Friday and Saturday in TX

Before I started driving to Sandia to visit my friend LP today, she sent me this email:

"Don't be alarmed when you come out today. Our house almost burned down yesterday but now all is well. There is still smoke and a lot of mud from all the water we sprayed around. Anyway, it is an interesting view and we can go to the river to escape it all. They say about 2000 acres around here burned and we have burned fences and cows all in the wrong fields."


I did not know what to expect, but this is what I imagine happened near my friend's house in Sandia, TX yesterday when acres of ranch land was burning. When I was with LP today, she described how helicopters dumped water and even mud on the fires that were approaching her house. Her house was spared, but others further away were burned. However, LP was driving from a cousin's house and was engulfed in smoke on a little farming road where she could not see. She found herself skidding along a barbed wire fence and then driving through pockets of flames! It is amazing she is fine, though her car is very scraped up. She said she was worried her car might explode, but it didn't. Whew!

Tomorrow LP and I are driving (in my car) to San Antonio for another class on the mystics--this one is on John of the Cross. We have to leave at 6 am to get there for the 9 o'clock class. This is Year 2 of Christian Mysticism: History, Wisdom and Insights. It is sponsored by both Oblate School of Theology (where I may someday earn my master's degree in Theology) and Contemplative Outreach of San Antonio.