CHIMAYO, N.M., April 7 -- The first pilgrim arrived a week ago, having walked 90 miles from Albuquerque over three days. At dawn on this Holy Saturday, the faithful, the penitent and even just the curious continued to stream into an adobe chapel in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains known as the "Lourdes of America."I've been to Chimayo several times. It is a humble little church in a beautiful mountain setting. Looking at it from the outside you wouldn't have any idea of its fame and importance to so many people. This is no megachurch. And that is what earns its respect even from those of us who are not members of the faith.
By Easter Sunday, tens of thousands of pilgrims will have visited the small Santuario de Chimayo, a shrine built upon a well of dirt reputed to have healing powers. Most walk for miles along winding two-lane roads in what is probably one of the nation's largest public displays of devotion during Holy Week. As many as 75,000 pilgrims were reported several years ago. Recent estimates have ranged from 40,000 to 60,000 a year.
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One of the oldest Spanish settlements in the Southwest, Chimayo has been the site of pilgrimage and prayer for centuries. The chapel was built in 1814, after the miraculous events surrounding the discovery of a crucifix nearby, according to church legend. On Good Friday in 1810, a brother of a religious order saw a light emanating from a hill hear the Santa Cruz River. He walked out to the light, dug with his hands and unearthed a huge crucifix. The next day he and other worshipers carried it to the altar of the church in Santa Cruz. The next day the crucifix was gone, only to be found in its original location. Twice more, the same thing happened.
Church officials declared the site to be miraculous, and a few years later a chapel was built above the "pocito," or little well of dirt, where the crucifix was discovered. Medical miracles attributed to the dirt were soon reported and continue today.
The wooden crucifix still occupies the altar in El Santuario de Chimayo. But it is the small well of dirt, in a tiny room off the altar, where Holy Week pilgrims and year-round visitors end their treks. Pilgrims go to Lourdes in France for its healing waters. Here, they scoop dirt into bags and bottles to take with them. Some simply rub it on themselves, like Kevin Kissler, a 17-year-old from Golden, Colo., who walked a bit as part of a senior class trip to northern New Mexico to study the culture of the region. "Maybe I'm trying to prevent anything bad happening," he said. "I'm not religious, but I'd say I'm spiritual."
- Easter in Amish Country: The Blade looks back at tragedy in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania and how the small community shows their faith at work.
Six months ago, unspeakable violence erupted in a one-room school house in Nickel Mines, Pa. A man wracked by guilt over child molestation that may not have actually occurred burst into the West Nickel Mines School.The answer is simple. Hope doesn't reside in outward demonstrations of piety or moralistic bombast from some preacher's voice booming from a P.A. system while the ushers rake in the cash. It's intensely personal, and these two stories -- both about faith in the face of adversity -- demonstrate what the charlatans and the hypocrites will never admit: that it's what you feel, not what you say, is what matters.
Charles Roberts was armed and deranged. His presence struck terror in his Amish hostages. He knew he'd be the only one with guns on the school premises. After separating 10 girls from their classmates, he shot them all at close range, killing five. One girl remains in a coma.
At the end of his rampage, Roberts did what many mass murderers do: he killed himself. He left behind questions about why he did it wrapped inside larger questions about why such things happen over and over in America.
The Amish continue to wrestle with questions about God's mercy that are as old as the Book of Job. Because of their abiding faith, they forgave Charles Roberts. While grieving their own loss, they even reached out to his family, who were devastated in a different way. Now Roberts' children will be educated by money donated by the Amish community.
This past week, the New Hope Amish School opened 200 yards away from the site of the old school. Four of the girls Roberts shot were in attendance. The media hovered for quotes, but none was forthcoming. The Amish prefer the witness of their actions over words.
Six months after the murders, questions still haunt us.
How do we put an event like the massacre of five Amish girls into perspective? What are we to make of the Amish's stubborn insistence on believing that everything happens for a reason?
Finally, how do we account for their abiding hope?
- A Lesson in Physics: President Bush almost had a barbecue on the South Lawn.
Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation.- Frank Rich: Sunday in the Market with McCain.
Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week. Ford wanted to give the Commander-in-Chief an actual demonstration of the innovative vehicle, so the automaker arranged for an electrical outlet to be installed on the South Lawn and ran a charging cord to the hybrid. However, as Mulally followed Bush out to the car, he noticed someone had left the cord lying at the rear of the vehicle, near the fuel tank.
"I just thought, 'Oh my goodness!' So, I started walking faster, and the President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved him up to the front," Mulally said. "I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen This is all off the record, right?"
John McCain’s April Fools’ Day stroll through Baghdad’s Shorja market last weekend was instantly acclaimed as a classic political pratfall. Protected by more than a hundred American soldiers, three Black Hawk helicopters, two Apache gunships and a bulletproof vest, the senator extolled the “progress” and “good news” in Iraq. Befitting this loopy brand of comedy — reminiscent of “Wedding Crashers,” in which Mr. McCain gamely made a cameo appearance — the star had a crackerjack cast of supporting buffoons: Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who told reporters “I bought five rugs for five bucks!,” and Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, who likened the scene to “a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime.”Read the rest here at Welcome to Pottersville.
Five rugs for five bucks: boy, we’ve really got that Iraq economy up and running now! No wonder the McCain show was quickly dubbed “McCain’s Mission Accomplished” and “McCain’s Dukakis-in-the-Tank Photo Op.” But at a certain point the laughter curdled. Reporters rudely pointed out there were 60-plus casualties in this market from one February attack alone and that six Americans were killed in the Baghdad environs on the day of his visit. “Your heart goes out to just the typical Iraqi because they can’t have that kind of entourage,” said Kyra Phillips of CNN. The day after Mr. McCain’s stroll, The Times of London reported that 21 of the Shorja market’s merchants and workers were ambushed and murdered.
The political press has stepped up its sotto voce deathwatch on the McCain presidential campaign ever since, a drumbeat enhanced by last week’s announcement of Mr. McCain’s third-place finish in the Republican field’s fund-raising sweepstakes. (He is scheduled to restate his commitment to the race on “60 Minutes” tonight.) But his campaign was sagging well before he went to Baghdad. In retrospect, his disastrous trip may be less significant as yet another downturn in a faltering presidential candidacy than as a turning point in hastening the inevitable American exit from Iraq.
- Doonesbury: What He Said.
