“Witness” by John Hodgen

Body text here.

Predictable to some degree that a man with a red and white striped stick-on umbrella hat

and a portable public address system bullhorn would be working the heart of Bourbon Street

in the name of the Lord. Telling all the jesters, masquers, Red Death revelers, that God

will not be mocked, that His patience is running out, that He sees us all, unblinking.

Predictable as well, perhaps, that his sidekick, his long-suffering Fortunato, would be hauling a life-size cross up the street with him on the Via Dolorosa, the road to the Superdome.

 

Less predictable the college kid, clean cut, a Chuck Palahniuk Fight Club type,

having to be restrained, pulled away by his friends, physically lifted off the ground,

his feet moving in mysterious ways. Screaming at the Jesusers that they don’t belong here,

that this is our holy place, our last sanctuary, that this is where we come for the sole purpose of getting away from Jesus, that this is where we worship, that we should be free to mock God whenever we want, that someone could get hurt tripping over a cross like that in the street,

that we should just be left alone, that we are all being crucified each and every day.

His friends haul him away, John the un-Baptist, God’s true warrior in sackcloth and ashes, His burning bush, His voice in the French Quarter wilderness, blessed troublemaker,

not to be mocked, not to be saved, crown of thorns messiah of the way things really are.