Seventh grade challenge

This week at the Shalom Center, we hosted a group of Seventh Graders from the Christian School of Curico along with eleven parents.  It was amazing to watch the newly trained challenge course instructors working with this energetic and intelligent class which has been known at the school as a "difficult" group. With a student who has cerebral palsy and is in a wheelchair, a half dozen diagnosed as hyperactive but taken off their meditations to go to school, and another with Asperger's syndrome, our greatest troubles came from overbearing parents!  The kids were fantastic!

This is the first time we have had a participant in a wheelchair at the Shalom Center, and even though we don't have the trails or the equipment for it, this young man with his good humor and wit, was the perfect introduction.  Thanks, Mauricio, we learned so much from you!

 

Challenge course with the choir directors from Curicó

Shalom Center: Organization for the environment and culture

Finally!  God does all things at the best time.  Las Friday, the Shalom Center Council, the new Shalom Center director, and representatives of the staff gathered in San Clemente to sign the paperwork for a new municipal social organization.  Under this new legality, the Shalom Center will be able to write projects and receive funding from the municipal government of San Clemente.  The Shalom Center is not yet a foundation, but this is the first step in the process. 

Equilibrium

Equilibrium

I am the weight hanging on a chain linked to God.

God sustains to center point

I swing from end to end.

I extend to the tip of the arc;

God comes along, firmly attached to my middle

And tugging at the end of the stretch.

I fling past the medium

Barely catching my balance before I am off again

Flying futher up and further away on the other side.

Back and forth: joy versus grief, peace versus torment.

Back and forth: growth versus stability, dreams versus apathy.

Back and forth: alone versus company, energy versus exhaustion.

Will the waltz slow as I grow old?

The connection to heaven will tenderly guide me

With grace to perfect equilibrium.

April 30, 2000

Curicó, Chile

Elena Huegel

I´d write for you a rainbow

I´D WRITE FOR YOU A RAINBOW

by Ann Weems

If I could, I´d write for you a

rainbow

And splash it with all the

colors of God

And hang it in the widow of

your being

So that each new God´s

morning

Your eyes would open first

To Hope and Promise.

If I could, I´sd wipe away

your tears

And hold you close forever in

shalom.

But God never promised I

could suffer for you,

Only promised I could love you.

That I do.

Future Tense

Future Tense

In the waiting room
   I sit.
In the not yet here,
   can´t do anything to rush it.
Want to do something
   meaningful
Want to look back
   from ahead
and nod; it was a worthwhile
   life.

Eh May 2009

George Bernard Shaw

Life is no brief candle to me.  It is a sort of splendid torch which I have got hold of for the moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.