Saturday, June 18, 2005

So we've come to a stop in Eureka, MO. The water. It feels thick. Tastes sulphuric, or full of unfamiliar minerals. Not chlorine. Hard to describe this water. Even harder to drink it. This morning we had to start filling the tank with water here. I filled every possible container with the elixir of Colrain. What's left is mixed and corrupted.

There's limestone everywhere. Once ocean, we think. Silica plant nearby. Mining has left monumental columns in cliffs by the roadside. A marvel to me. But the water. Merrimac River nearby. The famous caverns not too far down the road.

We're here at Price Automotive. Still enjoying their hospitality. Plugged in, the satellite dish is out so last night I watched "Into the West." Wagon trains, Indian camps, struggles all around. Quite the contrast to our experiences. The salvage folks in Joplin were draining and washing out our replacement gas tank only yesterday. They promised to get it out today, but who knows. So we're here until it gets here hopefully Monday, and then the work needs done.

Yesterday we drove around, up and downhill. Somewhere in the green countryside we saw a little sign with an arrow, "Shrine". We followed it because it was the one place I'd seen in the tourist racks that I wanted to go. Because of Margaret and Pat B. I wanted to see it fro them—and because of them. The Black Madonna shrine and grottos.

Short story: a Franciscan brother, Bronislaus Luszcz, from Poland was invited here to create an infirmary for men. As a child in Poland he had watched pilgrims pass through his village on their way to the Jasna Gora (Bright Hill) monastery in the town of Czestochowa, where they would honor Mary as Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Black Madonna. Brother Bronislaus wanted to share his faith and spread the glory of the Black Madonna, so in 1938 he began “his lifetime labor of love”, clearing the wooded land, building a beautiful cedar wood chapel, and hanging a painting of Our Lady there. Arsonists burned it to the ground in 1958, and in 1960 an open air chapel was built. But the bigger attraction for me were the grottos, constructed by hand without power tools by Brother Bronislaus alone. Built of native Missouri tiff rock from 30 miles away.

These grottos and shrines are the kind of construction I have loved all my life: shells, rocks eaten through by time, colored bottles, bits of jewelry, porcelain figures, concrete flowerpots made from jello molds and flowers from paper cupcake molds. Arches and niches, stone rickrack decorations, columns. stone on stone on stone pressed into concrete. Sun and shade. Jesus kneeling in a flowered Gethsemane, looking to the angel above him. A hot day, and cool in the shade. A stalled car in the parking lot, the owner trying to reach his wife for help with his cell phone (can you hear me, did you hear anything I said?), Andre hooking up the cables, trying jump after jump. Nothing worked. I took pictures as I could: deep shade, washed out angels and stone walkways. I timed my walk over wet green grass past the revolving sprinkler to visit the Mothers' Sanctuary, am surprised by a small fish pool with goldfish moving in the sun. Later I see the 2 giant orange and silver fish at its edge. In the cool leafy shade next to the slim white statue of the mother (donated, I assume, by a mother) the plaque says: “Mary Mother, through my pain and fear, show me the loving way. Connie Jones, 2001” I wonder about the pain of Connie Jones. I think of Margaret. I think of Pat. I think I could pray that prayer. And in her life as our mother, my own mother surely found a similar prayer.

The sun grew hotter and my soft headache told me I needed, I wanted water. We talked with the man waiting for the tow truck sent by his wife about our own mysteries. He took half a day off work to come to this place “and pray” and his car broke down. I needed dollar bills to light a candle for Margaret and he offered a dollar. We said no thanks. I lit the candle. The tow truck came. It felt good to drive away having left the candle burning before the altar, cool breezes blowing beneath the metal roof, the grottos and shrines waiting peacefully beyond.

It is only now that I read the tour brochure I found after my walk. Detail after detail missed, my fondness for Brother Bronislaus growing. He died of sunstroke near the Fatima shrine. The current picture of the Black Madonna arrived only weeks prior to his death.

The sun is heating the top of our home here. Soon, we will drive to the EconoLodge (where we spent one night cruising on precious wireless), park somewhere very close to the building, and see if we can fly…