"Welcome to Paradise!"

Or were they just famous last words?

“Oh my heavens, we were just there!” I said in disbelief as my husband and I watched the news, announcing that the resort city of Puerto Vallarta in Jalisco, Mexico, was basically under siege—or at the very least, deeply threatened.

Just two weeks before, we were there on a work trip through a supplier that does business with the company Troy co-owns. We’d been given a chance to do one major activity, and chose the catamaran excursion our third day there. Not only did we have a chance to swim in a beautiful nook along the coast…

…but there were enough Humpback whales popping up to make us question whether we needed to keep our whale-watching boat ride a few days later.

It was truly an amazing experience learning about the whales, finding that we were in the middle of mating season when they congregate, and seeing glimpses of them in their natural habitat.

At the end of that enjoyable experience, the gentlemen guiding the adventure thanked us, saying that tourism is their number-on commerce, and that our visits to his part of the world help put food on his and neighboring families’ tables.

“This is truly Paradise,” he said, inviting us back anytime. “And Puerto Vallarta is one of the safest places in the world.”

I wanted to believe it. Certainly, we had not seen the presence of machine guns at the resort entry as we had in Playa del Carmen three years earlier during our spring 2023 trip to the country. That alone made us feel safer. But, we’d also been watching the news and knew that some cartel activity had been noted. The day we left, the coast seemed clear, and we gladly left the tundra of North Dakota to thaw out our bones a few days.

The tour guide’s words about paradise also brought me back to when the metal drinking mug showed up on our doorstep in the freezing cold a few weeks earlier—a gift from the trip sponsors. “Make sure you bring your mug to Mexico. Paradise awaits!”

It certainly looked like paradise might look, I thought, as we entered the resort and, later that evening, found our way to the beach. It was truly beautiful and peaceful. As the sun set and I let my toes get immersed in sand and saltwater, a wave of calm replaced the frayed nerves I’d brought with after a busy January.

But I knew somehow, too, that this wasn’t paradise—not the real one anyway. That can never be possible here on earth. I accepted the gift for what it was, but every time “paradise” was mentioned, something within me fought it.

When chaos erupted in Puerto Vallarta and other areas throughout Mexico a few weeks later, I knew my earlier thoughts were true. Watching the news and seeing the destruction caused by a retaliatory cartel, upset at the death of its kingpin, I was reminded that no matter how beautiful a place’s beaches, and how temperate the weather, and how gorgeous its flora and fauna, paradise on earth simply isn’t possible. It can’t be. There’s only one true paradise, and it’s definitely not here, in a place that so often looks more like hell.

I don’t mean to be negative about our experience in Mexico, which was truly lovely in most every way, nor about the earth itself, which is a gift from God to us. But it’s important we get this right. While it’s nice to have a reprieve from the every day, and I’m glad that our being there uplifts those who depend on our visits for their bread and butter, we cannot count on Paradise being within reach of our earthly selves. Paradise is something we are meant to yearn toward and spend our life here preparing for.

As of this writing, some of the tumult in Mexico has calmed a little, but that mired day when we watched the place we’d just visited becoming a vacation nightmare for some of our fellow citizens, and the Mexican people as well, hauntingly exposed the vulnerability—not just of that country, but of the whole world, for we are all interconnected.

I pray that if you get a chance to visit a paradise-like place any time soon, you will be able to embrace it as the gift that it is. But also, that you will challenge yourself, as I am trying to do, to remember that the true Paradise is nothing we can reach here, but only strive diligently toward as we seek Eternal Life with God, who alone can bring Paradise to life.

What’s the closest to Paradise you’ve gotten lately?

February 25: What if we invited Jesus into the desert with us? (CM)

March 1: A nod to Fr. James Kilzer of Assumption Abbey (“Living Faith” column)