Build Bridges, Not Walls

Build Bridges, Not Walls

As Celano tells it, when Francis reached Malik al-Kamil, the sultan tried to “turn his mind to worldly riches.” Francis, wedded to poverty, declined. The sultan soon recognized his visitor as a holy man. Francis and his companion spent nearly two weeks in Egypt and navigated the Crusades with one goal: to build bridges. Peace, the brothers knew, cannot be walled in.  I notice as we hit the midway point of this journey along the US border that, t…

St Francis of Assisi said, and Pope Francis took it up again, “happy is the one who loves the other as much when he is far away as when he is next to him.” At a time when they planted division as a strategy of power, where hatred seems profitable and fear is common currency, we need more than ever to look at ourselves as what we are: part of the same people.The policy that comes cannot be that of the algorithm or of publications with more “like.…