We just walked right in
July 6th, 2007July 5, 2007
Nuevo Jerusalen_At 5 am Mark and I dragged ourselves out of our dingy hotel room in Potambaro, packed up our gear and headed out in a stupor to New Jerusalem for their 7 am mass. No coffee, no food, no water, just gear and our mud stained gray Subaru slowly making its way through a thick darkness stirring with sugar cane fields and heat lighting clouds hanging low across a moon lit by flashes of lighting. Not a single car passed for miles and we slowed down between towns because the landscapes we’d gauged our progress by the previous day, were all shapeless now amid the indescript shanties behind barbed wire fencing or broken planks of wood. Now and then the thin shadow of a dog would scamper across the road and then darkness again. We were right on time for the late mass, which was to be held all in Latin and which, started at 4 am every morning. I did not dare ask when they went to sleep as I sat across from the bishop, dressed in a pink cassock with matching pick hat, burrowing a hole though me trying to figure out why we were there.
There were two very clear things to us, going later meant that not only did we get one more hour of sleep, but it also meant we wouldn’t be stuck in the compound while it was dark. We didn’t talk of it too much, but the invitation to sleep bundled up at the feet of the Virgin was not one that we took from Herlinda de Jesus, a Philippine woman who was a loyal follower of the Virgin and who had lived in the compound for more than ten years. She was in a sense, the town historian, translating Spanish text to English and bestowed with the honor of writing out messages that Mary the Virgin gave to her or others in the compound. Luckily for us, she spoke English, but we could only make out half of what she said since she had a tendency to go stream of consciousness with her stories, her thoughts and actual facts of the compound. It was hard to tell what was fact from fiction and for the most part both Mark and I had a difficult time not staring at the gap where her front teeth would have been except the roots were black and the teeth next to the gap were half broken and also going the same rate of decay.
When we had first entered the compound (which to Mark’s surprise had no armed guards as it had had 7 years ago when he discovered it and wrote about it) she was the first person we met and she took a liking to us, schooling us on all the ways of the compound and the fact that today, of all days, we had shown up on “el dia de la conferencia,” conference day was an omen to her. It meant we had been summoned by the Virgin in some way and that we were meant to be here, she later told me as we stared out at the sea of women’s bent heads wearing scarves in pink (pilgrims), green (ladies of market), red (courtesans, young girls), purple (margaritas), beige (nuns), yellow (juanitas). The omen for us, if we were ever to believe in one, was that as we crossed the town of Pernales, which was about 10 km from New Jerusalem, was a large tree fallen over the road, its trunk cracked down the middle with red embers from the recent strike of lightening. The heat lightening continued and we noticed it was exactly right above New Jerusalem and thought the tree was a strange coincidence that we could laugh off since we both felt nervous about returning to the compound.
We’d been lucky the day before, we walked right in because the compound is open to the public and just hoped for the best after I left all of my gear except a small video camera in the trunk of the car. She did not once ask us if we were journalists – a question we were happy not to hear because it could mean us getting barred from entering the compound. My fingers itched when the large blue iron gates were opened and standing about 40 feet tall was a statue of the Saint Michael (?) with trellises of jacaranda hanging from the open roof. There was a sign indicating I could not photograph or videotape outside once inside the compound, so I just pressed my fingers against the camera and bit down hard on my lip.
Upon reaching the gate I was asked whether I had nail polish on my nails, but with much guilt I answered, no, but I bite them. To which the three men guarding the entrance of the gate smiled and I was allowed to pass. The gates were closed behind us and so we entered like any regular citizen interested in learning about their religion, in particular, a certain peasant personalization of religion, which embodied an entire community worshipping Virgin of Rosario and working for Papa Nabor’s (the ex-communicated priest who founded the religion) vision of a utopian community among the sugar cane.
Some things that are part of this utopian socieyt that’s been around since 1974:
-It is a peasant’s version of salvation with a very dynamic congregation of spirits that includes different spirits who are living in the compound that day. New ones come, like John F. Kennedy, Lazaro Cardenas (president from 1934-1940), Popeius Pope Paul VI,
-The congregation will temporarily ascend to heaven on August 15.
- There is a prophecy says that a big ditch will open right past the Pemex gas station in Tacambaro and a big magnet will pull all the planes into the ditch.
-The chapel was on the hill broadcasting salvation to the four cardinal points.
Even more interesting is the way different relics are brought out and hidden again, the rebosa to kiss for conversion and healing,
pictures of Mama Salome painted by the Virgin, the piece of shirt, tilma, the rock upon which the Virgin of Rosario sat. While in the past New Jerusalem had aligned itself with the old ruling PRI party it has now aligned itself with Felipe Calderon (leader of the lefty party in Mexico who is still running a parallel government) who is shown in a painting praying.
More on my meeting the soon to be 97-year-old Papa Nabor later….
