San Anto -- ALWAYS something to do!

Let NO ONE say in my presence, that "there's nothing to do in San Antonio!" As you may have guessed from my constant references to San Antonio as being a "party city", there is something entertaining or recreational going on all the time (weekends at least). And if there isn't some special event, there are always the numerous museums (more about them in a later blog), parks, or historical sites and tourist attractions.

This past weekend was a HUM-DINGER!!! We celebrated Diez y Seis, Mexico's Independence Day from Friday evening thru Sunday -- and NOT just Saturday the actual Sixteenth (Diez y Seis)! I had TWO spiritual/church-related events to attend in addition to the usual Sunday morning worship. The Aggies of Texas A & M were playing a football game against Army (West Point, the USMA) at the Alamodome, in addition to the usual line-up of dozens of area high school football games on Friday and Saturday nites. Also, I had won admission for two to great pop and country singer Ray Price's concert for Saturday nite at Floore's Country Store in suburban Helotes.

And then, I went to the Thursday evening closing portions of the S.A. City Council meeting -- and got reminded that this weekend was ALSO the annual JazzSAlive festival of jazz music in downtown's block-size Travis Park! Wow! When was I going to have time even to sleep, if I tried to take in all this? The ball games, of course, immediately got scratched. Since I couldn't find anyone with a car who could go to Ray Price (several liked him and would gladly have gone, but already had other commitments), that got scratched, too.

Friday evening I went across town to the Lackland AFB area to attend the Northwest San Antonio FDG Emmaus monthly gathering. One event of the meeting was the commissioning of the Team for Men's Walk to Emmaus #1327, and I'm on that Team. (The number of a Walk, BTW, refers to how many that particular conference-equivalent Emmaus community has done. This is the Southwest Texas Emmaus community, co-equal with the SWTX Conference of the United Methodist Church (the UMC oversees Emmaus nationwide). It's such a huge area that it's divided into numerous Fourth Day groups, of which NWSA and Care Bexar are two. Southwest Texas easily has had MORE walks than any equivalent region! And my impression is that Cursillo, the original 3-day retreat floowed by 4th Day activities for Christian renewal, in the Catholic Church is probably likewise enormously popular here in Texas.

The NWSA gathering seemed to go longer than usual, & not simply because of the additional commissioning of our Team. So I didn't get downtown until about 10:30. I had REALLY desired to attend the "El Grito" ceremony at Municipal Auditorium. I hadn't attended in a couple of years & missed it, because it truly is a delightful, colorful and musical celebration of Mexico's culture, ending with the official grito or shout patterned after Father Hidalgo's original grito that launched the struggle for independence from Spain. Plus I knew that one of the entertaining artists this year was to be Los Caporales, the excellent mariachi band which performs in Fiesta Texas themepark. But alas! as I approached the auditorium, the audience was leaving, since the show was over. Strange, that el grito was done at 10:30 and not an hour and a half later (midnight), as it's done across the border. (Hidalgo had summoned his parish in Dolores village by ringing the church bells around midnight, to utter his cry -- grito -- for revolution.)

So I went on home to bed. And I was up early on Saturday, to pray my half hour of the Prayer Vigil for Kairos Weekend #16 at the Torres Prison. Then I rode bus(es) to the Westside and my church on Guadalupe Street, for the Diez y Seis Parade. As always (when I've been able to attend it), this parade was colorful, long and fun. I'd put it right up there with the parades of Fiesta San Antonio -- even my fave, the Battle of Flowers (altho' Diez y Seis isn't nearly THAT long!).

Then I got on the bus(es) again, to get to Fiesta Texas, to turn in my locker and employee i.d. and to try one last endeavor to find someone who would like to attend the Ray Price concert and give me a ride. I had no success on that latter. So I consoled myself by enjoying the themepark one final time in '06. I watched my three favorite musical shows, Los Caporales mariachi, "The Heart of Country" traditional country classics and "Reflections at Rockville" '60s rock. That latter has my heart because the songs they sing and the clothes they wear are THE songs and clothes of MY high school years! (I was Borah H.S. in Boise, Class of '72.)

Furthermore, even tho' I took it easy as far as planning my itinerary, in addition to the three shows I rode six rides (the Train twice, for seven rides), including three I'd never before ridden. I even did the lead-up to The Rattler I had planned early this summer & hadn't gotten to put into action before that infernal Crew Ride on the wooden roller coaster that threw out my lower back. I first rode the Roadrunner Express, a comparatively mild coaster that I had ridden before, then The Boomerang, which takes riders several stories up on an incline before dropping them down thru a corkscrew and loop and then dropping them thru it all again -- backward! The lift up and dropping down (face-to-the-ground) on that first incline was the scariest part! Backward, which I'd been told was THE scariest part, was a piece of cake.

And THEN it was off to The Rattler, to ride the wooden coaster for my second time! To avoid another throwing-out of the lower back, I padded my seat with the day's newspaper which I'd bro't with me. Also, I psyched myself to stay as loose-jointed and relaxed as possible. No problem! I felt fine when my ride on The Rattler was done!

Sunday morning I was back on the bus(es) and riding back to my church on the Westside's Guadalupe Street for worship. It was a good service, well-attended for this small congregation! I had to leave during the sermon, in order to catch the bus again and get to a rendevous point at the appointed time to get a car ride out to the Torres Prison Unit (west of Hondo, the next county seat town due west of S.A.). One of the other passengers in this car had had heart surgery just this past Thursday -- and yet here she was, going to the Closing for Kairos Weekend #16 at Torres! What a trooper!

Dear reader, if you're a Christian & haven't ever been to a Closing for a Kairos Weekend, PROMISE yourself that you'll find out when the next one at a prison near you will be -- and go; in being a blessing to the inmates you'll get blessed! It used to be that to attend a Kairos Closing one had to have been on Cursillo or a Walk to Emmaus or a related program, but they've dropped that requirement (at least the TDCJ in this state has dropped it). All one needs is clearance to visit the prison (here, thru the TDCJ). I went to my first Kairos Weekend Closing in September of A.D. 2002 -- and I was "hooked! I couldn't get on a Team to do a Kairos Weekend fast en'uf! The testimonies of the inmates who were Candidates on the Weekend were that powerful, as to how the three-day Christian retreat in the prison had changed them around for the better! Kairos Prison Ministry is widely recognized as being THE MOST SUCCESSFUL rehabilitation program for offenders (inmates, convicts), that is, it has the best rate for released inmates NOT returning to a life of crime and back into the prison system.

Don't you want to be a part of something that God is using THAT effectively to bless folk who truly need the blessing of getting their lives turned around for the better???