Category: Fulbright 2016

11/02/2016 Thursday

The active PeaceCenter here in San Antonio hosted a talk entitled “Taking Down the Monuments” given by one of its members Sue Ives. Sue has been studying the meaning and impact of monuments for over ten years.

She started her talk in Eastern Europe and Russia looking at what happened to monuments – many to Stalin and the Russian Army – during the fall of Communism.  There are more recent examples in the middle east – the toppling of the Sadam Husein statue at the end of the Iraq War and the destruction of ancient religious and historical sites in Syria by ISIS and others.

She also touched on the blowing up of Nelson’s column in Dublin in 1966 and the debate about Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford.  Of course in Northern Ireland we have many examples of contentious monuments to our past.

In the USA there is, currently, a lot of debate over Confederate memorials and flags.

The arguments about what to do vary from “leave well alone” to “get rid of them completely”. Some countries such as Hungary have created a Momento Park where contentious monuments have been taken for all to see. Some suggest that they can be contextualised by adding information plaques that reflect the known history either in situ or after removal to a park.  Rather than renaming streets or buildings they could be paired with names reflecting the “other” story.  For example, in Charleston there is a Calhoun Street named after a Confederate hero.  It has been suggested that it be named Smalls-Calhoun Street to reflect the African American part of the story.

Obliterating names and objects is seen by some as simply rewriting history by the winner.  It does not inform about how we got there.  The potential for forgiveness, on both sides, is lost.

So how about the Maze being turned into a Momento Park?

Taking Down the Monuments

10/02/2016 Wednesday

It was a quiet week in the office so we decided to take advantage of the wonderful weather and headed off to Fredricksburg.  This is a small town (pop. 10,000) settled by German immigrants during the early 19th century. The town is in the hill country (everything relative of course) about 60 miles north of San Antonio.  It has a long and wide main street lined with a wide variety of shops selling local crafts, clothes and produce.  There are several vineyards in the area and each has their own wine-tasting shop.  A couple of the main attractions in the town are the Admiral Nimitz museum and the National Museum of the Pacific War.  These are both interesting and well constructed museums.  Nimitz was born and brought up in the town.

The countryside was described to me as bumps rather than hills!  At this time of year the low trees are bare and while there is plenty of grass it is quite brown.  The flora is basically limestone based.  The rivers are all empty of water.

07/02/2016 – Sunday

Sunday morning

Christs Episcopal Church is the closest church to our apartment. It appears to have many services and activities going on with a large active congregation.  We were made very welcome. There is interest in Corrymeela and volunteering and we expect that we will have more input here over the coming weeks. So this is likely to be our home church because of its proximity and the timings of its services.

Sunday afternoon – San Antonio Botanical Gardens

Matt Fuller joined us for a beautiful afternoon in San Antonio Botanical Gardens.  This is very much like a National Trust property with gardens and a restaurant.  The property is quite large with gardens laid out to reflect the different environments that feature in Texas.  Although it is winter here there was still some colour in the garden and it was interesting to see some of the plants native to Texas such as the rather vicious and magnificent looking cacti. We saw the Cardinal bird and several varieties of butterfly.

 

Sunday evening – Super Bowl

Matt Fuller joined us for dinner and then we settled down to the intricacies of American Football accompanied by the commentary and explanations of Matt. Four hours of TV for one hours play with the rest being mainly advertising.  In fact, it seemed that for some people the advertising was of more interest as much of it was specially commissioned for the event. The entertainment at half-time with Cold Play, Boyance, Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson was probably the best bit for me. I hope Chris and Mary Anne Busch, being from North Carolina, were not to disappointed with the result.  From my limited understanding the best team won.

06/02/2016 Saturday

We went into town this morning to discover crowds of people gathering for the “Western Heritage Parade and Cattle Drive”.  This was an event in preparation for the San Antonio Rodeo and Stock Show which starts this coming Thursday.

We saw old trail wagons and people cooking various foods including biscuits which were something very similar to our scones.  They being cooked in cast iron pots containing hot charcoal with lids that were also covered with the charcoal.  The biscuits were save with gravy not cream and jam!

The animals were mainly long horn cows along with sheep, a lot of horses being ridden by all ages.  We were surprised by how tame the long horns were with several of them being ridden by girls and children.

After the parade we ventured onto the river walk and took a very entertaining river boar tour.

We then moved on to the market which, while being heavily geared to tourists there was some beautifully made traditional clothing, pottery and jewellery.  It was a very lively and popular place with lots of music and dancing going on.  We had a late lunch of tacos at Viva Villa in the market.

 

04/02/2016 Thursday

We spent most of the day with Larry Hufford who has accompanied classes from St Mary’s Uni to Corrymeela on several occasions. He is due to visit again in May.  After catching up over a cup of coffee in the Library coffee shop we joined one of his classes which was looking at non-violent resistance.  The basis of the class was a paper by Richard English looking at the “Interplay of Non-violent and Violent Action in N.I 1967-1972”. Larry had drawn up a list of questions for the students and ourselves to focus the discussion. So this was interesting with some good questions from the students.

Afterwards we all met up with Larry’s wife Linda at La Fonda, a rather nice Mexican restaurant, for a late lunch.

With Larry at St Mary’s

 

03/02/2016 Wednesday

We joined one of Andy Hill’s evening classes on Peace & Justice course. Northern Ireland forms a significant part of the course so Andy invited us in the provide a local perspective and talk about some of our experiences. He had shown the film “An Everlasting Piece” which led well into stories and questions.

 

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.