I have always been partial to the name Mark, as it was my father’s.  After Paris we visited Venice on our horneymoon.  I loved St. Mark’s Basilica, among other reasons, for its curved archways and its prolific use of exquisite, tiny, dark blue mosaic tiles.  I have blogged about it in the past under this travel section.  This was to be the second St. Mark’s that we would visit — only this time we were a family of three and we were in Texas.  Completed in 1877, it is an active Episcopal parish and listed in the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The church is located in the heart of the River Walk district, only four blocks from the Alamo.  The Texan and former U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and his wife were married right here in 1934.  Now that I have visited Europe several times I realize practically all churches seem like plain babies by comparison.  I would use the word “colonial” but I have found churches in Mexico and Guatemala to be much more ornate, perhaps owing to their Catholic roots.  Regardless, it is not intended as an indictment; rather my own observation.  The Texas church’s facade is covered in white rock, or Austin Stone, named after the limestone rock quarries in Austin, Texas.  The stones are set in orderly rows with somewhat irregular patterns, which I found enchanting.  We were strangers yet we were welcomed repeatedly and without question.  I found it to be a lively, loving parish and I was so grateful we were able to visit.  Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “We must open the doors of opportunity.  But we must also equip our people to walk through those doors.”  I would say Burk and I were not particularly equipped to walk through either of the doors of St. Mark’s in Venice or Texas; the difference is that one was vibrant, alive, and filled with the spirit of Christ.  Prior to entering the one in Venice a gyspy spat upon me and cursed me, which was very disconcerting.  The little Texas church may have been more simple and not as famous but I believe I would choose to walk through the doors of the second St. Mark’s.