Deacon Dan Wright

Light Blogging

For the next couple of days or so I don't expect to do too much deep writing or reflecting, other than on what's around me in the form of natural beauty or local interest.   

Yes, the time has come again for my annual vacation, and on this post I'm including a couple of photos.  I have a weakness for sunsets and seaside views. For fun I'll leave it to you to figure out the location.  However, this year it's not the Texas coast. 

This particular sunset says "eternity" to me.

With temperatures last month getting as high as 107 degrees, I felt the need for something a bit cooler and a bit more laid back, so I've been away since July 4th and have very much enjoyed the "cool change."  Okay, the last photo is a giveaway if you can see the sign.

I may post a few more photos in the next day or two, and then it's back to Texas.  Since I'll still have a month and a half before returning to work, there will still be some time left for travel.

However, with fuel prices being what they are I don't anticipate that I will be doing too much driving.  Still I'd like to get some pictures of the east Texas piney woods or perhaps a nice scene from somewhere a little closer to home.

More to come.  BTW the two photos on this post were taken with a Nikon D80 using a 18-135mm lens fitted with a Quantaray UV filter.

Where Have I Been?

Actually, I haven't been too far away--just some last minute vacation obligations.  Since both my wife and I have family living in Oklahoma City, we decided to make it a vacation this year.  I'm posting a photo of my daughter having fun at a fountain in the Bricktown area of OKC.

I did visit St. Joseph's Old Cathedral in downtown OKC, which is no longer the cathedral church for the Archdiocese, but the photos were too dark due to the lighting in the church.  I only learned about The Cathedral of Our Lady of Perpetual Help later.

The fountain in OKC gave us the idea of going to Schlitterbahn when we returned to central Texas. Schlitterbahn is the state's largest water park--it may be the biggest of its kind anywhere (it's that Texas thing, what can I say?).  I didn't take photos while there, but during the day my daughter somehow managed to get separated from us.  It turned into a five hour search.  She had found a same-aged friend to hang with and in the end all was well.  Near the water park there is a small parish church named Our Lady of Perpetual Help.  During the search for our missing girl I called on Our Lady to help me.  Deep down I knew that the help I needed was with me, after all I was asking for help from someone who could relate.  Anyone with this kind of experience knows how Mary and Joseph felt when Jesus went out exploring the town.

I treated us all to a delicious dinner at a taqueria after the ordeal.  I'm still recovering from the dinner.  My father-in-law always said never to eat at a place that called itself a "ristorante."  I thought surely that I'd be safe with a taqueria.  I doubt that I'll stay away from either taquerias or ristorantes--that's just the way I am--my father-in-law warned my wife about me.

I'll be back with regular reflections beginning this weekend--vacations are over, and it's time to get busy with other things.

Midnight Musing

It's late at night, and I've stopped over in some small Oklahoma town where I recall that my great aunt told me she lived as a child many long years ago in the early parts of the last century.

It's been a long day and as I sit here in my motel room I muse over the events of the day.  Even in the middle of rural America it's more than evident that the price of motel rooms, Chinese buffets, and convenience store goodies for the kids have followed the price of gasoline and become almost unaffordable.  Therefore, I really didn't feel so bad about giving a panhandler some change earlier today.  After all, it was only pocket change but for him I got the impression that it was significantly more.

Everything is a gift anyhow.  God gives to us out of his goodness--we can always count on it.  It's what in seminary they called providence.  For me it's simply God's goodness toward us.  It's something that we can count on, but the challenge is to think in terms other than the material categories that we're accustomed to.

As I begin to look at this weekend's readings--I have to be back in Austin Sunday for my homily, so I'm putting my thoughts together on the road--what stands out to me is Jesus' telling the disciples that "one's life does not consist of possessions."  Truly life must be more than those nice things we like to surround ourselves with (even my panhandler today had a relatively nice bike).

We must aim at possessing something more meaningful than the things that perish.  I've noticed almost daily that time is a tyrant, especially as I drive through places I haven't been in years.  Whatever we think we have, it's sure to vanish at some point.

However, God gives us something more certain--he gives us a possession from heaven that lasts into eternity.  This is what we are to aim for.

Everything we have is a gift from God.  We are not necessarily helpless dependents--though there is spirituality that depends on surrender and even helplessness, such as recovery spirituality for example--rather God invites us to be active partners, perhaps more correctly participants, in the giftedness that he shares with us and that we in return share with others.

I'll be back soon with more, provided that I find a good hot spot sometime in the next 24 hours.

San Antonio Missions Day Trip

As the rain clouds moved out and the summer heat began to rise, I decided that a day trip might be in order.  One of the many nice things about living in Austin is that it's centrally located.  Texas is 267,000 square miles of land, so getting from one place to another typically translates into a long drive.

However, just 79 miles south of Austin is the city of San Antonio.  Feeling a little like getting out of the house I made it a family day trip yesterday, and although I took a couple hundred photos the ones I'd like to share with you are of the San Antonio missions.

While there are five missions in San Antonio, time restraints prevented me from visiting all of them.  One of the most beautiful is Mission Concepción, which reportedly looks very much the way it did when it was constructed almost 300 years ago.  Being there felt a little like stepping back in time.

Twelve years ago, when my oldest son was still an infant, my wife and I attended a Saturday evening Mass at Mission Espada, which at the time was still an active parish.  I remember the Mass being in English, which I thought to be interesting for a parish in a Spanish-speaking community.  On this visit I did see some signs that Mission Espada is still under the direction of the Franciscans.

Along the way to Mission Espada I passed Mission San Juan and took a quick photo.  By this time the gates at Mission San José were closed, so unfortunately I was not able to photograph it.

Due to the time of day none of the missions I visited were open for interior viewing, with the exception of the Alamo--actually my first stop downtown upon arrival in San Antonio.  However, interior photography is not allowed there.  Still I managed to get a number of good exterior shots.

Finally, I made a visit to San Antonio's San Fernando Cathedral--itself not a mission--where I was able to take a number of very good interior photos.  The most striking were of the Cathedral's old main altarpiece, which is now used as a chapel because the actual altar has been moved to the center of the Cathedral.

While at the Cathedral I discovered that the remains of William B. Travis, David Crockett, and James Bowie are all interred there.  My own ancestors were in Texas in the days of the Battle of the Alamo.  At that time in order to live in Texas immigrants were required to convert.  My early Texas ancestors were both residents of Mexico and Catholic, at least officially. 

There's one thing certain about visiting San Antonio this time of year: it's hot.  I've heard it said that not even the devil himself will go to San Antonio in the summer, but you've got to wonder whether it's the heat or the wonderful Catholic history of the place that really deters him.

Where are they?

This is a photo of my wife and children.  Anyone care to figure out where it was taken?

We haven't done a lot of traveling this summer, but of the places we did go most of them didn't have the latitude and longitude posted.  So, more or less, where was I standing when I took this picture?

Back Again

I've just returned from being on vacation with my wife and children.  This year we decided to visit South Padre Island, Texas, a well-known spring break destination for college students from around the country.  During the summer months Padre is a favorite vacation spot for people from the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, most of whom drive several hours to reach the island--a drive similar to the one I made from Austin.

Padre Island is a great deal more relaxed and less crowded during the summer, which is the off-season time to visit.  The photo above is a snapshot I took of the sunset over Laguna Madre, or the intracostal side of the island between South Padre and Port Isabel, Texas.

Forty-three years ago, when I was only a four-year-old, my family and I, along with a large group of aunts, uncles, and family friends camped on the island.  I have a good memory of my childhood visit.  At that time Padre was mostly a desert wilderness, offering only one "mom and pop" motel and a popular restaurant and bar built on a jetty near the campsites.  There were no hotels and condos in those days, just tents  --a few trailers--and plenty of sand and salt water.  The photo to the right was taken at the location where I camped on the beach with my family when I was a child.  The photo of the statue below is also near my childhood campsite.

While we were vacationing this week, I noticed the absence of a Catholic parish on the Island.  In all, there is only one church--a Baptist congregation--serving the island.  However, in neighboring Port Isabel there is the Our Lady Star of the Sea Catholic Church.  Like much of the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, there is a great deal of poverty in the area off the island.  This was evident as we drove around Port Isabel looking for the Catholic Church. 

On the drive home I took the old highway through the Rio Grande Valley cities.  It was still much as I remembered 43 years ago.  A short drive off the main highway will reveal the difficult situation that many people living in the Valley face today.  Just down the road from where I lived as a child I found a large colonia neighborhood--communities of trailers and homemade buildings that often lack water, sewer service, or electricity.  The picture to the right is my son, Dominic, standing across the road from the location of my childhood home.