"There is a part of Mexico, the west-central area encompassing the state of Jalisco and its capital, Guadalajara, which is the cradle of many significant cultural traditions that most of us associate with that great country: mariachi music, tequila and charreada (rodeos) to name a few. Perhaps that is why the state's current government chose the slogan "Jalisco IS Mexico" to represent it before the world. And Jalisco is Michael Hogan's intellectual inspiration for this bird's eye view of Mexico and elsewhere.
   Hogan writes with deep affection for his adopted country, mixed with an insider's keen interest about things Mexican. He adroitly highlights the best, and sometimes the worst, of life in this setting. The inexhaustible patience and forgiveness of the Mexican character is portrayed in many of his narratives, in which life is lived largely in the slow lane but with a degree of dignity and grace that might help explain why so many North Americans choose to call Mexico home.
   This collection of essays is the first published non-fiction work by the author since his widely-acclaimed Irish Soldiers of Mexico, which was the basis for two documentaries and Orion's 1999 feature film, "One Man's Hero," starring Tom Berenger. A synopsis of that important, nearly forgotten piece of history is contained in this volume as "The Soldiers of St. Patrick."
   The range of these essays takes us from Hogan's Catholic boyhood in Newport, Rhode Island to mid-life academia in Central Mexico, a world that is vastly different - or is it? The strength of a grandmother's love and a father's role in vanquishing monsters from a daughter's imagination could, and do, take place anywhere. But the insightful connection between the ancient Greek's philosophy of the man/woman relationship and Mexican "machismo," the reflection against history's mirror of the 1995 Chiapas "revolution," and the street-level view of the effect on Mexican society of NAFTA and Mexico's economic dependence on foreign investment, could only come from the Mexican heartland - and from a writer who is a serious observer of his environment and a perennial student of life.
   Come ride with us on the Bus From Hell to see Cuban dictator Fidel Castro; and laugh at the drunken Santa Claus whose sleigh is damaged at the high school Christmas party. Then feel the beat of the music as the Tigres del Norte give an all-night concert in Guadalajara's immense Río Nilo stadium; squint through the eyepiece of a welder's helmet during a solar eclipse; and squirm with uneasiness during a depression-producing six-day, six-night rainstorm.
   Perhaps the strongest messages of this collection are those extolling the thoughts of Mexican diplomat and poet Octavio Paz, in helping understand ourselves; and those of environmentalist and writer Ed Abbey who tried to show all of us, of all nationalities, that if we want to save this world FOR ourselves, we first have to save it FROM ourselves.
   So follow Hogan as he examines his subjects-from the lowest crawling insects that influence life in Jalisco as it is today, to the two-legged creatures of power that would change it forever. I promise you won't regret it."

-Danny Root, former U.S. Consul General, Guadalajara, Mexico.

"This is as eclectic a collection of essays as I've ever encountered - boyhood reminiscences, the San Patricios, horrifying depredations of rats, natural themes, global capitalism, liberation theology, you name it. Yet Hogan brings it off successfully and you never get the impression that he spreads himself too thin. What holds these themes together is the author's sensitivity to multiculturalism, his astonishingly wide range of interests, and a spirit which is tolerant, humanistic and at the same time pragmatic."
- Jim Tuck, author of The Holy War In Los Altos: Mexico's Cristero Rebellion

"Hogan's work is compelling, fascinating. His books should be required reading for serious American students who aspire to be educated in a multicultural world."
- William Geogiades, Executive Director, Office of International Education, University of Houston.

"Hogan is a master craftsman, quiet, gentle, with a positive, uplifting humor."
- Katherine Ames, Library Journal.

JUDAS BURNING

   Here in Guadalajara the roses bloom all year, even in the dry season when the dust tastes of burning carcasses and excrement. Purple jacaranda blossoms appear in the trees, and bougainvillea covers the broken glass of the high walls of the wealthy houses in Colonia Seattle. What we depend upon is not illusion but the generous paradox of dry arroyos and night-blooming acacia, the fresh fruit and flowers sold by local women, the blanketed Indians in the tropical heat, a place where Christ bleeds darkly and the Virgin is bright with victory candles.
   I have left Barrio Padre for the long walk up the cobblestone streets to the Basilica. It is not exactly a holiday or a fiesta. It is merely Thursday of Holy Week and yet the square is crowded with Huichol Indians dressed in blues, oranges, startling pinks and purples. There are stands selling roasted corn on the cob, hot corn tortillas, baked empañadas filled with strawberry, or the tuna fruit of the cactus. I have come here thinking of attending Mass (there is one every hour) and yet the Basilica is packed at ten o'clock and again at eleven after I've made my leisurely circuit of the square .

   There are Judas dolls for sale, ugly little things with straw bodies. Their faces remind me of Miss Piggy, although none are as cute. There is something unholy about these dolls, like those used in witchcraft or voodoo.
   A priest has come out of the side door of the Basilica and the crowd gathers around him as he reads from the Bible. The noise of the hawkers and buyers, children and dogs, has quieted mysteriously. One has the feeling of being in two worlds here. The ancient Basilica with its wooden floors and bleeding Christ, its crumbling wall and footworn stone steps seems to belong to another Church more ancient and terrible than that indicated by the modern sculpture in front which depicts mild Pope John visiting Mexico and blessing Zapopan.
   Someone begins shaking seeds in a hollow gourd and others join in with wooden rattles (which are for sale) as the priest read from the Bible. "Because Judas knew the place, and brought a band of men and officers from the chief priests, with lanterns, torches and weapons..."
   And now Judas comes, carried by two Huicholes with bleached white cotton pants held up by ropes for belts, their naked chests gleaming wetly bronze in the noonday sun. Their Judas is a straw man in a costume of colored feathers with a gruesome pig's face. He looks through the trees for the Savior. He looks through the crowd and the people raise their hands to block his view. To the side of the crowd are some white and red oleander bushes. This is where the figure of Christ has been hidden all along.
   More Huichol men stand in front of the bushes very quietly. They could be anywhere. Outside an adobe hut in Puebla, in front of a liquor store in Tucson. They look like they have been here in this spot forever. They do not wish to attract attention. They are as part of the landscape. Horseman, pass by! But it is precisely this spot that Judas approaches. He is interested in what is behind those bushes. The sound of the seeds in the gourd and the sound of the rattles increase in volume.
   The ugly pigfaced Judas is carried through the poisonous oleander bushes to where the statue of Christ is hidden. The priest intones: "He has given them the sign that whosoever he shall kiss, that is the Savior." And the straw effigy of Judas is borne by the two barechested Indians to the Christ statue. The priest reads on: "And Jesus says to the soldiers, 'Whom do you seek?' They reply, 'Jesus of Nazareth.' And the Savior says, 'I am He whom thou seeketh.'"
   Then the effigy of Judas is carried to a side street. It is strung up with the help of some young boys and suspended from an ash tree. And, if Jesus is to have his hand-painted sign "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews" at the hour of his crucifixion, Judas also will be acknowledged. Hastily-written signs appear on his chest and back: "Foreign Debt," names of dishonest politicians, "Yanquis Asesinos." Judas is more than a symbol. He is the embodiment of all the betrayals suffered and those still to be suffered. A young woman hangs a sign with the name of a lover who abandoned her. On a whitewashed wall nearby are faded red letters: "PUTO BUSH CREE QUE UN LITRO DE GASOLINA VALE UN MUNDO DE SANGRE." A not-so-subtle reference to the Gulf War which was not so popular here as it appeared to be further North.
   Then someone approaches with a burning stick soaked in kerosene and proceeds to set fire to the effigy of Judas. It burns for a moment or two and then explodes with a startling POOM! scattering cloth, straw and colored paper over the crowd.
   Then children with their doll-sized Judases dance around. And young men holding other Judases on long poles stuffed with fireworks set them on fire. The crowd shouts and chants, the seeds in the gourds rattle like evil snakes, and everywhere the dogs are barking and howling.
   Frances Calderón de la Barca, witnessing a scene similar to this in Mexico City in the last century, was appalled at the "ugly misshapen monsters" representing Judas which filled the Semana Santa streets. "Poor Judas," she wrote. "Did he ever dream then that in the lapse of ages his effigies should be held up to the desecration of an unknown people in an undiscovered country beyond the sea. A secret bargain, perhaps made whisperingly in a darkened chamber with fierce Jewish rulers; but now shouted forth in the ears of the descendants of Montezuma and Cortés."
   I am reminded of another Holy Week when, broke and living in a cheap hotel in San Francisco, I read the Chekhov story in which a young man hears again the story of Simon Peter's denial of Christ during a reading of the Passion at his local church. So moved is he that he relates it to a peasant woman he meets in the village on his way home. And, as he retells the story with "the enthusiasm of one who has understood it clearly for the first time," the peasant woman begins to weep. The young man weeps as well.
   The young man is struck suddenly by the durability of the story and its accessibility. It has moved both him, an educated youth, and this unlettered peasant. Separated from each other by an enormous gulf, distanced by culture and the ages from the Jewish fisherman, they are still able to weep in empathy for Peter as he denies knowledge of his Lord not once, but "three times before the cock crowed."
   What grief he must have felt, this Simon! What remorse must have filled his heart; how heavy and empty his life must have seemed then. He, like Judas, had clearly betrayed his master ("I do not know the man!").
   So, why is Simon, now Peter, the "rock" of the Church, while Judas is a figure of universal condemnation? One a saint and the other buried in unhallowed ground? Why is one enshrined and the other vilified if they both committed the same crime: betrayal of a friend and teacher?
   Peter, hearing the cock crow, "went out and wept bitterly." Judas "repented himself and...cast down the thirty pieces of silver saying, 'I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood.'" Clearly they both felt remorse. Clearly they both acknowledged their crimes and repented. Moreover, Judas actually went and made amends, returning the money he had received.
   If there is any difference in these men it would seem only to have been Judas' despair. For Simon lived with his shame, his remorse, hoping against hope. Judas, on the other hand, "having cast down the silver pieces, departed, and went and hanged himself."
   One of my favorite stories is when Christ returns from the dead and appears to the Apostles. He called Peter to him. "Simon," he says, "lovest thou Me?" "Yea, Lord," says Peter. "You know I love You." Jesus says, "Feed my sheep. A second time Jesus asks, "Lovest thou Me?" Again Peter replies, "You know I do, Lord." "Feed my sheep," says Jesus.
   A third time Jesus asks, "Simon, lovest thou Me." "Yea, Lord," says Peter, who by now must have gotten the point. "You know I love You." Jesus says to him, "Feed my lambs."
   Denied by his friend three times in succession, Jesus forgives him three times, contingent on an affirmation of love also made three consecutive times. Some divine humor there! But also an echo of his own teaching to forgive "even unto seventy times seven times."
   Then finally he says to Simon: "I say unto thee thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church." A pun on petrus (more humor) and another echo, for Jesus had promised earlier that in his kingdom "the last shall be first." Peter thus receives an unearned promotion from the ranks of the twelve apostles. Unearned grace. Unearned forgiveness. Exactly what Judas in his materialistic mind-set refused. Return of the thirty pieces of silver, yes. But he followed that by a negation of hope. Refusing to believe in forgiveness, he took his life.
   Peter gave nothing but his persistent "Yea!" in the face of Jesus's questions. But these "yeas" were extensions of the earlier affirmation when, full of remorse, self-pity, self-hatred and angst, he did not give in to despair but held on when there was little to hope for except "the belief in things unseen," the power of love which would eventually redeem him.
   When Judas is taken in effigy from the Zapopan plaza, he is more than a symbol. He is the dry straw of all the betrayals we have suffered which clogs the drainage of our hearts, which fills our mouth with the taste of rancid wine and the dust of tombs. All the betrayals, the bitterness, the resentments which must be burned away if we are ever truly to live again, ever to be reborn.
   A few months ago Texas executed still another convicted felon. After the execution reporters asked the mother of the murder's victim if, now that the man was dead, she could forgive him. "Never," she said. I will never forgive him as long as I live." I wish she could have been here today.
   The sibilant strains of the Miserere in the evening echo among the emptying fruit stands and the stalls of the vendors. I buy a cup of cut melon and begin walking home. There has not been a single church bell rung in all of Mexico today. And there will not be until Easter morning. It had not occurred to me how much I would miss that. The deep and unutterable sadness of someone used to being lulled to sleep by the sound of foghorns or the lapping of waves now alone in the silent night of the high plateau of Jalisco. Hard to believe that the Resurrection is less than three days away. A small taste perhaps of what Judas felt.