Gabriel Garneau walked into the vestry of North Parish Congregational Church one sunny June morning and examined the mural he had been painting over recent weeks and months.

There was a part that just didn’t look the way he believed it should. He smeared the paint, took out his brush and painted some more.

Garneau said he expects parts of the Maine landscape mural will change again.

“It evolves as I go,” he said.

The mural is 48 feet wide and 8 feet high. Distant mountains and evergreen trees provide a backdrop for a whispery, quiet lake. The sky is big and softly blue, permeated with clouds.

“This mural reflects who we are as a church,” said church minister, Rev. Diane Wendorf. “We’re evolving.”

The church commissioned the mural to help mark the 225 years since eight citizens gathered on July 19, 1786, under the leadership of minister Moses Sweat, to form a new church. The mural was unveiled Wednesday and will be dedicated following Sunday morning worship, July 17, during the Founders’ Festival.

Garneau, a Springvale resident since 1967, hails from northern Quebec. Though his home province has now changed, when he was a boy, “behind our house there was nothing but woods and the North Pole,” he said with an engaging smile. In first grade, when other children were puzzling out the letters under the pictures of dogs and cats, Garneau was drawing them. Self-taught, he has been holding a brush in his hand ever since, and his passion is painting murals. He’s painted many, in private houses and in public spaces.

He began the mural in April, starting with the sky. As the weeks went by, parishioners would stop by after the weekly services to see what had transpired in the mural since the week before.

Wendorf said when she stops by the vestry to have a look at Garneau’s creation, what she sees reminds of her of Psalm 121.

“It is seeing all of God’s world. It lifts your heart up,” she said.

North Parish Congregational Church has been lifting hearts since the early days following the Revolutionary War.

Bill Underwood, among those organizing anniversary events, notes that southern Maine was considered a wilderness in 1786. And to put the timeline in context, he considers the following facts:

“George Washington was president, this Maine territory was part of Massachusetts, and slavery in Massachusetts and Maine was abolished three years earlier,” he said. “The U.S. Constitution (1788) and the Bill of Rights (1789) had not yet become the law of the land.”

The church grew from that early beginning. The first meeting house was built over four years, from 1788-92, in south Sanford. With growth came change, and in 1847, a church building was constructed on the current site at 893 Main St. That church burned ”“ as did much of the downtown ”“ in 1878 and the present building was dedicated Christmas Day, 1879, according to Underwood. The vestry, said administrator Becky Brown, wasn’t yet finished at the time of the dedication, but the women of the church vowed it would be completed in time to mark the centennial of the founding in 1886 ”“ and it was.

The celebration of the congregation’s 225th anniversary of the gathering began last year, with a concert in December, said Steve Garvin, a member of the Anniversary Committee. Each group within the church took on a project. As a result, numerous events are planned for the Founders Festival from July 15-17, from a hands-on Pioneer Living Museum for children to a pig roast and a church service similar to how the founders would have worshipped in the early 1800s.

“We’re trying to provide the celebration as a gift to the community,” said Underwood. “We want to celebrate not only as a church but as a community.”

Church historian Dana Peterson has updated a church history originally penned by Capt. Albert Prosser and that will be available, too.

“The 225th anniversary is an opportunity to look back and be thankful ”¦ but to also look ahead and make promises to God and the community about how we can continue to fulfill what God called us to do,” said Wendorf. “It’s revitalizing.”

As to the mural, well, Garneau refers to it as a meditation.

And so, members said, that is what it will be called.

— Senior Staff Writer Tammy Wells can be contacted at 324-4444 or twells@journaltribune.com.