I always got a kick out of irascible John the Baptist, a.k.a. John the Forerunner. What a preacher he must have been to hear, that nearly the whole population of ancient Jerusalem hiked through the Judean desert going east to the Jordan just to hear him! The prototypes of him that I like the best show him as a deeply sunburned hippie, carrying a scroll with a single word on it ... REPENT. If you haven't listened to Leonard Cohen's "The Future", look it up on iTunes. REPENT is the repeated phrase in that one. In its vulgarity, its naked truth telling, its preaching to power ... it is the incarnation of John the Forerunner. Strong stuff. Sort of like hay fever that forces me to see everything through blurry eyes, hacking coughs, and sneezes - no matter what I had in mind originally!
There is an equally strong stuff sculpture of J.B. that is in the Baptistery at St. John's Abbey, Collegeville, MN. Tall, gaunt, rugged and oozing power ... I can imagine him on stage singing Cohen's lyrics. I can imagine this icon doing the same thing. Not a comfortable being to have around. But then, remember Leonard's poem and song, "There Ain't No Cure For Love" - look it up. You'll find them both in his "Live From London" album.
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