Franciscan Media: Interconnection of Opposites

I found myself sitting on a bus that was making its way across the Paraguayan countryside, bumping along westbound toward the capital of Asunción. Next to me in the window seat was a middle-aged Guarani woman with two children sleeping peacefully on her lap. The sun was setting in the distance. We watched it together, as it slowly sunk beneath that red-clay field.

The day before had been Paraguay’s Independence Day. Each town we had visited was strangely cloaked in red, white, and blue (the colors of the stripes on their national flag) as if it were the Fourth of July—a reminder that two countries that couldn’t be more different were more alike than its people had ever dared to imagine. And as dusk fell upon us on that bus, our countries’ shared colors blended together in the sky, as a violet horizon beckoned us inward. We could not speak a word to one another because of the language gap; but no words needed to be spoken. We couldn’t have been more different; but we were one, mystically connected. Traveling to the same city. Watching the same sunset. United under the splendor of creation, in the very intimacy of our souls….

This blog was first published on Franciscan Spirit. You can read the rest of the blog entry HERE.