| H I S TOR Y |
homespun spirituality
by Ashley M. Biggers
I ain’t much good at prayin’, and You may not know me, Lord— For I ain’t much seen in churches, where they preach Thy Holy Word. But You may have observed me out here on the lonely plains, A-lookin’ after cattle, feelin’ thankful when it rains.
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owboys working New Mexico’s llanos in the 1800s were on their own when it came to most things—including worship. Although often raised in devout Christian homes, out on the range the cowpokes seldom had access to churches or the guidance of circuit-riding preachers. The earnest opening lines of “A Cowboy’s Christmas Prayer” (see left) by New Mexico rancher and poet S. Omar Barker (1894–1985) capture the spirit and spirituality of the cowboy as he worked those “lonely plains” from dawn to dusk. When cowboys on the llanos did publicly pray, they gathered in improvised houses of worship, just as the penitentes did in moradas. In the town of White Oaks in the late 19th century, ranchers, miners, and other folks met in saloons (a setting penitentes would have eschewed). “They might have been breaking chairs over each others’ heads there the night before, but on Sunday they were on their best behavior,” says historian Marc Simmons. The congregation shared in reading Scripture and reflecting on the gospel according to the cowboy, who held dear the values of truth, honor, and hard work. Simmons worked on a cattle outfit on the Plains of San Agustin and attended cowboy church in the 1960s, when an outreach ministry rolled into the town of Claunch for three days of testifying and soul saving. White Oaks and other such sites of cowboy churches eventually became dusty ghost towns, but the cowboy church tradition has endured, if in a more formal guise. The latest incarnation
Courtesy of cowboy church of santa fe county
The Cowboy Church of Santa Fe County embraces the informal—but powerful—mode of worship practiced by 19th-century cowboys working on New Mexico’s plains