Purify Water with Prayer
In 2002, when I was living on the Navajo Reservation, my host, Daniel Staley, talked about the rugged lifestyle his ancestors incurred. Drinking water was dependent on rainfall, which could be scant in this remote desert region surrounding Canyon de Chelly. He showed me how his grandparents taught him to brush away the debris in a mud puddle. Then how to pray over the water to purify it. He said no matter how dirty the water was, they never got sick from it. Several months…