The guard locked the gate. When I think back now on that day, I don't think he saw me, tucked away in the shade. I was resting on my favorite bench in Old Town--one I often make special trips to visit, even though it is just a plain thing of worn paint on worn wood. It sits in an extra-hidden patio in the Patio Escondido, around the corner from the tourist areas in a quiet bay that leads to nowhere. Above it a desert willow dangles long, slender leaves on long, supple branches. Across from it a giant three-leaf sumac stretches and sprawls and clambers. This little alcove always feels to me like a peaceful whisper of wilderness, a pool of calm in the midst of a busy part of Albuquerque.

On that day I had been out for a walk to enjoy the lazy, golden warmth of an October afternoon. Honey-colored sunlight slanted through yellowing cottonwoods. The sun reached in through the leaves to lay a broad, warm hand on my heart, my back, to cradle my hair. I'd threaded my way through various patios in Old Town, with their adobe storefronts and brickwork paths and glazed pots bright with flowers, past boutiques selling artwork and western wear and battle figurines and cat toys. On the plaza I'd passed by the Navajo and Pueblo artisans seated on blankets selling turquoise and silver jewelry, and woven through tourists walking to their own unpredictable rhythms, on around the church of San Felipe de Neri. Then, ready for a rest before starting for home, I'd headed for the Patio Escondido.

Beyond the religious goods shop and next to the tattoo parlor is one of the world's beautiful places. I don't normally find indoor spaces to be sacred, but this is an exception: the Chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I have seen many churches--massive cathedrals with exquisite stained glass windows; neighborhood houses of worship with red-cushioned pews and large kitchens. Somehow I mostly feel like they're missing the point. Not so the Chapel. It is a small space of adobe and wood. Gentle light streams from the open door and high windows to mingle with gentle shadows among the patterns painted on the floor. Arches curve softly between the entry and the sanctuary. Deep benches built into the walls give rest and reflection architectural strength. Letters carved in relief into large, wooden panels invite touch and murmur words of joy and mystery. The Chapel is a place for the senses, and also one of simplicity and quiet. Whenever I enter, my heart leaps.

I am not Catholic, though, and never stay long. I feel foreign and out of place--not quite gauche, but as if I might be at any minute. After a short time I always retreat to the bench across the patio, to rest in the shade beneath the desert willow. I have been doing this whenever I'm well enough for years now. Lately my thoughts there have begun to resonate to a Wendell Berry poem, "How To Be a Poet," and especially the lines, "There are no unsacred places; / there are only sacred places / and desecrated places." I've wondered what makes a place sacred.

While resting on the bench I've divvied up the places I've passed in Old Town into "sacred" and "desecrated" camps in my mind. The religious goods store, blaring "Come hither" mariachi music on outdoor speakers and disturbing the quiet of the Chapel: Desecrated. The tattoo parlor, whose artist sits on the doorstep enjoying the sunshine: Sacred. The store that sells metalwork saguaros and geckos to tourists, when New Mexico does not have saguaros or geckos: Desecrated. The one that sells life-like horned toad bobble-heads for a song: Sacred.

I've wondered if I only find a place sacred if I like it, if it suits my fancy. Somewhere beneath my (quirky) tastes, though, I do think some principles are at work. Perhaps the difference is as simple as the one between giving and taking, between offering and using. The desecrated ones strike me as utilitarian. Transactional. Even exploitative.

That idea was seasoning while I sat on the bench that afternoon. It was almost 5:00, and the daytime crowds had begun to thin. (The potted bougainvillea bright against the adobe wall; the fountain splashing softly.) A handful of tourists entered the Chapel, came out laughing after a minute to snap a quick photo, and left. A pair of teens approached, glanced around, and then ducked into the dark, narrow space between the Chapel and the neighboring wall. They emerged a minute later, looking a little too casual. A drug deal? Something illicit, I imagine. They left quickly.

A pause. Then a man in the guard uniform of the Albuquerque Museum passed through the museum gate at the back of the Patio Escondido. I don't think he saw me, tucked away in the shade, but he bowed his head almost shyly as he went into the Chapel. He stayed for a few minutes. The Chapel is maintained by volunteers, and I wondered if perhaps he was seeing all safe and tidy for the evening. Offering some act of devotion, at any rate. When he came out, it was just on 5:00. The museum would be closing. The guard went back through the gate and shut it gently behind him. He locked it and then checked that the lock was secure. Once. Twice. Three times. He didn't rattle or shake it hard. He used just the strength needed to test it. His whole attention was on the lock, and he was as careful and as quiet with it as if he were trying not to wake a baby.

It took my breath away. That simple act has stayed with me for a year. It was that extraordinary, that beautiful.

I've thought about it often since then. In my irreverent moments, I've wondered if he irritates his wife--if some mornings she just wants to leave the house without him triple-checking the lock on every door and window. But once irreverence has passed I always come back to the gentleness and care of the gesture, as if locking the gate was not a duty but a trust, and my breath catches all over again.

I keep thinking about "How To Be a Poet"--the lines about sacred and desecrated places. And I wonder. Perhaps there are no unsacred acts, no unsacred moments. There are only sacred ones and desecrated ones. No middle ground, no neutrality. There are the moments to which we give our care and attention, and the ones we ride roughshod over; the ones we treat as offerings, and the ones we exploit as transactions.

I've shrunk from that idea, really. It's a lot of pressure, full of new opportunities for (unnecessary?) guilt--for obsession and scrupulosity and worrying whether the dishes I wash are being desecrated because I'm not loving them enough. Desecrated is a strong word. A harsh one.

But I am beginning to tire of the soft pedal. When I picture the guard with his head bowed as he entered the Chapel; when I compare the beauty of his actions with the tourists' hard-hearted curio chasing, with the teens' cynical practicality--when I really see the difference between giving and using--I think the strong words work. Sacred. Desecrated.

For one moment as his hands rested on the gate, the guard opened a way for me to another world. I have been trying to glimpse it again ever since, aching to rediscover this heaven where the spiritual resides in the smallest physical gesture, where it shines out of mundane tasks. Where each moment is a trust. Where rattling through one moment to get on to the next dishonors its gift of Life; where giving it our attention lifts it to a place of honor. Where we give each call on our lives just the strength it needs.

And we offer each moment all our care and gentleness, as if it were a sleeping baby.