"For Mexico," Pastor Moises Mendez told Win Bruhl, "the day will come when even God will have tears in His eyes."

"Mexico: Disparate Images," a photographic essay by Bruhl, a former Southeast University art professor, opens Friday at Gallery 100.

The photos and journal entries were made between 1991 and 1993 while Bruhl traveled and studied in Mexico on Bush Foundation grants.

The photographs include both rural and urban scenes. Among the journal entries is: "We are told Mexico City is a sentence of death. Many who are wealthy come to Cuernavaca, the `city of eternal spring,' on weekends to escape the pollution in Mexico City caused by industry, three million autos, and human waste. To breathe the air in Mexico City is the equivalent of smoking two and one half packs of cigarettes a day."

Three days later in Tepotzlan, Bruhl wrote: "I have seen color in its most undiminished intensity today."

Still another three days later: "A string of superlatives can't describe this place. Xochicalco (400-1200 A.D.), having been abandoned in the twelfth century before the destruction that accompanied Spanish conquest, sits atop a mountain with a command of valleys all around. the highest point is dominated by a pyramid to Quetzalcoatl, the green-plumed serpent god. The translation from the original Nahuatl language means "place of many flowers." Looking around, I can easily see why."

Bruhl is a Cape Girardeau native who is now an art professor and chairman of the art department at Concordia College in St. Paul, Minn. He served in the same capacities at Southeast from 1978 to 1988.

The opening reception will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday at the gallery, 1707 Mount Auburn Road.