The Parable of the Witches and the Moon

        Josh lives.  Josh walks.  Josh breathes.  Josh speaks. 

One day while teaching, Josh was asked, “The federal government seems incapable of protecting our borders.  There are Mexicans in Georgia.  There are Drug Lords in Arizona.  We have terrorist cells in Detroit.  They sell Chinese steel in Pittsburgh.  Cubans sit in our bullpens.  How can we protect ourselves, our jobs and our families?”

Josh spoke thus:

There was a man who watched for witches in the sky.

Others watched for witches among their neighbors.

“The old widow down by the iron works, she is a witch,” one claimed.

Another was sure that the young fair-haired girl with the curiously short hair was a witch.  She passed in front of his sporting goods shop every day, and he said hello to her, but she gave him no reply.  Neither did any other of the young men in the town get so much as a how-do-you-do from her.  She worked at the university, which was always suspicious.

The postmaster general’s wife was thought to be a witch for a few weeks, but that had turned out to be a brace of undercooked potatoes she had used in a pass-around salad at the Sunday social.

A few high-school girls we seen collecting dodgy mushrooms in the woods one spring day, but that was the sort of thing high-school girls were wont to do.  Still, it was best to keep an eye on them.

The man who watched for witches in the sky didn’t waste his time with high-school girls.  The man who watched for witches in the sky knew that the one true way to know a witch was by her silhouette against the moon.  He pointed out all the disguises modernity provided to cloak the contemporary exercise of magic.  Pharmacies replaced potions with pills.  X-rays and radios mooted divination.  Who noticed eye of newt or a mandrake root when there was cola nut and morphine?

No, it was the silhouette against the moon, the hat, the broom that showed a witch for what she was.

“It is a well-known fact,” the man who watched for witches in the sky would say as he sat beside the churchyard, moon in view.

“Well known by whom?” a newspaper man asked.

“It is a well-known fact,” the man who watched for witches in the sky said.

“What if there is no moon?” a wit inquired, “What if there are clouds?  Is it a waxing moon, or waning moon, or does the moon need to be full?”

“It is a well-known fact,” said the man who watched for witches in the sky said, “The only way to know a witch for certain is when she flies across the moon.”

“And what of ghosts and goblins?” asked the sheriff, “Do you watch for ghosts and goblins too?”

The man who watched for witches in the sky replied, “What do you think I am, crazy?”