Promise Kept

Posted by Censor Librorum on Jan 14, 2008 | Categories: Lesbian in a Catholic Sort of Way

An unexpected thing happened during our vacation in Arizona.

During a visit last week to a state park in southern Arizona, I asked a park ranger if I could change our reservations and go on an earlier tour. She said it wouldn’t be a problem. And then she asked if I would keep her in my prayers.

I was a little startled-it’s not the kind of request you expect to hear going in to a state park, but I told her I would. I wondered where that came from…and thought she might have seen the small crucifix I wear. Or, it was something else entirely.

The next day we traveled to Tubac and Tumacacari. St. Ann’s is a very peaceful adobe church in Tubac. Its foundations lie over the site of an earlier church – Santa Gertrudis – which was built by soldier and explorer Capt. Juan Bautista de Anza II around 1770.

We sat for awhile in the church. It was adobe and wood, and reminded me how tied spirituality and religion are to the land. I saw a small statute of the Blessed Mother with a row of votive candles. I lit one and said a prayer for the ranger, in a sacred place in the foothills of the desert they both care for and protect.

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