Zozobra

The sad, dark eyes and gaunt expression projected a deep sense of misery. He hung helplessly on the hill, surveying the surrounding tumult. Over twenty thousand people had gathered to watch his immolation as they gleefully shouted "Burn Him!"

 This happened in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. It's happened annually since 1924, when an artist named Will Shuster built a marionette he named Zozobra and playfully burned it in the company of friends. He got the idea from the Yaqui Indians "who mark the week before Easter by parading an effigy of Judas through the streets, then blowing it up with firecrackers."

Today, Zozobra is five stories high and filled with symbols of worries, bad memories and dark personal events. Over the summer, items to be placed in the marionette are dropped off. They include no-longer needed engraved wedding invitations, a husband's ashes, a cast from a broken limb, a hospital gown from a cancer patient, foreclosure documents, divorce papers, credit cards, pictures of ex-lovers, and handwritten notes expressing worries about health, love or anything else that crushes men's souls. Zozobra's nickname is "Old Man Gloom" and devotees save their troubles all year in "gloom boxes" they ceremoniously dump into his lap.

As dancers wielded torches, fireworks ignited and the crowd cheered, Zozobra burst into flames and symbolically extinguished the hurts and troubles he had taken on. As one celebrant put it, "I wanted to say goodbye to my worries. It feels good. It feels freeing."

The event illustrates the inescapable downside of being human. We're imperfect, self-centered and hurtful. Sometimes we hurt others, other times others hurt us and we all carry burdens unless something's done to relieve them. Zozobra can provide a quick, temporary catharsis as you're caught up in the moment. Times Square on New Year's Eve does the same thing. But the day after always comes, Old Man Gloom is gone until next year, and you immediately begin refilling your gloom box - often with the same stuff as last year.

It's a real hoot to symbolically torch your troubles in a giant puppet, but once Zozobra is in ashes he's gone until the carpenter builds a new one next year. On the other hand, Jesus died on the cross burdened with our personal sins to relieve us of our intractable, compounding hurts. He grants us forgiveness and strength that are real and available 24/7 all year long.

Zozobra supplicants would be well served by getting to know Him.



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