About 9:00am the Forest Service Ranger (and his son) showed up in the familiar green g-ride pick-up to service the campground; I chatted him up and told him about my predicament. He said “wait here” and immediately left for home – 15 miles away – to get me a tube of rubber cement. Yay! By 10:30am I was back on the road again, feelin’ groovy.
The turn-off to the Benedictine abbey Christ in the Desert was just a mile down the road – this Catholic monastery is 13 miles up a rough gravel road. You gotta check this place out to believe it: http://www.christdesert.org/ How could I not visit a place like this? Anyway the road went up the Rio Chama canyon, not too steep but very washboarded, so I took it easy and stopped a few times to take a swim in the cold river, wave to rafters floating downstream, and have lunch + nap under an immense cottonwood tree.
Once at the monastery I attended the “Terce” prayers in the chapel, sung in Gregorian chant by the 15 monks. The windows of the chapel gaze out over the sandstone bluffs of the canyon – impressionistic. There is no cell phone service…no telephone…no Internet…no mail service or package delivery…only a few lights powered by the abbey’s solar array. I had planned on staying two nights there, but some of the literature about guest guidelines and policies turned me off so I headed back down the 13-mile gravel road, stopping off at the river for another swim.
Just before the highway there was a green van stopped on the side of the road, with the doors open and the hood up, and the four occupants standing outside. This van passed me about a mile back; they had a flat tire with no spare (boy, do I know what that’s like!).
Anyway these folks had been as the monastery and were on their way back to Ghost Ranch, which was also my destination. I told them that I had planned on staying at the monastery but then decided against it – they said “well, come stay with us at Ghost Ranch instead, and hurry up because dinner is only served until 6:30pm!” Fortunately it was only about 3 miles to Ghost Ranch, where I met these folks for dinner in the cafeteria. I ate enough for three people!
Here’s the website for Ghost Ranch http://www.ghostranch.org/ another place you have to experience to believe! This was the hangout of the artist Georgia O’Keefe and I’ve been looking forward to visiting here – I’m a big fan of her art.
Well it turns out the folks who invited me to dinner (Judith, Christopher, Ravi and Joe) were conducting a spiritual retreat at Ghost Ranch – The Art of Spiritual Direction. The four were rescued by Ed, Ghost Ranch Program Director, who invited me to camp in his yard. Sweet baby Jesus – how my luck changed! Less than an hour ago I was rumbling down a dusty, rocky road fleeing the inhospitable rules of the abbey…and I fall into the arms of four very welcoming spiritual guides who feed and house and nurture me by inviting me to an evening seminar about the femal spiritual artist Meinrad Craighead http://www.meinradcraighead.com/. And we were brought together by two flat tires!
I chatted several of the seminar participants over glasses of wine and cheese, and with Ravi about his spiritual journey as both a Hindu and Christian – lots to think about as I dozed off to sleep under a big cottonwood in Ed’s yard…the quiet whir of the sprinklers watering the alfalfa fields…soft winds drifting down from the sandstone bluffs…the full moon crying out to be admired…
