abandoned my car three blocks from home and started trudging up the hill to my house.

As the snow fell, I sensed that prayer was all around me. Even the little atheist children were praying there wouldn't be any school today.