Long ago, life on earth was wonderful. Food was plentiful and easy to gather. Palms were not tall like they are now, but short, and their fruits and nuts could be plucked easily. Field-making and gardening tools like axes, machetes, and hoes didn’t need anyone to handle them; they worked by themselves.

One day Sun and Moon came to earth, to populate the earth with strong, beautiful people, and to set precedents that would benefit these descendants. Sun’s super-power was knowledge. He knew the purpose for their coming to earth and knew what Moon needed to do.

Moon’s super-power was to set patterns. Whatever Moon did would last forever.  Moon, however, depended on Sun to tell him what to do and what not to do. Unfortunately, Moon liked to do things his own way, even if it meant disobeying Sun.

Sun wanted to keep Moon from destroying the good life. “Don’t ever abuse any palm,” Sun said. “And don’t ever stare at the field tools working by themselves.” One afternoon, while Sun was napping, Moon picked some fruit from a palm, ate it and found it delicious.  The next fruit he picked, however, was hard and dry, so he threw it angrily against the trunk of the palm.  Immediately all the palms grew to enormous heights. Moon knew he had done wrong.

Moon then followed the sound of axes chopping. Instead of glancing at the tools and then walking away, Moon walked right up to where the tools were working by themselves. As soon as he stepped out into the open and looked at the tools, all the tools fell lifeless to the ground. Moon knew he had done wrong.

When Sun woke up, he soon saw the tall palms and the tools lying on the ground. He confronted Moon about his bad behavior. Moon kept lying, “I didn’t do anything.”

But Sun insisted, “Why do you go about setting bad precedents? Now our future descendants will suffer and have to work hard to make tools work.”

Sun showed Moon how to make children. Sun walked into a deep pool of water and carefully clapped his cupped hands on the water. Immediately a strong, handsome Canela son rose up. He did it again, and up came a beautiful Canela daughter. Moon jumped into the pool too but just splashed about in the water any old way. Up came an ugly, black-skinned, kinky-haired sons, and ugly pale-skinned children with blonde hair, and weird-looking daughters with slanted eyes.

Sun was very displeased with the patterns that Moon was establishing. One day Moon asked Sun, “What will happen to our children when they die?”

“They will be like this,” Sun explained, picking up a long, thin plant stalk, very light like balsa wood. He speared it down into the deep water. It went completely under the water, but being light, it popped back out of the water and floated. “They will die, but very soon they will come alive again,” Sun said.

“Okay,” Moon said, “So that is what will happen. And before Sun could stop him, Moon picked up a large stone and threw it into the deep pool. It sank to the bottom and stayed there.

“Oh, why did you do that?” Sun scolded him. “Why are you always doing exactly the opposite of what I do? Now you have set a precedent for our children. When they die, they will stay dead!”

“It’s because I am all wrong and twisted in my thinking,” Moon lamented. “My way of thinking and living is all wrong. But now it is too late to change anything.”

“Let’s go back to our houses,” Sun said to Moon. “We’ve been down here long enough.” They ascended to the sky and stayed there forever, never thinking about their children or returning to earth again.

When Jo and I accepted the Canelas’ invitation to come and live with them fifty years ago, we never heard a Canela pray. Why should they? Their Creator had abandoned them.

When we translated the first few chapters of Genesis, the Canelas immediately identified the actions of Adam with those of Moon. “Adam disobeyed the Creator, and that is why things are in such a mess on earth.”

When they read the translation of 1 Corinthians 15:22, “Because of what Adam did we all die, but because of what Jesus did, all will be made alive,” they immediately equated Adam with Moon. And what’s more, they exclaimed, “So our Creator did not abandon us. He sent His Son Jesus to set new patterns and make things right!” That’s when they started to pray to their Creator. They now call Him Pahpam, Our Father.

This story is a Redemptive Analogy. God has embedded analogies to illustrate some aspect of redemption in every culture’s myths, legends, customs or language.