RISING FROM THE RUINS

Rising from the ruins of Port-au-Prince's Cathedral of Nôtre Dame, there emerges from the flames, smoke, and rubble, the universal symbol of hope, survival, renewal and rebirth; a mother lovingly holding and comforting her frightened baby in her arms.

It is the mothers, with hardly enough food or water for themselves or for their own children, and only the clothes on their backs, who are reaching out their hands and helping orphans and the elderly who they found wandering lost and alone in the streets; sick, injured, starving and in pain.

The mothers of Haiti are the real heroes of this struggle to survive, and it is to them, and to their love, faith, and courage that I dedicate my painting.

I chose to place the mother and her baby in the setting of the Cathedral because it symbolizes all that once was great and wonderful about life in Haiti's past, and all that will be great again, God willing, in Haiti's future.

I have restored the stained glass in the Cathedral's rose window with the brilliant blue and red of Haiti's flag, which has flown over this proud island nation since its hard won independence in a victorious slave revolt against Napoleon's forces in 1803.

Haiti's successful struggle for independence from France, made it the second oldest free republic in the Western Hemisphere, the first independent nation in all of Latin America, and the first black led republic in the world; opening its doors wide to welcome thousands of freed American slaves decades before America's Emancipation Proclamation.

In the foreground rubble I have placed fallen crosses honoring all those who died in this tragic earthquake, including His Excellency, The Most Reverend Archbishop Joseph Miot, who was killed when this Cathedral's compound collapsed around him.

The Cathedral of Nôtre Dame (Our Lady) fed the hungry, housed the homeless, and heated the sick. It bestowed the blessings of God on all of life's most important events: christenings, confirmations and weddings, and memorialized, with dignity, the lives of all those who had passed on.

We often speak of our houses of worship as beacons of light in the darkness. This was never truer than in the case of Nôtre Dame, the tallest building in the capital, where its illuminated tower was the lighthouse that guided voyagers from all over the world safely into Port-au-Prince Harbor for almost 100 years.

Spreading its protective wings over the Cathedral, the mother and her baby; silhouetted against a sky that is brown with smoke and ash, lit from below by the flames of a burning city; is the dove that symbolized hope and promise for Noah after the destruction of the flood, that symbolizes the Holy Spirit in the Gospels of Saints Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and has become the universal symbol for world peace.

In my painting, the mother and her infant are embraced and protected by the church, which is, itself, embraced and protected under the wings of an all-loving, compassionate God.