Arelis painted the moon

Arelis painted the moon

The heavens keep telling the wonders of God, and the skies declare what he has done. Psalm 19:1

There was a full moon that cloudless night.  The silvery light cascaded down from the heavens casting a glow over the cracks that opened up in the ground, the boulders that broke loose from the mountains, and the water that rose up from the ocean and hurled itself against the shore. The moonlight did not quiver when the earth shook. 

The children remember the moon.  They camped out in its light either because their homes were gone or because their parents were wary of moving back inside with the constant aftershocks.

 “We didn´t have electricity, but it was ok because the moon was very bright.” 

“My grandfather told us stories every night, and it was better than watching television.”

“Whenever I see the full moon, now, I remember the earthquake.”

The mission of the Shalom Center is to respect, care for, and transform the relationships between God and each human being, of each person with him or herself, between people, and with all of creation.  In Chile after the devastation caused by the natural forces of the earthquake and tsunami, many children and adults lost their confidence in the stability and security of the ground and the water and needed to renew their relationship with the earth.  At the Shalom Center, we hope that the beauty and tranquility of nature can also be a source of healing.

Nine full moons after the natural disaster, more than a hundred children from the “Creacción” environmental education clubs formed by the Shalom Center in schools and churches gathered for a day of  “re-creation” to renew their relationship with the earth.  The children chose to participate in several of many different play-workshops including “Water, the source of life,” “Dirt made my lunch,” and “My garbage talks.” At noon, each group prepared an exhibit of what they had learned during the past months in their separate clubs.  The children from the village of Tutuquén Bajo captured their impressions and feelings about the environment in paintings.  The boards and the frames for the paintings were salvaged from materials either discarded from destroyed buildings or left over from the reconstruction. All of the children in Tutuquén Bajo lived outside after the earthquake and watched the moon wane as days after the earthquake turned into weeks.

Arelis painted the moon shining down on the snow capped Andes Mountains.  The night is not frightening.  It is a place where animals sleep in warm safe burrows, flowers bloom and mushrooms suddenly sprout. The trunk of a chopped tree biodegrades and enriches the soil green with new life. Across the painting, Arelis wrote one of my favorite quotes from Helen Keller: “The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched - they must be felt with the heart.”