Author: richardarnoldnaylor

02/02/2016 Tuesday

The President of St Philip’s College Dr Adena Loston invited us to be one of her guests at a service and lunch where she was awarded the Ankofa Institute Award for Lifelong Dedication to Education of the Black Community.  The event took place in the chapel of the Oblate School of Theology.

The address was preached by the Most Rev. Bishop Fernand J. Cheri. Being the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord he preached on patience and waiting using the text about Simeon who had been promised that he would meet the Messiah before he died.  His delivery reminded me of Archbishop Tutu for its liveliness and humour.  He started with a joke of course!

The presentations were made at the end of the mass and we retired for lunch.

Joke

Three ladies arrive at the Pearly Gates.

Peter: Ladies you are very welcome but unfortunately I have an urgent matter to deal with so please make yourselves comfortable and I will return as soon as I can.

After some considerable time, Peter returned and apologised profusely for the delay.

Peterto the 1st Lady: Please come in.  I have two questions for you.  Firstly, did you mind waiting to see me?

1st Lady: Not at all.  I have spent my life waiting on the Lord. I go to mass every day.

Peter: I have one more question. Please can you spell God?

1st Lady: Capital G o d

Peter: Excellent. Please go on into Heaven.

Peter then turned to the second lady.

Peter to the 2nd Lady: Please come in.  I have two questions for you.  Firstly, did you mind waiting to see me?

2nd Lady: Not at all.  I go to church every Sunday and I have spent my life serving the Lord.

Peter: I have one more question. Please can you spell God?

2nd Lady: Capital G o d

Peter: Excellent. Please go on into Heaven.

Finally, Peter invited in the third lady

Peter to 3rd Lady: I have just two questions for you. Did you mind being kept waiting while I was away?

3rd Lady:  Did I mind! Of course I did! I have had to wait in line all my life.  I have stood in line at the supermarket, at the doctors, to register my children for school, to get my benefits and now I have had to stand in line to get into Heaven!

Peter: Thank you for that. I have one more question.  Can you spell “Czechoslovakia”?

 

 

01/02/2016 Monday

As part if the inter-faith programmes taking place in San Antonio Dr Zeki Saritoprak talked about Jesus and what he means to Muslims.  He said that Muslims believe in the virgin birth and the second coming of Jesus and, like Chrisitanity, there are three approaches to looking at Jesus and the Muslim scriptures: modernist, literalist and interpretive.

Almost the first slide in his presentation stated that Jesus was a muslim.  A lady walked out at this point.  Unfortunately she did not stay long enough to hear Dr Zeki explain that he was talking about muslim with a small “m” and meaning “one who submits him/herself to the will of God”.

Questions about the Trinity arose at the end.  His view was that (many) Muslims believe that God neither begets nor is begotten and that they would translate the phrase “son of God” as “beloved of God”.

Interesting stuff! If you are interested look at Jesus in Islam and also his book

 

31/01/2016 Sunday

This morning we went to St Philip’s Episcopal Church which serves the mainly black community close to St Philip’s College.  Again we were given a warm welcome and invited to join them for Sunday lunch after the service.  After a great lunch we left the congregation to get on with what I would call their Annual Vestry meeting. (Didn’t want to get elected onto any committees!)

We met several people who had connections with the military.  In fact this had been a recurring theme amongst the many people we have met so far. San Antonio has a number of military bases and its military history goes right back to the Alamo and Texas independence.

In the afternoon we went to an event called “Deep in the Heart: A passion for peace” organised by the Peace Center and hosted by the Oblate School of Theology.  This was the 10th annual Blessing of San Antonio Peacemakers.  The main part of the event was the appointment of Father Ron Rolheiser as the 9th San Antonio Peace Laureate. We had prayers from Imam Omar Shakir and Rabbi Sam & Lynn Stahl, previous laureates.

Father Ron spoke of Jesus and the Syro-phoenician woman and reminded us that we are all in the same house, all faiths with deep common sole for compassion.  He used the image of the group photograph where we immediately look to see ourselves in the photograph when, in fact, we are all “digging a well” together.

The Peace Center is about to receive a Peace Pole similar to the one outside the Croi at Corrymeela.

While the Oblate School provides some accommodation and a postal address for the Peace Center the Peace Center is run as a totally voluntary organisation.

Philip and Diana, whom we had met in North West Vista College earlier in the week, called for us at 9 am and took us for breakfast to the Guenther House.  This house was in decorated and furnished in art-nouveau style and is associated with a long standing flour mill.

The food was good. We had breakfast tacos 
and pancakes with maple syrup and fruit.

Diana and Philip then took us to the King William district where there were a lot of old houses from the 19th centuary and many of which had been restored and one or two as musems.

We then travelled out along the San Antonio river and visited a couple of the old missions built around the same time as the Alamo mission in San Antonio.

The countryside round San Antonio is fairly flat and the trees are not particularly tall.  The geology is limestone and reminded me a little of the Dordogne in France.

We finished up in a bar in Down town San Antonio called “The Friendly Spot” to sample the local beers.

This a very interesting day with great hosts Philip and Diana.  Thankyou.

PS Weather: clear blue skies and temperatures about 24C.

 

 

 

29/01/2016 Friday

On Friday afternoon we visited the Monte Vista Montessori school where we were met by a group of about forty children ranging from about nine to fourteen years old. They were a very lively and friendly bunch and, given the small space available, it made for an interesting experience as we looked at diversity through the use of games, puppets and concluding with the “Moose” song.

28/01/2016 Thursday

At the Interfaith Service over a week ago we were invited to breakfast at the Dialogue Centre by Mehmet. This centre is essentially part of a Turkish cultural organisation that is in many countries and the main purpose of which to have conversations that help to break down fears and mistrust between communities. More information here. There are similarities with NITECA. The organisation is non-profit gets much of its inspiration from the Turkish Muslim scholar, writer and educator Fethullah Gulen.

 

Thanks for a great conversation and a very pleasant breakfast.

27/01/2016 Wednesday

We had an early start this morning as we had to get to Drury Plaza Hotel on the River Walk for and 8:30 lecture on the History of Texas.  This was given by Dr Allen Hamilton, a colleague in St Philip’s College.  We joined about two hundred Road Scholars who were visiting Texas for a few days. Road Scholar is life-long education organisation which organises educational trips all over the world.  Our group consisted mainly of seniors.

The two hour talk itself was very informative and very entertaining giving good background to current demographics and its political conservatism.

 

26/01/2016

We were invited to have lunch with staff of North West Vista College who were involved in the Alamo Colleges’ Internationalisation Programme.  This involves, in part, educational trips to various parts of the world.  Andy Hill’s trip to Corrymeela last summer would have been part of this programme.  Our invitation came from Magdalia who is the co-ordinator of International Studies.  We heard from staff about their part in the various programmes, we talked about Corrymeela and we met another Fulbright scholar called D.K Wu from Taiwan.  He was present at the College to do research into Non-peer Education.

25/01/2016

The afternoon was spent at Boden Elementary School close to St Philip’s College with the school has a close relationship.  The school is named after Atimesia Boden who was the founder and long time leader of St Philip’s College.  She was recently made a saint of the Episcopal Church.

The school itself has a student population that is predominantly Mexican with large minorities of White and African Americans so many of the students are bilingual in Spanish and English.

Yvonne led us in a series games and activities reflecting what we do at Corrymeela.  We had a series of 20 to 30 minute sessions with five classes from the more senior grades.  We had great fun and the children too! Their responses were pretty similar to what one would get from children in NI showing similar interests and wishes.  A large number had ridden horses! The Vice-Principal of the school revealed afterwards that she was pleased and some case surprised by the engagement of the pupils and teachers.

 

22/01/2016 Friday

A quiet day in the office.  We got away on Friday afternoon to pick up a car near the airport so we now have wheels. The car is a Chevrolet Cruz compact car.  Typical modern car but automatic which is a bit of a change. Having a left-hand drive car make getting used to driving on the right a bit more straightforward.  On the way back to our apartment we immediately got into a traffic jam on the free-way so the automatic transmission came into its own.

23/01/2016 Saturday

We took off early to HEB for our first major shop for food and some household equipment. In the afternoon we went to Best Buy to purchase a TV and a Satnav for the car.  I managed to get $50 off the TV so $150 ($105) for a 32 inch full HD TV seemed pretty good.

A couple of days ago Yvonne discovered the Yarn Barn about six minutes walk from our apartment. So a quick trip there late afternoon got her back into knitting puppets.  She discovered that they had a knitting group similar to the Knit & Natter group in Ballycastle.

In the evening we were taken out to dinner by the President of the College Dr Adena Loston.  During the evening she related her upbringing in Mississippi during the 1960s and her time as Director of Education at NASA in Houston.  The restaurant was the Palm Restaurant.  Richard had his first Texas steak!

 

 

 

 

 

 

24/01/2016 Sunday

We joined Matt Fuller at his church where he sings in the choir.  We were given a very friendly welcome in Alamo Heights Presbyterian Church.  The congregation was quite small and church was feeling the pressure of secularisation and population changes.  After the service we went for lunch with the choir to a Taco restaurant and had a very friendly couple of hours.  The music from the

choir itself was very good particularly considering the small congregation that it could draw on.