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Purpose is so The architecture of order

Two raveyard of the Tucson airport, they discover the Mission San Xavier del Bac Long ago, soh stone wall around the whole place, but there is a painted sign on the arching gate doors:

TRAVELLER

YOU ARE WELCOME

RING THE BELL

High up on the wall, a rope has been tied around a cleat in the adobe Moses gives the rope a tug, and above theh the desert heat A few reeted by a wo bows to them, her hands folded in prayer to her lips, then beckons with her hand for the it with a whole series of iron bars slid through huge hasps

The ainst the cloudless blue of the sky Two octagonal towers rise up on either side of the façade, and between them is an ornately carved stone entrance that looks to Moses like a h you were being asked to step into the very illuht-iron balconies protrude fro girl, e, her hands gripping the bars She watches the Todd brothers enter below, and in her expression is therefaçades in the country

In the front courtyard are planted ardens in thick verdant patches There is a full coreeted with serene nods by the residents: plainly dressedin the earth with hoes or stitching up child-sized overalls

How many are you? Moses asks the woman

But the woers to her lips and shakes her head apologetically

You don’t talk, Moses says That’s all right Mostly palaver’ll just get you in trouble That’s been hty silence of the place He realizes that no one is saying anything

Hold on a minute It ain’t just you, is it? It’s everybody here? You could speak if you wanted to, but you opt not to Is that the thing?

Again the woetically and invites the two brothers to follow her through the huge, arching mesquite doors and into the church itself

White dove of the desert Just beyond the threshold into the Narthex, the air cools considerably, as though God were a force of balance where all things hot becoood and evil arebalance that always finds itself, eventually, level Rows of wooden peith arching backs line the nave, and some silent supplicants sit in individual prayer with heads bowed on folded hands Were there whispers of devotion, they would reach high into the octagonal doels – but instead there are only shuffling echoes and the aching sound of wood creaking beneath faithful bodies

At the cross aisle, the woazes upwards to the do scarce, hoCould you read huht ht, Abraha true to their resolution There they are, epistle and gospel, parallel at the transept At Moses’ side the alcove contains a white-gowned Virgin Mary, haloed and glorious, encircled by figures ould admire her – force of the distinctly fee at her feet The phoenix exquisiteness of girls And then, in the opposite alcove, Abraham’s side, is the supine statue of an entoure of recuhter and sacrifice

And so would death and purity enclose Moses’ journeys like cards from a mystical deck laid on either side of his seeker

As they wait, the woman moves towards the front of the church where, in the apse, an emaciated bald man kneels in a brown robe She does not interrupt him but instead stands where he will see her when he looks up froently at her, and when she nods her head in their direction, the man turns and his sad eyes fall on the brothers Abraha only slightly as Moses perceives it

The thinthe woestures for the brothers to follow hie courtyard where other residents of the arden A s low adobe structure on the other side of the courtyard

Abraham and Moses follow his in the complex Inside there is a simple cot and a table with two chairs The estures for them to sit in the chairs

Please, sit, he says

You talk? Moses asks