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photo by Donald Kinney
Last week I had to take my car in for tires and had an hour to kill, so I decided to take my camera over to San Rafael Mission to see if I could sleuth out any photos.
I thought this tile roof design was kind of interesting.
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photo by Donald Kinney
Nobody is sorrier about this than me, but I turned out to be an atheist. Oh, I grew up in a Protestant fundamentalist family and I probably know more about the Bible and salvation than the average Joe, but what really killed my faith was the intolerance our religion had for other faiths -- our family was deeply suspicious and almost fearful of Catholics.
To this day, entering a Catholic church gives me the "wheebie-jeebies"... "Creep-me-out" might be a better description, but I am always amazed at how beautiful Catholic churches are.
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photo by Donald Kinney
Mission San Rafael Arcángel was founded in 1817 as a hospital to treat sick Native Americans of the Bay Area. With less fog and warmer temperatures than in San Francisco, this location seemed ideal for helping ill Indians recover faster.
In 1822, "Mission San Rafael Arcangel" was given full mission status, joining the other 20 missions up and down California.
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photo by Donald Kinney
That's our beloved Mount Tamalpais in the distance.
Some folks believe that Mount Tamalpais itself has spiritual qualities. I'm not ready to go quite that far with my beliefs, but I always feel recharged and invigorated when I visit her slopes, lakes, and streams.
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3 comments:
I heart san rafael. I think it is one of my mom's fave little missions because somewhere in one of the plates say 'for the friars or priests that could not take SF's allergies, the San Rafael mission was their place to stay while these went away' or soemthing like that. I should have lived there as a kid LOL
k-thanks for the photos, as always. mt.Tam is such a recharging spiritual station =)
xxo.m
in 2004 i set out on a mission to visit and photograph all the missions in california. while i still haven't checked off all the missions, this one's the one i really wanted to see inside too.
HI MELIGROSA -- I noticed that the gift shop at the mission is no longer open -- they had all sorts of little nick-nacks related to the history of the mission.
AND HI PHOTO CACHE -- what a great project to visit all of the California missions. Not too long ago I visited Carmel Mission and had a great time spooking around. I grew up in the area but hadn't been to the mission in 30 or 40 years.
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