MISSION SAN XAVIER

I went to the Mission San Xavier del Bac today. It would have been Arnie's birthday and it seemed a good way to observe it. I bought a candle with a picture of the mission on it and placed it under one of the statues of Mary, the Annunciation. I thought of the candle and the statue as Arnie's mother announcing his birth. Who knows. It was a comfort in its way.

The mission is hundreds of years old, some of it from the mid-1700s. I thought of the priests in their heavy black robes and wondered if they suffered in the heat.

The Mission, on Tohono O'odham land, is white white and reaches to the sky. So thick with heavy wood pews and doors and statues and angels and gildings and paintings, dark paintings of The Last Supper and Pentacost, rosy cherubs, statues painted and gilded and looking up or straight ahead, arms open, head bowed, and Jesus small on a cross. Sitting in a carved wooden pew, I felt the air heavy with spirits. Such a holy place. And on the Table of the Lord, a white tablecloth designed with The Nation's own holy image of man, The Man in the Maze.