This is a picture I did not take of the blurred shrine candlelight, softened stone and fairy-sized, rounded bronze arms open as for an embrace under the arch in Mary's tiny rock house near Ephesus, Turkey, the home where Jesus's mother lived and died after his earthly story was over, as my eyes unexpectedly welled with salty, not holy, water, filled not from religious devotion, as I broke from the church long ago, but from the silence and hope, the centuries of collective prayers settling like fog in this small space, the dreams of my students who were with me for love, success, happiness and health.
