I heard no words from God urging me forward that day as we drove upward into Arizona canyonlands. I was on my way to meet a congregation of Christians in need of a minister — a woman cleric, as out of place in the Wild West as Snow White in a fluffy gown. No still, small voice told me I was qualified. No holy utterance from thunder, either. It was a clear winter afternoon.
My husband John drove the white rental Buick while I focused on the view. Bold, confident clouds observed our car. In the distance loomed high mesas, eerie, empty. On the hillsides six-foot saguaros waved us on.
The road leveled into ranch country, and I was enchanted by the Arizona high-desert scene. It took me into childhood and western movies — cattle smells and dirt roads leading to weathered homesteads. This was a frontier setting far from urban San Diego, where I’d been a teacher before heading off to Berkeley to study religion. The idea of a Congregational Church here seemed ludicrous. What had I done?
“Can’t believe you’d consider coming here,” John said. Aviator sunglasses made him look like a CIA operative as he gazed around taking the measure of this vacant landscape.
“You wanted to see this too,” I said. “Maybe it’ll be wonderful.”
“I doubt it. Look around you.”
Open, flat country unfurled as our car moved in the silence. A long row of mismatched fence-posts leaned drunkenly along the road. Horses Boarded, a sign read.
“Boarded horses,” I muttered.
“Bored horses, did you say?”
“Just drive.”
“We must be getting closer,” I said, and sneezed.
“I see you notice the smell. I’d say that’s horseshit.”
“I like it, reminds me of the movies.”
“No cars. No civilization. Just horseshit.”
John coughed, as if choked by desert dust.
“Let’s check out the church first,” I said, wondering if I’d actually find church-goers here in a settlement called Dewey. The vista outside my window looked more suited to gunfights.
We passed an indication of human life — Olsen’s Feed Store, surrounded by pick-ups like horses at a trough. I’d never seen a feed store before. Where were we?
I tried to seem at ease and said, “The letter said four o’clock. We’ve time to see the church before we meet our hosts.”
My imagination had created a modest country church with a creaky wood floor and a steeple—a church in the wildwood, a symbol of kindness in a frontier outpost. It would have a minister’s office with a view of the distant mountains touched with those marvelous clouds. You could meet God in this country, or not. Snow White wasn’t sure of anything that day.
“They mentioned a country club,” I said.
“Would golfers be living around here?”
“Golfers live everywhere.”
A flutter of color from an American flag appeared behind some juniper trees. “Stop! I see a flag. Turn at that post office.”
“A flag. A flag. God bless America.” He pulled over. “Go see if the federal government knows where we are.”
Hugging myself in the January cold, I hurried to the modest building next to a trailer with a scrawled sign, “Videos for Rent.” A large woman in the two-room office told me to watch for Young’s Farm up the road. The church ought to be on our left, a mile beyond Young’s barn.
We drove on past the Blue Hills Market, a humble store with a fuel pump standing sentry in the gravel lot. A fat man leaned against the structure, his Stetson pulled down over his eyes and a pistol in his belt.
“Something about this place I like,” John said.
“Okay. Okay.”
Young’s Farm, an acreage dotted with two willow trees, looked as unreal as everything else. The low farm buildings stood far away in the distance. Were kindly churchgoers living there? Where was this Buick taking me?
“I think I see the church up ahead,” I said, and we turned left into a neighborhood of desert homes. “Or I think it’s a church. It has a pyramid on top!”
This was not the village church I’d pictured. The bold structure of wood and stone had a pointed roof topped by a splash of colored glass. I got an impression of originality and spare beauty. We’d come to a unique place where the congregation had called a woman.
When we don’t know what’s ahead on a rural road, we go forward into strange territory, letting it reveal its secrets — at least I did. A Spirit I hoped to find was waiting, and at some level I knew it would be there.
Elaine Jordan, author of Mrs. Ogg Played the Harp, is a local editor who’s lived in Prescott for thirty years.
