It's been two weeks since I left Brasil, and as I've generally been either on retreat or on vacation since returning to the United States, I've had plenty of time to recall the people, moments, images, and ideas that filled every waking moment in Salvador and Rio. One that keeps returning is the 20-minute cab ride that ferried me from a family friend's apartment to the international airport, from the city's southern end (a few beaches down from Copacabana) to an artificial island on the northern edge of town. The route took me through familiar neighborhoods, past places newly inscribed with many pilgrims' memories besides my own. After a valiant effort at kind small talk with the driver, I settled into a prayerful recollection of the previous three weeks, scenes racing through my mind just as apartments, hills, and other parts of Rio whizzed by, glowing in the long rays of the wintry sunset.
One friend, with a flair for the artistic in his metaphors, responded to this story with an intriguing phrase: "If your Brasil trip were a movie, your ride to the airport would be the taxi montage." And so, here's some of that taxi montage, or at least some elements of it that I actually captured. Lovely summer sunsets here in New England, a world away and at the other end of the seasonal cycle, have proven quite adept at triggering additional screenings of this part of the film.
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| Colegio Antonio Vieira, Salvador de Bahía, Brasil |
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| Bahía de Todos os Santos, Salvador de Bahía, Brasil |
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| Jesuit church ceiling, Salvador de Bahía, Brasil |
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| Magis delegation flags |
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First glimpse of Cristo Redentor
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil |
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| Santa Marta community, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil |
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| St. Ignatius Church, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil |
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| Nossa Senora de Penha shrine, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil |
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| Claude at Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil |
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| Claude and Cristo Redentor, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil |
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