Two miles. It doesn’t seem like much, two miles. A short walk around the neighborhood. A quick drive to the store. It’s a distance I know well, yet rarely give pause to think about until I stood atop the cliffs of Oak Flat. Staring into a vast, breathing sweep of desert sky and ancient earth, I truly felt the full weight of this seemingly innocuous measurement. You see, two miles is the width of the crater that will be left behind where Oak Flat now stands if Resolution Copper has their way — a permanent scar replacing sacred ground that has held life, memory, and worship for centuries.

When I made the trip to Chí’chil Biłdagoteel, the land we call “Oak Flat,” I went hoping to bear witness to the sacred land. But as I walked its well-worn paths, this hallowed ground reminded me that while some places need witnesses, others need advocates and protectors.

For countless generations, Western Apache tribes have made the journey to this ground to perform sacred religious ceremonies, coming-of-age rituals, and healing rites. Ga’an Canyon, just adjacent, is understood by the San Carlos Apache to be where the spiritual beings who represent healing live. Chí’chil Biłdagoteel isn’t a metaphor, it is their theology — deeply lived, practiced, and irreplaceable.

As I hiked the rugged terrain and walked the land, I stopped atop the nearest peak and closed my eyes. The warm Arizona sun pressed against my face. A breeze moved through the air, rustling loose the pebbles and dirt at my feet. Among the crunch of the treads of nearby hikers, I could hear the low hum of the wind. Somewhere in that stillness, I felt what I can only describe as the presence of the Creator, and I knew I was standing on sacred ground. It was clear, of course, this is sacred ground. You don’t need to be Apache to feel it. You just have to be quiet long enough to listen.

It is almost impossible, standing in that beauty, to imagine a crater there instead. Almost two miles wide. Over a thousand feet deep. A wound in the earth that will not close in our lifetimes, or our children’s, or their children’s … not for millennia. That is what Resolution Copper’s proposed mine would leave behind. The sacred ground gone. The ancient oaks gone. The ceremonies, the rituals, the living faith of the Apache people, displaced, severed from the only place on earth where they can be performed.

Whether people realize it or not, the battle to save Oak Flat is a fight for religious freedom.

We, people of faith and people of none, people who believe the First Amendment means something, people who have fought to protect the places that matter most to us, cannot stay silent when another people’s sacred land is handed to a foreign mining company for profit. The same principle that protects our churches, our synagogues, our mosques, our temples, and every space where we gather to seek meaning demands that we protect theirs. Religious freedom is not a privilege reserved for people who worship in buildings with steeples. It belongs to the San Carlos Apache. It belongs to every tribe that has prayed on that red rock ground.

The land transfer has now gone through. The old bill is gone. But the fight is not over. New legislation is being shaped in an effort to preserve at least part of this land, to protect what can still be protected. This is the moment to act. Contact your lawmakers. Tell them you were on this land in spirit, even if you’ve never set foot in Arizona. Tell them that religious freedom is not just something that exists on paper; it is a lived experience, rooted in specific places, practiced by real people, and worth protecting. Remind them that sometimes religious freedom is a modest two-mile stretch of desert in the middle of nowhere Arizona.

Two miles. Maybe, like me, this number hits a little differently now. I hope you’ll join the fight to save Oak Flat.

Rev. Maggie Clark is the children’s pastor at the First Baptist Church of Elkin, NC, and a 2023 BJC Fellow. In October 2025, the BJC Center for Faith, Justice and Reconciliation partnered with CBF Advocacy to let people experience the space for themselves.