InterIslands September 2009 Price $5

Tui Motu Tui when I was in prison you visited me

Tui Motu InterIslands 1 September 2009 editorial

However, our survey also reveals some in prison alarming facts: you visited me • The rate of imprisonment in New Contents Zealand is now second only to the 2 editorial enny McCaskill, Justice Secretary US among Western countries. Yet the 3 Tui Motu 12 years on Kfor Scotland, has stirred up a rate of offending has been in decline 4 Restriction of Rite 3 hornet’s nest by releasing the Lockerbie for some years. Our society has simply response: Peter Costello bomber to return to Libya. He said: “He become more vindictive. 5-10 Ministry in NZ prisons did not show his victims any comfort • Although the new prison has a interviews: Veronica Casey or compassion. But that alone is not good programme for rehabilitating Jan Adams a reason for us to deny compassion to prisoners before release, New Zealand Eileen McRae him and his family in his final days. has hardly any separate facilities for 11-12 Is religion a cause of violence Our beliefs dictate that justice be rehab, compared with a country like and war? served, but mercy be shown.” Canada. It is a proven fact that a Paul Oestreicher more humane regime reduces the rate 13 Carnage in Afghanistan McCaskill’s action has been widely of re-offending for all but the most Clifford Longley condemned especially in the United recalcitrant. 14-15 “Letters on the go” States. Media pundits sneered that the • Very many inmates come from ... (Jessie Munro) move was motivated by the British review Michael Hill fractured families, have dropped out of Government wanting to cosy up to school early and may be illiterate. Some 16-18 Following the songlines – Gadaffi because of Libya’s abundant a journey into the interior have hardly ever lived a normal life. oil reserves. Trish McBride • The government is proposing 18-19 Yeast in the dough Compassion is not part of the to double bunk prisoners. Prime Paul Andrews vocabulary of today’s Western secular Minister John Key says: “We should 20-21 Summer – the season of dreams do it because it reduces the demand Daniel O’Leary society. Once it was, because there is no 22-23 The art of Peter Landvai other word that more comprehensively on the NZ taxpayer”. Create for Lisa Beech described the gospel of Jesus Christ. yourself a space nine feet by seven. 23 “The ecumenical council” Christian values which once pene­ That is the size of a modern prison Michael Dooley trated even the inner sanctum of cell. It contains a bunk and furniture. 24-25 Rights & wrongs of ecumenism government are now largely ignored Imagine two people locked up there Glynn Cardy in favour of political realism. for up to 18 hours a day. It is a recipe 26-27 Films Peter Stuart, Paul Sorrell for increased tension and violence. 28-29 Books: Jim Elliston, Jim Neilan aritas Aotearoa has chosen to Jim Consedine Cfocus on prisons for Social Justice We need to monitor carefully the 30 Crosscurrents Week; therefore, we have interviewed attitudes and proposals of our new Jim Elliston (pp 5-10) prison chaplains and visitors. government, not only regarding its 31 Year of the priest Jesus singled out visiting prisoners as penal policy. Policies and legislation Humphrey O’Leary one of the corporal works of mercy. It based on principles of social justice 32 A mother’s journal was good to discover that no less than are being compromised or threatened poetry: Peter Stuart 180 people from the various Christian with amendment. We are on the way Cover photo: Paul Freedman churches are involved in some sort of to creating a less caring, more divided Apology. . . ministry at the new prison, at Milton society. Our prison inmates are victims to Sr Teresa Hanratty, Dunedin Director for Pastoral in Otago. of precisely that. Ministry, for inadvertently rechistening her ‘Maureen’ (August TM p 11). M.H.

Tui Motu-InterIslands is an independent, Catholic, monthly magazine. It invites its readers to question, challenge and contribute to its discussion of spiritual and social issues in the light of gospel values, and in the interests of a more just and peaceful society. Inter-church and inter-faith dialogue is welcomed. The name Tui Motu was given by Pa Henare Tate. It literally means “stitching the islands together...”, bringing the different races and peoples and faiths together to create one Pacific people of God. Divergence of opinion is expected and will normally be published, although that does not necessarily imply editorial commitment to the viewpoint expressed.

ISSM 1174 – 8931 Independent Catholic Magazine Ltd, P O Box 6404, Dunedin North, 9059 Phone: 03 477 1449: Fax: 03 477 8149: email: [email protected]: website: www.tuimotu.org Editor: Michael Hill IC; Assistant Editor: Frances Skelton; Illustrator: Don Moorhead Directors: Rita Cahill RSJ, Philip Casey, Tom Cloher, Robin Kearns, Chris Loughnan OP, Elizabeth Mackie OP, Katie O’Connor (Chair), Mark Richards, Kathleen Rushton RSM Printers: Southern Colour Print, 1 Turakina Road, Dunedin South, 9012

2 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009 comment

tui motu twelve years on

ui Motu magazine has as a communicator until well into Tjust completed 12 years his 80s. Albert Moore, Presbyterian of publication. Twelve is minister and retired Professor of a Biblical number of com­ Religious Studies, wrote from the pleteness. Twelve tribes; amazing breadth of his knowledge 12 Apostles; 12 baskets of and interest. Specially memorable fragments. Therefore, it’s a were his brief, pithy commentaries good time for us to look back on religious art. with a sense of satisfaction Finally, our most recent loss (only and thanksgiving. four days ago as I write) was John The magazine has inevitably evolved during that time, yet Honoré. Onto John’s shoulders fell it hasn’t changed radically. We use the same basic page the mantle of the famous Veritas, of the New Zealand Tablet. design, the same fonts. The editorial team is the same. His social and political commentaries came to us monthly We are still in the Dominican house in Union Street. The from December 1999 until his final piece in the July issue. front has had a coat of paint. The roof no longer leaks. We Always relevant, never dull, usually provocative, John was have an HRV heating system, so it is not quite so icy cold either loved by readers – or hated by a few. He perfectly in the winter. fulfilled the role of afflicting the comfortable as well as comforting the afflicted. God rest him. Even our merry band of helpers, without which we would certainly go broke, has not changed greatly. Suzanne rom the beginning we have tried to be a reader’s Hannagan and Jim Neilan have been with us from the Fmagazine – in the sense that not only is the text ‘easy start. The three religious, Sr Moya, Sr Hazel and Br Henry, on the eye’, but we aim at a style which is accessible to have all gone to God, so they have become auxiliaries in the non-specialist, interested lay reader. You may wish to another sense. Their places have been taken by Shirley comment on whether we achieve this. Curran and Brian Rea. And John Vincent makes sure our We take pride also in the illustrations which help enhance accounts balance. the text. Ideas are imparted in a variety of ways, through verse as well as prose – by means of a good illustration We chose from the start not to be an explicitly ecumenical and even by choice of colour. Our regular illustrator, magazine, but to be a Catholic publication looking Donald Moorhead, came with us from the Tablet, and his outwards. That sense is implied in our name. We have, style has added a certain character to our magazine, for however, received huge support from the other Christian which we are grateful. denominations, and some of our most faithful contributors have been of other faiths. From very early in the piece we chose to follow themes, clustering articles which complemented each other. A good he strength of any monthly magazine is in the quality recent example would be the Franciscan theme in the July of its regular writers, and in that respect we have T issue. We have learned to be careful not to have too many been singularly blessed. Many are priests and religious, articles on the one general theme, because a good variety but most are lay – and of of spiritual, theological, scriptural all denominations. They or social justice articles helps to are, in my opinion, as good complement the main theme. as New Zealand produces. It would be invidious to Tom Cloher who has done more single out writers among than anyone to promote Tui Motu the living; the three I shall through the country, likes to use mention as outstanding are the world smorgasbord to describe the typical contents of each now meeting deadlines in publication. That is our aim – to another universe. inform, to delight, to challenge, Selwyn Dawson, the doughty even to provoke. We would Methodist evangelist, wrote welcome your comment as we start frequently in the early our 13th year. And the number 13 editions: how wonderfully has another connotation! he had preserved his skills M.H

Tui Motu InterIslands 3 September 2009 response

the restriction of rite 3 of reconciliation

. . . further to discussions in TM April (p4) and May (p5) hen I was a student in fourth form our wise R.E. Catholics when it fails to take the voice of the laity Wteacher incorporated one of the best known into account. techniques for learning a topic – he asked us to teach It is as though the reforms of the Council have been one topic each to our fellow classmates. Some 40 plus sidelined in order for the hierarchy to maintain control. years later I can still recall the topic I had to learn and Sadly, by implementing a return to pre-Vatican II rites teach – scandal. and rubrics, the effect is to drive people away from the According to the Catholic Catechism we used in class, church. As Fr. Daniel O’Leary wrote recently in the scandal was caused whenever anything came between London Tablet (24 January, 2009): “People have not a person and their relationship with God. Anything given up on God, or in the spiritual reality of their own that stopped a person from growing closer to God and lives. What people are giving up on is going to church. having access to God’s grace was a scandal. It appears, It is in the institution, not God, that they are losing therefore, that forbidding parishioners access to Rite 3 faith. They wait for a call. The call is to transcendence, of Reconciliation is such a scandal. to a new birth, to people’s own deepest and most original potentialities.” Celebrations of Rite 3 in recent years have seen full community involvement. It is clearly apparent that the here can be no clearer example of this than what Holy Spirit has been at work, guiding many people Thappened when Rite 3 was refused to parishioners back to God’s grace in this wonderful sacrament. in New Plymouth. From a constantly increasing When upwards of 600 people have gathered together number of people attending Rite 3 (600 to 700 prior as a community in the one Reconciliation celebration to Christmas), the numbers fell to 150 – 170 attending it is clear that people are hungering for the close Rite 2 prior to Easter. intimate relationship with God which is at the core of From what I have been able to discern, one of the main our lifelong journey. reasons why Rite 3 has become restricted is that Vatican To see that number drop by over 75 percent because of theologians see a crisis concerning the declining practice a ruling that does not recognise the sensus fidelium is of individual confessions, and that the laity are suffering surely a cause of scandal. A hierarchical ruling has from a weakening of their sense of sin. prevented hundreds of people (and that is just locally) I wonder how these curial officials got this perception, improving their relationship with God. Rite 3 has because there has been no hint of having consulted the been a far more uplifting and heartening experience laity about their sense of sin. I also wonder how the than any individual confession ever was, and after Vatican officials can equate the need for individual again experiencing Rite 2 before Easter we were left confession with the early church – confession, then, with an empty shell of a feeling – totally dissimilar to was only a once-in-a-lifetime event. the hopefulness of the Empty Tomb. The community dimension in Rite 3 had given a far deeper meaning It seems to me that the Holy Spirit is at work in to the Sacrament than the individual rites (1 and 2) the lives and drives of the laity, drawing us into a ever provided. closer relationship with God through community celebration. I pray that our hierarchy is also able According to Pope John XXIII, Vatican II was to to see the Holy Spirit active and holy in God’s open the windows of the church to let in some fresh people and allows our bishops to have a proper air, to breathe a new Pentecost. After the Council the sense of Episcopal authority and give recognition to spirit of renewal blew through this church that we the sensus fidelium. Rite 3 is a holy and wholesome love. Unfortunately, for many in positions of power means of drawing us closer to God. within the hierarchy, this spirit of renewal became too threatening. There seemed to be an organisational Let there be no more curial scandal – let the people fear and insecurity, leading to fierce restrictions and continue to deepen their loving relationship with God rigid rites and rubrics. This exercise of authority by having access to Rite 3. has actually undermined the confidence of so many Peter Costello (New Plymouth)

4 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009 prison ministry

By joining the Sisters of the Presentation ministry in nz prisons Veronica Casey found a new way of life and an inspiring job

y first contact with prisons was Referred Pilot. While it didn’t take me hour simply handling and smelling an Min Auckland when I was doing into prisons it kept alive my interest in autumn leaf I had given him. The men a psychiatric nursing course many the plight of offenders and of victims, never saw the natural world outside; years ago. One of our visits was to and highlighted how dealing with they never saw a flower or a sunrise. Mount Eden prison, and that made relationships is so vital to healing and The music I used had birds singing, a huge impact on me – seeing the reconciliation. water running and waves crashing. I conditions the prisoners lived under. could never change it as those were the When I was doing my training in I still have an image of a man curled sounds they never got to hear. Some the Presentation Order I came across up in a foetal position at a table at 4 of the men put on Othello while I was the Get on the Bus programme in o’clock in the afternoon with a plate there. I saw those inmates acting out California, which once a year takes of food by him untouched. I thought their own lives: it was very poignant. children to visit their mothers in prison to myself: they come in with very low on Mothers’ Day. It was often the only self-esteem and are locked up for up becoming a prison chaplain time in the year when the children saw to 18 hours a day in a cell with three their mothers or even that families Shortly after I returned to New Zea­ others, which reinforces their status in came together. There were reports of land, Bishop Colin Campbell ap­ life. They will go from this back into some families who met for the very proached the Presentation Sisters and the outside world, reoffend and be first time at the prison. It taught me invited applications for the Catholic straightaway back in here. how disruptive a prison sentence is to chap­laincy at the newly opened Otago Correct­ions Facility at Milton, 55 km I also visited the Maximum Security normal human relations. south of Dunedin. After discernment facility at Paremoremo and met a In Dublin a little later, I became a with the Congregation we accepted nurse who was running a new unit prison visitor at the Wheatfield Men’s that this ministry is in line with our focusing on basic life skills. When she Prison and I ran a meditation group charism. When I arrived, the first got started she realised just how basic there. There was not very much going thing I had to do was to get myself it had to be – teaching the inmates on for the inmates. One of the things known around the place. Chaplaincy how to say ‘good morning’, how to I became very aware of was the lack is all about being present for, and hold a conversation, how to sit down of sensory stimulation for them. They available to, the men. It is about being at a table. They were very basic skills would simply lie on their beds all day real, human and compassionate – and indeed. And many of them had been with the constant background noise about listening. in prison for years. of jangling keys and prison doors Later on, I worked as a restorative clanging shut. I remember one man in In the course of time I have started a justice facilitator in the Court- the group spent the whole meditation weekly meditation group, I’m involved ss

Tui Motu InterIslands 5 September 2009 prison ministry

the high security area “No one truly knows a nation for assessment and after until he/she has been inside a couple of weeks are its jails. A nation should be given a security rating. judged not on how it treats The plan is for them to its highest citizens, but how it move from high security treats its lowest ones”. to low security, but they Nelson Mandela have to earn it. When they get work it ss in taking classes, and inviting church may be in the Unit to volunteers to run classes. We have start with doing serving, had the Myers Briggs and a Dreams laundry or cleaning. Then there is Those on life sentences who have been Workshop, both of which have been work in the kitchen, site laundry, inside for 18 or 19 years really don’t very popular and help the men get engineering, internal grounds. From know anything different. We take all to know themselves. I also look for there they may get to the dairy farm, life’s changes as we go and don’t think opportunities for the men to develop external grounds or forestry. about them, but when you haven’t confidence, team building and self- experienced those and have to face them There are five self-care cottages, where belief and have helped them to prepare all together after 10, 15 or 20 years it’s some go when they are preparing for pageants. overwhelming. Just think for example release. Some of them may go on work- of all the changes in communication, The first of these was at Christmas; to-release, which means they are in the money changes etc. we were able to invite outsiders and paid employment outside the prison. some 120 or more visitors came. In these cottages they do their own The self-care men go down to There is awhare/spiritual centre on the cooking and budgeting and cleaning, Balclutha once a week to shop for complex, a beautiful building, more and learn to look after themselves. groceries. The first thing they notice is comfortable and less institutional But if they offend, they could lose it how fast everything is moving. They’ve than other parts of the prison, which all and go back to square one. forgotten what traffic is like. One 24- we use. It has a much more relaxed year-old told me he had never in his The huge danger within any prison atmosphere and feels less like a prison. life been inside a supermarket! is institutionalisation. After the men It was wonderful to see the men grow have been inside for a time they in confidence, learn to work as a team Opportunites for reintegration are seem to move into a state of passivity. and really show their talents. We had extremely limited, and there is no They become emotionally numb. For another show at Easter, and now we halfway house for prisoners down in instance, if a family member were to are working on a third. the south to help the transition to die, they will tell you they keep their life outside. They leave prison and are There’s plenty of talent and creativity. emotions on hold until they get out. thrown into a bewilderingly strange There are also carving groups. Some They daren’t show their real feelings world. They may be used to lying paint and others write poetry; among their fellows. down on their beds at four o’clock in there are other activities such as the afternoon, and they know no other When they come into prison they are craft work (see below). Some of our way. Yet they have to learn to survive put into prison uniform. However, in artists have participated in a recent outside; it’s very difficult for them. the self-care stage they can wear their International art competition run own clothes again, and that is one of At first, they feel as if they have by the International Catholic Prison the hardest transitions. Life in prison criminal tattooed across their foreheads Chaplaincy Association. The top five is hard. There is intimidation and and that everyone is looking at them. entries from New Zealand prisons stand-over tactics – we often know Society doesn’t easily accept them. If went on to Geneva to be judged. Last little of what really goes on in the they have succeeded in turning their time it was run, it was won by a New cells. ‘Narking’ – informing on their lives around in prison, they go out a Zealander. By participating in these mates – is the worst possible crime in different person from when they came activities, the men acquire self-belief prison. in – but they don’t know where they and realise that others also have some fit and they desperately need support. belief in them. Indeed, if they have been inside for a long time they come to a point of being If they don’t get the support, when earning the right to freedom really scared of getting out. They have the going gets tough they go back to When the prisoners first arrive at OCF been behind walls too long. It may be where they are accepted and end up after they are sentenced, they go into the only life they have ever known. back in prison.

6 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009 The value system of the men in prison day: “Who are you, Miss?” I told him, One man said, almost in tears: “I’ve is like that of adolescents, or even little and he asked to come and see me. been in prison for ten years, and no boys. Mostly, the concepts of love and He was a man about 45. He said to one has ever thought of me before trust are unknown to them, having me: “I’ve had enough. I am morally, at Christmas. We didn’t think we had lives of constantly being let down, spiritually and emotionally bankrupt. mattered”. abandoned, abused. They may have I am despicable.” been kicked out of home when they Recently, Fr Chris Skinner came in for were very young, so when have they The man’s basic problem was alcohol. a sing-a-long with the men and they ever learnt to trust another human In my mind I always try to help the loved it. It happened to be the birthday being? men separate themselves as persons of one of the men, so Chris led the from what they have done. I told him others in singing Happy Birthday to As chaplains, we get a lot of referrals that whatever he had done, he was still him. The man told me that had never and often the men just want someone a child of God. He started an amazing had ‘happy birthday’ sung to him to talk to. The advantage we have is spiritual journey from that point. before in his life: 37 years. They are all that they can talk to us in confidence, very simple things really. and we have the time to sit and talk. The Elim Church send food parcels We are not part of the Corrections in at Christmas. We distribute them. religious activities ‘system’. We can be their advocates I arranged that if anyone wanted to There is a church service for each of the or we can be a go-between with their write a note of thanks I would pass it units each week. About eight different family. When they first arrive we may on. We received many notes of thanks. church groups come in – there are need to help them establish family At Easter, Knox Church Social Justice about 180 volunteers altogether. The contacts. Group provided Easter eggs and gifts. service and commitment they provide This time I didn’t ask, but the Knox is invaluable. The church services are the good news in prison people received a number of thank good opportunities for socialisation. In this sort of work we look for small you letters. These gestures are really The men meet and chat together with miracles. When I first started at appreciated, and the men experience the visitors, and that teaches them Milton a man called out to me one in some way that they are remembered. social skills. They also feel accepted for ss

ADOPT-A-CELL

n this country, we are constantly being told that we must lock up those who break the law for longer andI longer periods and, preferably, “throw away the key”. Huge numbers of people are housed in more and more prisons at immense cost. We are all familiar with Matthew 25, where Jesus says unequivocally: I was in prison and you visited me. But Jesus also said: I was in prison and you did NOT visit me… As long as you did it not to one of these least… So what can we do about it? Most of us are not able to ‘visit’ a prison. But we can pray. In conjunction with the Caritas Social Justice Week focus, an Adopt-a-Cell project is being launched. We invite you to focus prayer on a particular cell in a specified unit in one of our prisons. Miracles will happen if we pray without doubting – Jesus has promised this. And prayer is stronger than chains and prison bars. Let’s do it. Let’s reform our prison population by prayer. A prayer card with the allocated cell is available from: The Senior Catholic Prison Chaplain, P O Box 9, Wellington 6140. E-mail: [email protected] Phone: 04-381-3340. Mobile: 021-848-800.

Tui Motu InterIslands 7 September 2009 prison ministry

ss who they are and do not feel like they justice were more freely available I’m when the crime rate has been going are being judged. sure that this public attitude would down, not up. New Zealand is now change. number two in the world in the rate As Catholic chaplain I take com­ of imprisonment, second only to the munion to those who request it, but drugs and alcohol United States. Yet in some European for various reasons we have not had a A high proportion of crimes ending countries the rate of imprisonment Mass in the prison – yet. up with imprisonment are the result has come down – and with it, the of drugs or alcohol. Unfortunately Illiteracy is a huge problem among crime rate! drugs still get into prisons, and there the offenders. There are courses in is no drugs treatment unit in Otago, Our philosophy here is to make good foundational learning. Some men also although I understand there is to be neighbours of the men, because they have one-to-one help with literacy. a drug treatment unit early next year are all going to be released eventually Some won’t admit their illiteracy. when we go to double bunking. and may come and live next-door They’ve been ridiculed at school and to you or me. The men are given have dropped out. They don’t want to the opportunity to learn to use their repeat that experience in a group. why is the prison liberty responsibly. OCF is a clean, decent environment, and they can One programme which has been very population going up see the hills and there are open spaces successful in prisons including Milton around them. It’s not Mount Eden – has been the Sycamore Tree, based on when the crime rate but it’s not the garden of Eden either! the Zacchaeus story. Six men meet is going down? over eight two-hour sessions with the value of religious faith six people who have been victims of Nevertheless there is a shortage of Planting seeds is what we do, and those crimes (not theirs). The men have to treatment, and we know that drugs who find God find hope – something admit guilt and show remorse. The are an underlying factor in much that is missing in their lives. This sessions are intense and challenging, offending. And when you have a drug helps them to make a change. Once but they have proved very popular. habit you need money so you have to they discover there is a God and that Some who have completed this course commit crimes to get it. We notice they are loved and cared for, they will would like to go on to a full restorative the difference when the men are drug change. We try to provide support justice process, but there is no funding free in the prison. Often they think for those who desire to do so because for that – so it is not happening. There they can wean themselves on their following a Christian path in the is a public perception, brought about own, but in fact they need help. It prison can be very difficult. by the reporting of high profile cases, may take multiple convictions before they learn that. There are weekly In the meditation group I run there that all those in prison are dangerous are usually between six and ten, which and must be locked up. If restorative Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. Those who attend seem to respect is big enough for one group. They say the confidentiality aspect, and that’s that coming regularly to it makes a good. difference. Some drift in and out, but most keep on coming. As long as they some general thoughts aren’t disruptive, I am happy to keep Constantly I hear of offenders who them even if their motives for coming have had abusive childhoods: parents are a bit mixed. on drugs, violence – I could almost write the script before they tell their For me, this work is a part of my story. One man was taught to steal religious vocation. Our foundress, when he was just two years old; he Nano Nagle, would pass the local never learnt any feeling of self-worth, prison in Cork every morning and see never received either love or stability the heads of prisoners stuck on the from his home, so he knows no other spikes. She visited prisons, sometimes life. The focus of prevention needs paid for the release of prisoners and to be at the very beginning. It’s very left money for prisoners in her will. difficult for a young person to move Prisoners are the ultimate outcasts in away voluntarily from the only our society, and our charism calls us to environment he has ever known. be with the marginalised. I often think that if Jesus were on earth today, he I ask myself why are we having such would be alongside me in the prison. an increase in the prison population Indeed he is already there. n Mount Eden prison pics: Paul Freedman

8 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009 when I was in prison you visited me – 1

Jan Adams is a regular prison visitor at the Otago Corrections Facility. She and her husband Howard have been encouraged to get involved there by the Catholic chaplain, Sr Veronica Casey

y husband, Howard, and I going on an international flight. It’s directly about his crime. Veronica has Mhave been involved with justice quite a daunting experience. been very helpful, because I’m not issues for many years – and continue always sure how far I should go. to, as Presentation Associates. I’ve The time there always passes quickly. I always had an interest in prisoners. I found Jack to be a similar age to some I want to keep Jack’s trust. I feel it feel sure that no one is ever totally bad. of my own family. We became at ease would be counterproductive ever to Sr Veronica Casey had encouraged with each other quite quickly. One go too hard at him. After a visit I Howard and myself to go to Milton thing I learnt – which was astonishing worry in case I have said the wrong to a Volunteers Training Day. We were – was that for all those years he had thing. Recently he wrote to me happy to go. Afterwards, I offered to never heard the sound of children’s for the first time, and it was a very be a regular visitor to a prisoner, on- voices, laughing and playing. touching letter. to-one. I wanted to be a friend to At first we used to sit together at the You learn that when a person has someone who had no friends outside. dining table. There would be other been shut away for years, there is The Training Day was overseen by men milling around. They would huge apprehension at the possibility the Prison authorities and dealt with come by and look at you, but they of being allowed out. And Howard Health and Safety and security issues. never interfered with us. But usually and I may be allowed to take him out We were told all the rules. I was already now we meet in an interview room. sometime. I could see the fear in his quite nervous knowing we were on eyes when we talked about that, even have never felt frightened of Jack. though he truly wants it. the threshold of the prison. We were IThere was never anything in his body also warned against being ‘conned’ by language which was unwelcoming. I On one occasion he didn’t want to see a prisoner, but to date that has never always feel a bit sad – especially when me, even though I had travelled down. been my experience. I leave. It’s a bit like visiting a very sick Someone said to me: “you shouldn’t Veronica then arranged for me to start person and wishing you could make be bothered with him”. But I felt quite seeing a prisoner who had been in for them well. differently. I knew in my heart it was many years and up to that time had because he was afraid of something, I discovered in fact that I liked him and felt he had let me down. never had a visitor. I shall call him Jack straight away. I have never pressed him (not his real name). My first reaction, about himself. To begin with I told I’m determined to stick by him. At one I admit, was fear. But I knew that this him a lot about myself and my family. stage earlier, I did discover what crime was what I wanted to do. And then I felt able to ask him where he had committed, and for a second I Before you actually go in, you have he came from and a bit about his own thought to myself: “Am I going to go to apply by phone and be questioned. family life. We talked about that at back?” But when I got there I felt just When I went down the first time I some length, but we have never talked the same about him. ss still felt a lot of fear – but I was also quite excited. I was prepared not to be shocked. I knew Jack must have A major factor in causing youth offending is truancy, and committed a serious crime, but I was often this results from the fact that the young person not interested in finding out what he is dyslexic or illiterate. One study found 56 percent of had done. offenders were dyslexic. Learning disabilities predispose young people into antisocial behaviour. I started going once a fortnight to see The ‘route to offending’ starts with difficulties in the him, and the meeting can last for as classroom, moves through low self-esteem, poor long as two hours. Within reason, you behaviour, school exclusion, and graduates into offending. can stay as long as you like. You are Judge Becroft. Principal youth court judge searched when you go in as if you were

Tui Motu InterIslands 9 September 2009 prison ministry

ss Howard and I also meet him at the moment of madness – and then they know that I’m a bit mad! Some of my church services. We get to know all the are locked away for years. friends are very encouraging. Howard regulars who go. They’re all different and I see what Sr Veronica does, and – unique human beings. Sometimes I often feel very emotional after we are delighted to be part of her work. I ask myself what good is it doing – visiting the prison, on the drive back Howard has also recently committed them being in prison at all, especially to town. I think: There but for the grace himself to visiting an OCF prisoner. some of the younger ones. They have of God go I! Things have gone wrong for them because society has been If Jack were to leave prison or if he done something quite stupid, but I didn’t want to go on, then I would be feel there should be another way of ‘wrong’. The problem is more with us than with them. waiting for Veronica to find someone dealing with it – for some, at least. else. I feel it is a privilege to do this Often they’ve been rejected, adopted I have to be careful who among my work. It has increased my sadness and out – sometimes abused. There is a friends I tell about my prison visiting. compassion for people on the edges of lot of anger in the way they look back They might think me mad – or simply society. I simply feel pain when I meet on their childhood. It only requires a wasting my time. My sons, of course, someone who is so broken. n

. . . you visited me – 2

Another who responded to the appeal to help is Eileen McRae, of Forbury parish

like to help people. When Sr – but we avoid being too preachy. The men are very polite and have IVeronica came to St Bernadette’s They’re now quite comfortable with become very relaxed with us. Some­ and spoke to us about working in the us; they would want us to come down times we talk about religious themes, prison I came out of church, looked at more frequently, but that’s not so easy but they mostly like to talk about my friend Margaret McTear, and said: because of our other commitments. their families. It’s all very sociable, “can we help? I’ll go if you go.” They really enjoy it and show it. which is another reason they would wish us to come more frequently. I t Christmas we proposed that We didn’t want to go and talk with hope that what we do will sow a few they might construct a Nativity the prisoners on a one-to-one basis. A seeds of faith. So Margaret suggested that we might scene, and they agreed. They dressed try craft work. She’s very gifted in that the figures of the kings and the holy I was very apprehensive at first – but sphere, and I went as her assistant. family. Margaret had provided stand up not now! The prisoners and staff treat That’s how it began. figures, and they did all the decoration. us well. We have to ask permission for The scene was on display when they any materials we take in. No knives! We also go down to the Catholic had their Christmas production, which One day we asked what they would liturgy service – on a Monday evening we were all invited to. They were very like to work on as a project. One of every six weeks or so. And we go down proud of what they had done, and they the smart guys said: “a ladder – a big to run a craft work group every fourth enjoyed the others admiring it. tall one!” We have plenty of laughs. Monday. We started off with the training day, and then about a year Many of them have learned to make You become quite attached to the ago the craft group got started. cards to send home. They always have men, and worry how they will cope the option on what they will do. For when they are released. Will they go We often meet in the cultural centre instance, some are going to make cards back into the drug scene in order to (whare) or we meet in a classroom. for Fathers’ Day next month. It helps find friendship? There are between five and eight them keep in touch with family. prisoners, and that’s as many as we The ones who come to liturgy are could easily cope with. They’re a mixed We did something similar for Easter often very deep thinking. Sometimes group – in age and in the length of – providing props for their Easter they will give a testimony which shows time they have been imprisoned. tableau. I saw the Christmas one, but them coming to terms with what they Some are very artistic and others have missed the Easter tableau because I have done. I think the craft group just come to learn. was away. Last month we constructed also gives us signs of hope in the way a banner on the theme Fishers of Men. I they progress. They seem to appreciate At first they were very shy – eyes cast learnt that we could not splash around working with religious themes. It’s a down. But the ice was soon broken. the colour red, because its one of the good work, and I am really happy to We like to introduce Christian themes ‘mob’ colours. be able to do it. n

10 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009 war and peace

is religion a cause of violence and war?

Canon Paul Oestreicher asks why it is that world religions which ostensibly seek the paths of peace and justice, often are guilty of promoting war and violence. He suggests that it is a lapse into tribalism.

olly Toynbee, regular columnist of the British left- not an overriding consciousness of God who is the Pwing paper The Guardian, maintains that religion is salvation of us all? a curse, and it needs to be eliminated from the civilised Paul cited his own childhood experience as a refugee world if peace is ever to happen. What she suggests is coming to New Zealand from Nazi Germany. It was that religion is one of the principal factors in international the Quakers particularly who made him and his parents conflict, and that the world would, therefore, be better welcome: their practical, welcoming pacifism impressed off without it. him in youth and has stayed with him ever since. So, Canon Paul Oestreicher, in a lecture delivered in New when he returned to Europe as a young man, he chose to Zealand during May, admits that on the surface Toynbee work as a ‘bridge-builder’ between East and West during appears to be right. And yet... and yet... equally, is there the time of the Cold War. judaism and the justification of war ceased to be militant from that time Jesus proclaims God to be the Father The ‘orthodox’ teaching during the until the establishment of the state of of all humans, not just of the Jews. long and turbulent period of the Israel in the last century. If all people equally can claim God First Testament was that God fights as Father, then that makes them the gospel of jesus on the side of Israel. God is hailed as brothers and sisters. Love of neigh­ the ‘Lord of Hosts’, standing at the Jesus is the last prophet of Judaism. His bour is a universal gospel value. To head of Israel’s armies. King David is vision is countercultural. The new “love one’s enemies” is truly to be a portrayed as the princely ideal – the child of God. warrior king. And the Messianic Son of David who is to come will restore The first Christians, like the Jews, the power of the Jewish kingdom – by were scattered throughout the force if necessary. Roman Empire and were equally powerless. They were often However, there was also another strand persecuted. They gave their lives to Judaic religion. The prophets and for their beliefs as Jesus had done. the psalms constantly urge Israel to do better than other nations – and However, Jesus continued to be still not by conflict. Both the prophets ‘alive and present’ in their mutual Isaiah and Micah, for instance, love which was the basis of their bid the people to “change their communities. This value became swords into ploughshares”. so convincing that eventually Likewise, the Psalmist calls for even the Emperor himself was “justice and peace to embrace”. converted to this new faith. ‘kingdom of God’ which The final defeat of the Jewish Jesus preaches is not a restoration of The consequence of Constantine nationalists at the hands of the Romans Jewish power in any sense. Its strength becoming Christian was peace and in 70 A.D. and the destruction of is in faith, not in temporal power. Jesus prosperity for the Christian Church. Jerusalem with its Temple meant that offers a challenge not merely to the The down side was that Christianity the Jews were dispersed among other Jewish establishment but to the whole itself took on a leadership role in peoples and lost all political power. Imperial system, then embodied in the European society. Its bishops became ss Judaism survived ‘outside power’, and empire of Rome. like Imperial authorities. The Pope

Tui Motu InterIslands 11 September 2009 war and peace

ss grew to rival the secular powers of pacifism and christianity to have been no parallel development mediaeval Europe. This is a major It was not only the Quakers who have in Islam. factor in the history of the Middle reacted against this process of clothing The idea that you have to use force to Ages. (The Pope continues to have a religion with violence. There have prevent force appears to be a humanist ceremonial army to protect him in the been many non-violent Christian argument. The problem has always Swiss Guard.) groups, like the Mennonites. The been that, even from a humanist Franciscan spirit is essentially one of In a sense this transformation of viewpoint, once you start to justify the peace. Christian pacifists continue to Christianity into a secular power can use of force – where do you stop? flourish in all denominations. be called a retreat into tribalism. The zionism church began to have its own armies. The underlying pacifism of the Meanwhile, after 20 centuries of To die for Christ in war was to ensure Gospel is undeniable. Theologians powerlessness, there has been a beatitude in heaven. since the Middle Ages struggled with reappearance of Jewish militarism. In this evident anomaly – the contrast Christianity, then, proceeded to a stunning revival of tribalism, Israel between the tradition of the ‘Lord of confront the other great religion of since 1947 has become the most Hosts’ and the peace-loving Jesus. the Middle East, Islam. The Crusades militarised state in the world. Israel were launched against these ‘infidels’ What they came up with was the theory today ‘boxes well above its weight’. – or ‘faithless ones’. The religious of JUST WAR. The canon lawyers Having been put down by Christ­ wars were proclaimed by the Pope spelt out the conditions for this. In ianity for all those centuries, Israel and preached by his bishops. Islam of fact, the conditions they laid down are now seeks international respect course responded in kind. so stringent that no war in history has in its new-found power. Political ever fully complied with them. These great faiths worship the same power through military prowess has become a ‘religious’ imperative for God. Yet both had become infected In 1945 a nuclear weapon was used the Israelis. by the same sort of militaristic spirit. for the first time. Since it seemed to The iconography of both can be seen be effective in ending the Japanese Israel has rekindled the dilemma of to condone violence. There is a concept War, protagonists proclaimed the justifying the use of force as a way to on both sides of the Holy War. The concept of a JUST NUCLEAR WAR. attain justice. The warrior tradition glorification of war continues even into However, the horror of a nuclear has become contemporary. Even our own age, and even influences our holocaust is such that in the West the peace-loving Buddhists have justified commemoration of Anzac day. Guns only answer has seemed to be total the use of force against the Tamil are fired and military salutes are taken. NON-VIOLENCE. There appears Tigers in Sri Lanka. conclusion anon Oestreicher closed with some consoling We New Zealanders, Oestreicher suggests, need to re­ Cwords. He calls himself a “hopeful pessimist”. kindle our collective memories, not to spur us to conflict, Intellectually, he admits that he has doubts regarding but to abolish conflict. A good example is to be found non-violence; but in faith he sees it to be the hope of the among the young people of Germany: their memory of future. Thus, he can see justification for maintaining the two World Wars has created for them a real sense of the ANZAC tradition here in New Zealand – but only if the futility of all war. That is the hope for all our futures. n subtext becomes the main text. The subtext is “..so that it This lecture was delivered by Canon Oestreicher may never happen again”. to the University of Otago Theology department, May 2009

Pooh’s Prayer the ideal gift for A3 Colour Poster your grandchildren, new entrants, Price: $2 each; first communicants, Package (cardboard cylinder) & postage: $5 within NZ. and those entering their Each cylinder holds up to 10 posters second childhood Send to: Tui Motu, PO Box 6404, Dunedin North 9059

12 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009 carnage in afghanistan

Every day they pray to be spared the ‘visit’– two officers coming up the garden path.

he Afghanistan conflict is not the Falklands war, would stand for the Queen only. This, too, was part Tand the national mood is different. But under the of the national mood. surface, not entirely. The Falklands service held at the end I did not lose a son. But I lost many nights’ sleep over of the conflict in St Paul’s Cathedral in 1982 was a clash him. Our relations were probably average for fathers between the triumphalism of Margaret Thatcher and her and their teenage offspring. Sparks flew occasionally, press allies, and the more liberal mood of the Church of and sometimes we had fun. Beneath the surface, England. A sort of compromise was found – “God Save however, nothing had prepared me for how deep the Queen” was sung, but the loss of Argentine as well as these things can go. I would rate it the most difficult British lives was remembered in prayer. emotional experience of my entire life, by a factor of I covered the service as a journalist from The Times. The ten. Regularly after three hours in bed I would return seats immediately behind the press, I became aware, to the kitchen to twiddle the knobs on the radio, hoping were filled by soberly dressed middle-aged civilians, for just one last bulletin from the Minister of Defence’s men and women, all looking mentally and physically lugubrious spokesman. It was more than obsessive. I crushed and dazed. The colour of the men’s ties said it was living in another world. all – black. These were parents of servicemen killed in Driving back from the theatre in late May, we heard action. We have glimpsed more like them recently, as on the news that “two major units had been lost by the coffins return from Helmand. enemy action”. Neither my wife nor I spoke for But for the grace of God, I was aware throughout the 20 minutes, so excruciating was the pain. Part of service, I could have been sitting one row back. My me was in the South Atlantic, 18 years old myself, son had been a member of the crew of the Falklands trapped below decks in a sinking ship. May one pray, flagship, the aircraft carrier Hermes. But it, and he, someone asked a vicar towards the end of the Second returned in one piece, on his 19th birthday. World War, that the approaching doodlebug falls somewhere else, killing people we don’t know instead After the service I went across the road for a pint, and got of people we do? I prayed, God forgive me, that one talking to a chief petty officer in uniform who had also of these ships at the bottom of the cold Atlantic attended the service. I admitted my double connection wasn’t the Hermes. (In fact they were HMS Coventry to the event, and he explained he was there on behalf and the Atlantic Conveyor.) of something called Royal Naval Welfare. He told me a sensational story on condition I never reported it – a That is an experience that is becoming familiar to promise that has surely lapsed after 27 years. countless service families in Britain as the Afghanistan death toll rises. Although they hear reports of “another Another section of seating was reserved for a group of death in action”, they don’t at first know who. Every women and small children. At the start of the service day they pray to be spared the dreaded ‘visit’ – two the congregation stood for the entry of dignitaries, officers in uniform coming up the garden path. “Next senior officers, politicians, and eventually Margaret of kin have been informed.” And someone else’s world Thatcher herself. The Queen was to take her place has fallen apart. Young men join the services knowing last. But this group refused to stand. A bemedalled and that death could be part of the deal. Indeed, it is in the gold-braided army officer stormed up to my friend the culture that if you’re not scared, you’re a danger. The chief petty officer, and demanded: “You there! Who services know how to make frightened men fight. are these people? Make them stand up!” Unfortunately they do not know how to make the “They are Royal Navy widows and orphans, sir,” he vigil at home, with that constant dread in the pit replied icily. “You make them.” The officer retreated, of one’s stomach, bearable. There is no defensive mortified. The widows had decided that the loss of action available, no flak jacket that can protect the their menfolk was entirely Mrs Thatcher’s fault, and heart. It is those who wait – helpless – who pay the no way would they rise to their feet for her. They higher price. Clifford Longley (reprinted with thanks from the London Tablet)

Tui Motu InterIslands 13 September 2009 mother aubert letters on the go the correspondence of Suzanne Aubert

This splendid volume of the letters of Mother Aubert is a literary milestone for New Zealand and for New Zealand Catholics. Mother Aubert, taken in Rome in 1919 Maybe we can hope that it is another stage along her journey towards beatification.

essie Munro has performed yet an her later life – especially from her time clerical or secular authority does Joutstanding service to the Sisters of in Rome when she was battling for she resort to Victorian formalities, Compassion and to the wider public the official recognition of the Sisters and then her character stays hidden by producing this selection from the of Compassion. Of the hundreds of behind the clichés of the period. For correspondence of Mother Aubert. It letters she wrote to her family in her the rest, one can almost hear her complements her splendid biography, early days in New Zealand, practically voice and the force of her personality The Story of Suzanne Aubert, Montana none survive. All we have are a few coming through. You feel that what Book of the Year for 1997. Unlike letters to friends together with samples she says is what she feels and what she most editors of such collections from of their correspondence to her. Her means. There is never any pretence or famous people, Jessie Munro has wisely letters only began to be regularly diplomatic understatement. chosen to intersperse these letters with kept when she reached the status of he book’s title Letters on the Go a narrative to provide context and to a foundress and when her charitable Texpresses her busy everyday link up events. This, together with work made a real public impact. By existence. Like a good All Black captain the lengthy introduction, enables that time she was 50 years old. So the Suzanne led from the front. Her the reader to imbibe the story of this first half of her life is underrepresented letters are penned on the run, often remarkable and wonderful woman, because the letters no longer exist. late at night after a full day of nursing, even those who haven’t read the earlier visiting, gardening, negotiating or biography. Fortunately, that does no stop us absorbing, from what we have got simply praying and conversing. Suzanne Aubert lived to the age of and from her later letters, a wonderful Suzanne believed in having her hands 91 and retained her vigour of mind sense of her character, her vitality, in the tub or at the sink, a spirit she right up to her final days. Hence her her spirit of fun, her serious religious has bequeathed in abundance to her surviving correspondence is huge. This sense and her piety, especially in the Congregation. selection represents about half the correspondence with her Sisters. Her Sometimes, therefore, the letters can total – and yet it is sadly deficient. The vibrancy of spirit comes through in become catalogues of information majority of the letters by far come from every line. Only when dealing with and instructions, albeit spontaneous,

orrespondence is mutual recognition and action, industrial cities or unknown dots on the surface Ca way of loving and seeking love, of virtual of the globe. touching and being touched, all crucial for human The gift of expanding literacy was well used; letters health and survival. For both writer and recipient, a had real currency in people’s lives, whether they letter is an extension of daily life. Even when there were simply family epistles or beautifully crafted is dissent or hostility in a communication, identity exchanges between kindred souls, each animating is acknowledged. the heart and intellect of the other. This was especially important in the 19th Cent­ The letter itself, with the writer’s touch actually ury when for the first time people en masse lingering on the page, is an artefact to be treasured, learned to read and write; and when also they left and the safe passage of mail became an almost their home towns and hamlets in waves for alien religious duty and dedication. (Introduction pp6-8)

14 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009 good-humoured and matter-of-fact. her Congregation in the face “I was glad to hear the patients are all of opposition from two of the right again,” she writes to Sr Carmel in New Zealand bishops, but Hiruharama. “You must have received also of the way she spent her the braid for Father’s coats. It was days there. There are illumin­ duly posted. We have received a new ating descriptions of Italian postulant from Ch-ch last Sunday, but devotions, of the poverty of she had to go straight to bed very ill. Rome amid all the splendour Now about the bugs. I will try to find of the Eternal City, of the something to wash everything with way the local people treat that might kill them... There is no animals – and countless other need of troubling about blue veils for vignettes of observation. the novices. They will travel in cotton goods. We do not want bugs here. She seemed to spend her spare time either helping to nurse “Love from all to all. Let us all try to victims of war or of a terrible pray hard and storm heaven. It is late earthquake. Or she went the and I do not feel very well. Goodbye. rounds visiting the shrines and God bless you all. Your affectionate countless churches of the city. Mother in Christ...”(pp 227-8). Her favourite was the church of the Ara Coeli, which has Her English was fluent and colloquial traditional devotions at although there is the occasional Christmas to the child Jesus – quaintness of expression – and she the Bambino. This impressed never mastered the ..ght at the end of Suzanne deeply. words. She was equally fluent in Maori and composed highly practical phrase- Perhaps the scenes from Beth­ books for English into Maori and lehem and Nazareth re­mind­ed French into Maori. Her handwriting her of all the vulnerable and was clear and bold – even into old age, abandoned youngsters her Sis­ as the sample will show. Copperplate ters were caring for back home. without frills. Children were always her Letter written by Mother Aubert to Sr Bridget special care. Her later letters at Hiruharama. Suzanne Aubert travelled What we do not find – unusual in are often laced with references extensively during 1889 collecting money to the letters of Religious Founders replace the first church, burnt down in 1888 to the childhood of Jesus. – is detailed spiritual direction. It is likely therefore that her instruction essie Munro has once again and guidance was largely by word Joffered us a banquet of delight. It is from the rest. She belongs to us. of mouth. What we have, and this written with an eye to the general reading She embraced this country and lived is specially precious, is an extended public. There will no doubt be complete the greater part of her life here. Her text written in 1915 when she was in volumes of Mother Aubert’s writings legacy to us is a practical, down-to- Rome, entitled Letter to the Novices. It including all her letters, compiled for earth, compassionate Christianity is composed in the form of a catechism the cause of her Beatification. But it is that singularly reflects the national of questions and answers. It is phrased important that Catholics in particular character. Her beatification would be in the piety of the uncomplicated – and New Zealanders in general a great affirmation of all that is best Frenchwoman that Suzanne was. – interest themselves in this process. in the Christian and Catholic heritage Nevertheless it also contains great Jessie Munro’s latest offering should of Aotearoa – and Jessie Munro’s wisdom and practicality, and it is no provide a stimulus. two volumes contribute abundantly surprise that the Sisters have included towards it. the text in their Directory. In recent times a lot of energy has M.H. been spent on transporting relics and Her other letters from Rome icons of other 19th Century French Letters on the go: the correspond­ constantly express her anxiety and religious figures throughout New ence of Suzanne Aubert love for the Sisters in New Zealand. Zealand. That’s fine. – edited by Jessie Munro But they also provide a diary, not only of her relentless and successful I would venture to say, however, Bridget Williams Books 2009 campaign to win Vatican approval for that Mother Aubert stands apart 635 pp Price: $59.99

Tui Motu InterIslands 15 September 2009 pilgrimage a journey into the interior

Trish McBride follows the trail of Aboriginal Songlines in the ‘red centre’ of Australia – and savours their Biblical echoes

Engaging in the ceremony of Wati Ngintaka creates still, the landscape of the area. We were on a pilgrimage along their Songline, with stops at the places where hey call it the Red Centre. And We were briefed along the way with an the various incidents are still embedded red indeed it is! Red earth, red introduction to Aboriginal thought and and embodied in the rocks, caves and monoliths when they infrequently understanding of the earth. The exploits water-holes. Tappear, red corrugated roads for as far of the ancestors produced the landscape. We were sleeping in canvas swags under as the eye can see. We were going as Those stories as they are re-told, sung and the stars and, miles from any towns, students to a very different learning celebrated are keeping the landscape in they were scintillatingly awesome. space, as guests of a Pitjantjatjara clan existence. Creation has to be continually And the very chilly desert dawns were of Aboriginal Australians. They call re-vitalised by the spiritual attention of spectacular. As was the morning display themselves Anangu. And they speak the people. The ancestors are not of the of pink underwings as the flock of galahs Pitjantjatjara which is one of the 250 or distant past, but of the now in a timeless took off from the gums. It had been a so surviving or so linguistically separate way. This has echoes of the Jewish relief to hear that because it was winter, languages of indigenous people in understanding of their stories: Exodus all the snakes and scorpions were already Australia. and Passover are a continuous present hibernating! The flies weren’t. Endless spaces with a sparse covering of into which the community re-immerses scrub, now and then a line of gums in a itself each year. t the second camp-site we were introduced to Peter Nyaningu dry river bed, more frequent groves of And so we met Lee Bradey and his wife and his wife Mildred. He had young desert oaks, standing like fringed Leah, who took us digging for maku A already been described to us as a ‘first pencils a couple of metres high. The (witchetty grubs) which we ate when contact’ person, the term for those who occasional dingo. Bands of wild camels, they’d been cooked on the fire. Tasted can remember their first meeting with a the equivalent of super-sized rabbits, but all right, almost like sweet corn. It’s not enough resources or people to tackle white person. It seems he is about 75, and the idea that’s still a bit of a problem! the problem. Their forebears were once was probably seven or eight when his They live in the roots of a particular the only transport into this remote area father guided whitefella photographer shrub, and have to be extricated with but when road, rail and air travel arrived ethnologist Charles Mountford into the considerable effort for not a lot of food. they were simply turned loose. And But that was the story of the traditional thrived. women’s lives. They were the gatherers We travelled by a four-wheel-drive and the men were the hunters. Their mini-bus from Alice Springs, with a kitchen gear consisted of a digging stick, stop for a brief acquaintance with Uluru/ a wooden bowl and a grinding-stone. Ayers Rock and a dramatic unexpected Witchetty grubs, high in protein, were sunset on a grey day. Then headed over what the babies were weaned onto. We the border into South Australia and a heard the stories and engaged with the few hundred kilometres west into the inma (ceremonies) of the Wati Ngintaka Homeland of our hosts. (Perentie Lizard Man) who created, and

16 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009 a journey into the interior

Trish McBride follows the trail of Aboriginal Songlines in the ‘red centre’ of Australia – and savours their Biblical echoes

area of the Mann Range around 1940. There’s a great photo of Peter’s dad in his traditional splendour. And we learned that if you don’t wear clothes, you don’t have pockets, so the traditional hunters carried their precious kangaroo sinews Peter and his wife Mildred with music sticks and other small possessions in their hair, in a type of chignon called pukuti. The combination was new to us. The runs the length of the whole country. We companion book’s title was the familiar saw the cave where, guided by the wise Peter and Mildred sat with us round the Good News. Peter’s two bibles had eldest sister, they had hidden from Wati camp-fire. It was something of a surprise helped him learn English as he worked Neru, a strangely endowed man who to hear him begin speaking by preaching from the Pitjantjatjara edition to the “only wanted to talk to them”. They did the Christian Gospel. He spoke of Jesus English one and back again. not trust him, and eventually escaped and of Moses. And told us how he’d run to be stars in the sky where he pursues away from the mission school in Ernabella There were several full page illustrations them still. They are our Matariki. We sat as a child, but returned as an adult, had in colour. The depiction of Genesis 1 in stunned silence in this cave, and later studied theology and had been ordained has a black Adam and Eve, koalas in a in another, in the presence of paintings as a Presbyterian minister in 1984. gum tree, a dingo, emu, kangaroo, and depicting this story and others, dating platypus. And, somewhat strangely, in back 20,000 or more years. Very few He pulled out of his case two red this delightful piece of inculturation, artefacts anywhere in the world can books. One was called Tjukurpa Palya, a zebra and an antelope! Moses was claim this age. and featured a cross. We already knew mentioned again and again, and it was ‘palya’ as a most useful word: ‘hello’, not hard to understand the appeal to For probably 60,000 years the Aboriginal ‘thank you’, ‘good’, ‘ok’, ‘right?’. And Anangu of stories of a leader who led people have lived on this sub-ontinent, that ‘Tjukurpa’ is a most profound his people out of oppression and into in the ultimate of sustainable life-styles. word which encompasses their creation freedom in the desert. The table of contents They have been reliant totally on the story, the sacred foundation of spiritual listed amongst the others Matthew-ku, slim pickings from the harsh land, with law, lore and practice, and much more. Markaku, Luke-aku, John-ku, Paulalu. I an appreciation of this dependence, and Genesis 1 was intrigued to know whether or how he knowing the responsibility to live in fitted together their traditional Anangu tune with the creative Spirit of the earth. stories with his Christian understanding, So much that western consumer society so asked “Peter, do you have two stories, can learn from these people! And the then?” His response was to clasp his knowledge is at risk of disappearing. hands with fingers interlaced and said “They are like this!” and “God created Before we parted, Peter drew their the ancestors”. Songlines in the sand with his stick, then the state boundaries between Northern Another story was about the local section Territory, South Australia and West of the Seven Sisters Songline, which Australia. They cut across the ss

Tui Motu InterIslands 17 September 2009 church in the world yeast in the dough

There was a time, says Paul Andrews SJ, when the Irish Church needed the metaphor of the light of the world, for instance, in famine times when it gave us an identity to survive misery. Perhaps now it is time for another image: yeast in the dough, working for good even when unseen, is less attractive, but perhaps ultimately a more encouraging image for the church in Ireland today.

he church is sometimes seen society. The prospect of radical rocking our comfortable sense of Tas a force for stability in change in society pushes us all to having an unshakable place in an society. In the French Revolution the dilemma faced by Jesus. unshakable society. Marriage at and the Italian Risorgimento, the its best can do this, invading the He destabilised people, but was institutional church sided with other’s ego. In marriage (and also not a political rebel. He pulled established authority rather than when you are teaching children), people away from their trade, wave the red flag. The revolutionaries you are regularly reminded of your whether it was fishing, prostitution shortcomings. were often hostile to the church but or tax-collecting. He pulled them sometimes Catholics were heavily from their families. But he did That sort of abrasion can be missing involved in the rebellions, as in not want to be a king, nor to set from the celibate life. There is no Ireland and South America. The up any new political system (as he intimate Other to get under my church believed it was better for told the sons of Zebedee). Rather skin, and emotional inertia can people to live in peace in a stable he was and is dismantling our ego, easily prevail. Small things can

ss Songlines. Peter said with real anguish In his book The Songlines, “The whitefellas made new lines and Bruce Chatwin writes “By they broke our Songlines. They stole our spending his whole life walking land”. It is one thing to know about the and singing his Ancestor’s history of our neighbour’s indigenous Songline, a man eventually people. Quite another to experience the became the track, the Ancestor pain now of a real person with a name, and the song.” So close to the and his family! And the generosity of words of Jesus: ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’. their teaching and sharing. It was good to hear that an increasing number of The Government’s apology Australian secondary schools, notably to Australia’s original people Catholic girls’ colleges, are making the was given in 2008 for the pilgrimage to meet these Anangu and centuries of theft oppression, hear how it was before, how respect for and disregard. A more recent the ancient way of life has something to enquiry found that things have offer to us white ones. got worse for them, not better. The Anangu of the Pitjantjatjara Lee teaching about the lizard songline Later Lee and Leah shared their Christian lands are reaching out to the whitefellas faith too. Their travelling music in their to offer bridges to understanding that with respect and thankfulness, healing van was a CD of the young people of the can help narrow the gap between white can follow. n tribe singing gospel songs in Pitjantjatara. and black in Australia. When what they And Leah’s Tjukurpa Palya, much have to offer in their stories, customs and Trish McBride is a spiritual director and thumbed, was on the dash-board. spiritual care for the earth is received thealogian in Wellington

18 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009 upset me: a strange bed, a blanket It is a grace to be born into an age If people criticised us, we tended instead of a duvet, Little Chip of dispossessing ourselves, with to write them off as enemies of the instead of chunky marmalade, fewer large establishments and church. unexpected breaks in my routine, greater readiness to share others’ new work at which I do not shine, lives. In a society which changes the outcast caste a new boss, losing the prospect of a rapidly, we still need monasteries Light remains bright even if nobody holiday, being bad-mouthed. They to offer stability, religious centres is seeing it. There were times when break into my ego, destabilise me, that last; we treasure our Mellerays the Irish Church needed the show the limits of my inner freedom and Glenstals. metaphor of the light of the world, and the defences I erect to defend the city on a hill, for instance in my way of being me. We can be The rest of us, the light cavalry famine times, when it gave us an grateful for these destabilisers. of the church, should be mobile identity to survive misery; or in and carry small packs. We live, as 1932 when we were establishing The church too is experiencing its it were, on campsites. Let us pray ourselves as a nation and seized the destabilisers. We live under the for poverty of spirit to match our chance to show that we do exist and Chinese curse: May you be born in shedding of buildings and land. can run things (like the Eucharistic an age of transition. It was a fate Congress) splendidly. familiar to the Psalmist and the Old Testament writers who saw the it is a grace to be Now two things have changed: the people of Israel through periods born into an age of culture of the country has grown of adversity, exile, persecution, more secular; and some bishops irrelevance. St Luke, by contrast, dispossessing ourselves have been found to be covering writing of the beginnings of the up the crimes of priests. One Christian Church, relished the result: we may be afraid to put our signs of expansion. It is 50 years since I was ordained heads above the parapet, or even a priest. I think about what those to preach the gospel, and when Fifty years ago I lived in the USA, years have done: the new wine we do, we are liable to make fools where the church was in an upbeat has become a mixed drink, bitter- of ourselves. Perhaps it is time for mood: 40 million Catholics, one sweet. another image of the church: yeast of them running for President. in the dough, working for good So many of the things I found Like the man in the Gospel with a even when unseen. rich harvest, they built bigger barns objectionable in 1958 have changed to house their riches, the young for the better: for instance, control Yeast is a less attractive image men with vocations. All across the and power. The informal alliance than light. If there is anything of country you saw massive noviciates, of clergy and state was so pervasive the exhibitionist in us, this image seminaries and houses of study. that we did not see it. There was will discover it. Young priests Few of them survive today. a respect for priests and a holding and Religious can feel sad that back from them as being powerful their initial ambition to serve is In Ireland we have witnessed some­ and different, a caste apart. rebuffed. Jesus showed the same thing similar. Our big houses disappointment over Jerusalem, were built to supply educational, We have been gradually over Nazareth and his own health and other services that the relinquishing non-priestly power. people, over the rich young man. state has now taken over. We have History had put it into our hands. His commitment did not waver, seen religious houses pass into We were educated, leaders in though he offered an option to his other hands. We have handed over education and active in the national disciples: Will you also go away? schools to other managers. We pass movement, useful in helping to them on with sadness, with their build up an independent Ireland. Few of us could have improved on legacy of prayer, companionship We became used to exercising Peter’s reply: Lord, to whom should and high standards. We show power in a way that was not we go? You have the message of eternal our vitality to the extent that we always conscious. Police would be life. n develop real poverty of spirit and reluctant to bring an action against Paul Andrews is a priest/psychotherapist can travel light. a priest even for a traffic offence. living in Dublin

Tui Motu InterIslands 19 September 2009 spirituality Summer ...the season of dreams

Many of us have felt the pull of something deep down inside ourselves,and also outside of us, that we long for almost without knowing it, and that the world only lets us glimpse before it vanishes below the horizon

Daniel O’Leary

ith the warmth of the sun, and class seat, and wonder if that’s all Wthe long evenings, the poets there is? In the evenings of summer in us, the artists within, find their do we all experience something like voice again. Summer is a time when that – the nurse, the teacher, the we become more conscious of our check-out assistant? When enjoying mystery and its destiny. the warm sun and a glass of wine does the traveller long for another horizon, Summer loosens the edges of our the rebel for another cause, the priest control. It awakens the deep and for another god? buried dreams that sleep in winter. There is a kind of ache for something Intimations of a deeper joy in another that is always beyond, a restlessness homeland come only in scattered and that never goes away. subtle glimpses. In The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame describes It is easy to stir that wistful desire. The Ratty and Mole’s meeting with the first swallow can do it, or the smell of Piper at the Gates of Dawn. rain on the ground after a hot day, or the ring of church bells carried over “It’s gone,” sighed the Rat, sinking the meadows, or down our streets, by back in his seat again. “So beautiful the breezes of a summer evening. and strange and new! Since it was Because our human condition is never an intuition of another existence to end so soon, I almost wish I had complete, there is almost always within somewhere in the soul of the millions never heard it. For it has roused us a yearning for wholeness. We carry who drive, walk, cycle to work each a longing in me that is pain, and intimations of a finer destiny. We morning? Does the mother of a young nothing seems worth while but just intuitively search for a lost paradise. family look out of the window of her to hear that sound once more and go We have blurred memories of a field comfortable home and sometimes on listening to it for ever. of dreams on which we once played, dream of a brighter place? And to we hear vague whispers of something whom could she dare reveal her secret No! There it is again!” he cried, alert yet to come, something for which we loneliness? once more. Entranced, he was silent for a long space, spellbound. “Now it feel we were made in the first place. Does the successful businessman, at passes on and I begin to lose it,” he Is there a subtle compulsion to the height of his career, watch the said presently. “O Mole! The beauty transcendence in every heart? Is there morning fields fly by from his first- of it …”

20 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009 We are congenitally overcharged for Do we accept the unavoidable truth “In the torment of the insufficiency of this earth. We are infinite spirits in that nothing except total union with everything attainable”, he wrote, “we finite conditions. We carry a helpless the essence of life itself, an ultimate come to understand, that here in this attraction for the beauty that gave us intimacy with the love that fires all life all symphonies remain unfinished.” birth. We are capax mundi, capax Dei living things, will ever bring the peace The dream, the music continue in (knowing Creation, knowing God) we spend our days searching for? heaven. But without the pain. Even but trapped in the limit-conditions though our tender imagination may of time and space. Is it any wonder be crushed in us as children by careless then that we have silent struggles caretakers, the guardian angel of our do we accept the truth with our existential emptiness and desire will never abandon us to a insatiability? that nothing except total union dreamless place. with the essence of life itself In The Buried Life Matthew Arnold In The Thread, Denise Levertov wrote: will bring us the peace wrote: But often, in the world’s most we search for? Something is very gently, crowded streets, invisibly, silently But often, in the din of strife pulling at me – a thread There rises an unspeakable desire or net of threads That is the distant but unrelenting After the knowledge finer than cobweb and as of our buried life; voice that keeps calling to us like a elastic … Not fear … A longing to inquire far wave.The theologian Karl Rahner but a stirring of wonder Into the mystery of this heart was well aware of the pathos of makes mecatch my breath which beats this apparently hopeless, sometimes when I feelthe tug of it So wild, so deep in us – to know unbearable, orientat­ion of our human when I thoughtit had loosened Whence our lives come nature. itself and gone. and where they go. Daniel O’Leary, is a priest of the Leeds Diocese, West Yorkshire There is an undertow of unfulfilment that only union with our source and our destiny will heal and complete. To be tormented by restlessness is one of the many frustrating consequences of The Catholic Institute ofTheology being both human and divine at the Te Putahi Matauranga Whakapono Katorika same time! There is no escape from the echoes of an infinite horizon. We live in the thin place where mysteries invites you and your famiy to join us meet. in celebrating 20 years of service to the Auckland Diocese Even Jesus did not escape this innate desire for something more. “I came to at St Columba Centre, bring fire to the earth, and how I wish 40 Vermont Street, it were already kindled.” (Luke 12:49) Ponsonby It was, in fact, because of the fleshing on Saturday afternoon, of the Word in the humanity of Jesus, 10 October, 2009 that we Christians can make some 1.30pm to 5.00pm sense of the ceaseless, human longing arising from our innate coding for possessing eternity. 1.30pm Gather 2.00pm Liturgy In The Holy Longing Goethe writes of followed by speeches, how God’s excessive love for the world a chance to reminisce, is mirrored and echoed in our own and afternoon tea human hearts. At its root, all longing Please RSVP by Wednesday 30 September to CIT is a longing for home, all life a desire (09) 379 6424 or [email protected] to return to the love from which we for catering purposes have come.

Tui Motu InterIslands 21 September 2009 art & faith the art of Peter Landvai

A newcomer to New Zealand employs his talent for Socil Justice week

Lisa Beech

f you haven’t got a past, you our current context in Aotearoa New “Ihaven’t got a future.” Drawing Zealand is part of that work. on study of European religious art, from his Hungarian graphic art Peter was recommended to Caritas by training, and on more recent personal artists at Petone’s Pacific galleryLesa as discovery of Pacific art traditions, a skilled and experienced artist in the Lower Hutt artist Peter Lendvai has use of material from Pacific traditions. created illustrations for this year’s So it was a surprise to learn that he Caritas Social Justice Week booklet actually only arrived in New Zealand which need to be known and given A justice that reconciles. The forms he from Hungary less than two years more popularity.” ago. uses are both traditional and new. In looking for ways to use elements of Social Justice Week this year considers In considering how to depict Pacific art traditions, Peter is conscious Catholic teaching on criminal justice scriptural stories such as that of the of trying to give back something of and reconciliation, and calls on Good Samaritan or the Forgiving what he has learned since he has been Catholics and the wider community Father, Peter says he drew on art here. “I really try to understand and to revisit attitudes about people in history from both European and go beyond the patterns – these are prison in the light of Gospel reflection. Pacific traditions. “These are my not just interesting images.” own drawings, but some elements Understanding scriptural messages Peter is shy talking about what his of forgiveness and reconciliation in are inspired by European religious painting, and some by Pacific Catholic faith brings to this work. patterns.” However, he is an active parishioner When did we see you in prison? Mt 25:39 at Our Lady of the Rosary parish in Since his arrival in New Zealand Peter Waiwhetu, Lower Hutt, and has has studied artifacts from the Pacific worked with religious images in the in museums and galleries. “Polynesian many different art forms he employs art is also art history. There are – including drawing, printmaking, previous and valuable cultures here, glass work, and sculpture. ss

Which of these proved himself a neighbour Lk 10:36 He was lost and is found Lk 15:32

22 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009 The Ecumenical Council

ecently I walked around the Salvador Dali Rexhibition Liquid Desire held at The National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne. Dali is perhaps the best known Surrealist artist and this exhibition has 200 of his works. I found the exhibition a roller coaster ride of artistic brilliance, imagination and provocation. The final piece in the exhibition was the largest painting and was entitled The Ecumenical Council. Dali completed this work in 1960 and he was inspired by the election of Pope John XXIII. The painting takes its name from the historic conference in 1960 between John XXIII and Geoffrey F. Fisher the Archbishop of Canterbury. This was the first meeting of this kind in 426 years. This work is a personal faith reflection by Dali. In the bottom left corner his signature is replaced with a visual The Holy Trinity is depicted to show God the Son on self-image, Dali was not a shy man! the left holding the cross and God the Holy Spirit on the right with the dove. God the Father, painted in the style Dali’s art is full of religious images not all of them of Michelangelo is at the top as the central figure within St complimentary to the institutional Church. His mother Peter’s Basilica in Rome. The central figure of the woman was a practicing Catholic but his father was an atheist is Dali’s wife and muse Gala. and Salvador tended to follow his father’s atheism in the first half of his life. In 1950 in his mid forties he Dali once said of art: “Don’t bother about being modern. returned to the practice of the Catholic faith and we see Unfortunately it is the one thing that, whatever you do, in this painting a man deeply concerned with faith in the you cannot avoid.” For me this painting is optimism at modern world. its best. Here we have a great modern artist who has been highly inspired by spiritual leadership of a Church leader. The coronation in 1958 of Pope John XXIII is represented John XXIII was not explicitly modern but he engaged three times in the centre of the painting and once in the with the world of the time because like Dali he saw it as upper right-hand corner. This suggests Dalí’s enthusiasm something we cannot avoid. for the new Pope and his forward-looking direction. Michael Dooley

ss “It is really hard to describe forgiveness Peter and his wife arrived in Lower he finds the isolation of New Zealand and reconciliation with images and Hutt in October 2007 with just two artists difficult – one reason why the drawings. I really tried to understand suitcases. “We didn’t know anyone.” friendly atmosphere of the Lesa gallery the (Scriptural) phrases, but it helped His wife is working, but he describes attracts him. “It’s a heavy burden to try to understand the people (in his own time here as a “study in sometimes, but I’m also improving the Bible stories) themselves. It’s easy patience”. my essence as a human.” to do kitsch. But I’m always trying to give a higher message – that’s not so “At the moment I’m happy to focus Lisa Beech is Research and Advocacy Coordinator at Caritas easy to do.” on my own art works,” he says. But

Tui Motu InterIslands 23 September 2009 ecumenism

the right way and the wrong way of ‘doing’ ecumenism

Glynn Cardy

ne of the prevailing myths among mainline Christians in Western society are now a minority. If we Odenominations is that we would all be better think our beliefs have any relevance to society then we need Christians and present a better message to the world if we to look at multiple means of conveying the Jesus message. could find a way to unify our churches. This sentiment is Rather than focusing on organising our club to join with usually encapsulated in the prayer accredited to Jesus: May the club down the road for a Good Friday service, isn’t it they all be one that the world may believe. Not that we ever better to prioritize transformative social, economic and were one. political goals for the betterment of society? Certainly some of the best ecumenical work in the past has been around In 1970s’ New Zealand this led to the desire for church joint offshore and onshore development projects. Pooling union between Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, our resources to build bigger churches is not necessarily Congregationists, and anyone else who was prepared to where it’s at. Pooling our resources to build interactive join. It was a big issue, with big divisions, and a merger spaces with online and real time communities is where it’s almost came about. always at. We just need the vision. On the one hand this union movement had much to The word ‘ecumenical’ is a visionary one. In Greek it refers commend it. Most of the theological, liturgical, and to the whole inhabited world, not just some religious structural differences between denominations would have institutional bit. It links with words like ecology and been totally foreign to Jesus and his early followers. The economy. The desire for different Christian clubs to get differences between denominations are also foreign to most together is just one part of it, just one interactive space New Zealanders today. It’s only once you’re in one of these among many possibilities. clubs, immersed in club-think, that you start to defend the ways your club has ‘always done things’ and look for support The prejudice and intolerance of the past though isnot from the Bible. Those outside the churches, and many to be underestimated. Within a small geographical inside, don’t understand and don’t want to understand the community there could be a number of distinct religious theological minutiae around the differences. groups walking past each other, talking past each other, and fomenting a toxic brew of bigotry. Insecurity, insulation, The reality of course is that there were no denominations and identity are closely aligned. Occasionally violence in the Bible. There was a variety and fluidity in terms of erupts. Sometimes, like in Northern Ireland and Bosnia, theology, worship, and authority. New revelation was hatred and violence lurked fairly near the surface. reshaping, changing or confirming old revelation as they went along. There was no right way to be ordained, to When discussions occasionally occurred between such understand the Eucharist, to be baptised, or even to read the disparate Christian groups there was usually more than one Holy Scripture. The common factor was Jesus. Although of agenda operating, and more than intellectual agreement at course his followers’ experiences of him differed. stake. Some might have thought, for example, they were talking about ordination whereas others would have heard On the other hand the union movement of the 1970s seems it as a criticism of their culture. Those who worked as now like a modernist anachronism. The post-modern mind peacemakers in such situations had the patience of Job. For has little tolerance for a unity that might be uniformity in such groups to come together for say a Good Friday service disguise. Postmodernism celebrates variety, pluralism, and was no small thing. choice. Our society does not want difference assimilated and theology homo­genised. The notion of physically merging hankfully I have never experienced such inter-Christian the denominations is as appealing as blending every type Tbarriers of prejudice. As a teenager in the 70s I couldn’t of ice-cream into the one and only, synodically approved, understand why having a bishop ordain you rather than say biblically based, canonical flavour. a group of clerical colleagues made much difference. Now

24 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009 35 years later, having heard all the arguments, I still don’t understand why it makes much difference. Would Jesus really worry about it? I don’t think so. an anglican perspective on our lady Similarly with the words said during that great rite of God’s hospitality, known variously as the Mass, the Eucharist, or Annunciation in Istanbul the Communion. Would Jesus really worry about whether we do it similarly or correctly when most of the world hasn’t The sweetest Angelus I’ve ever prayed seen or experienced self-giving Christian hospitality? Was in the great and hallowed mosque they know as Suleymaniye. I think Christians need to be careful when they insist upon correct words to make a rite valid. It is all very well The angel of the Lord appeared to Mary to continue traditions of the past but sometimes we are And she conceived by the Holy Spirit in danger of making historical language the equivalent of a magical incantation. The insistence that a valid baptism Cool and tall, the shafts of light uses the formulaic words “in the name of the Father, Son, In that transcendent place and Holy Ghost” is an example of this. Would Jesus have Cried out for Incarnation. insisted upon this? I don’t think so. I doubt whether he ever heard the phrase. And the Word was made flesh And dwelt among us ecently Anglicans and Methodists signed a covenant Rthat says in a roundabout way that we still like each Around me in the holy peace, other and it would be good to work more closely together Muslims who honour ‘Isa’s virgin birth on matters common. There was a nice service using both Bowed down, a Methodist and Anglican Church with the leaders signing But did not know how blessed was Mary up in a symbolically meaningful way. Nor how to call on her. Will it make any difference? Is the vision for more Pray for us O Holy Mother of God committee meetings to discuss points of difference and That we may be made worthy organise occasional gatherings? Is the vision for a common of the promises of Christ theology of ordination, communion, and baptism? Is the vision to be seen to be united? The bottom line for me is I In me was joy in the gift of grace don’t really care how people interpret this covenant as long Who came through Mary to us all, as they use it to more actively promote the message of Jesus Joy also in the finding in our society. Unity has to have a purpose. That God was in this place too My vision is for building alliances with other Christians Awaiting. and people of faith in order to combine our resources and Be it unto me develop interactive spaces. Such a space might be a campaign According to your word to change an unjust law or eradicate child poverty. Such a In sha’ Allah. space might be a website like Ekklesia – a think-tank which examines the role of religion in public life and advocates transformative theological ideas and solutions. Such a Peter Stuart space might be a youth centre, or even youth church, that supports and addresses the concerns of teenagers. Alliances are needed because we Christians are few in number and resources are limited. Alliances are needed If you really love because the message of love and justice needs to be presented your Tui Motu you and lived out by people who can work together and enjoy each other without agreeing on everything. might care to remember us in your Will The Jesus agenda is always bigger and more interesting than any one club’s or combinations of clubs’ understanding of it. Christianity doesn’t have a monopoly on Jesus. At its Tui Motu Foundation best it simply seeks to share what it knows and learn from PO Box 6404 others what it doesn’t. I’m all for any vision that focuses on transforming the world into a more loving, just, and hope- Dunedin North 9059 filled place. n

Tui Motu InterIslands 25 September 2009 films

journey of redemption for a racist bigot

Gran Torino seeing the film as a constructive it again in defence of himself and Review: Peter Stuart exploration of the new multi-racial his new Hmong family. Yet he pulls society emerging in the United States. back from the usual solution of a final ran Torino is set in a Detroit It is indeed such an exploration, and violent shoot-out after which the victor Gneighbourhood being taken over the plot is outwardly dominated by returns his guns to their holster, job by yet another wave of immigration the encounter between Kowalski and well done. Instead, Kowalski himself into the United States, this one from his Hmong neighbours, a complex intentionally dies, unarmed, in a very Asia: Hmongs from Indochina. The encounter which offers him the public hail of bullets, thereby solving central character is Kowalski (Clint opportunity to change. The ‘gook- three problems: his sense of guilt over Eastwood), a grizzled, retired auto- killer’ veteran of the Korean conflict an unnecessary killing in Korea, his worker, a veteran of the Korean War, a ends up sharing with his ‘gook’ own serious medical condition, and lapsed Catholic, a foul-mouthed racist neighbours a familial interaction at an the toxic presence of the Hmong gang who is alienated from his two sons emotional depth he is unable to have in the neighbourhood (they now go to and their families, unwilling to leave with his own flesh and blood. jail). This is an explicit subversion of his home, and, as the film opens, a the myth of redemptive violence, yet newly-bereaved widower growling his Some commentators dug deeper, I found no reviews addressing this. way through his wife’s funeral and the and debated the film’s approach to Why are we all so blindly in thrall to wake that follows. The film ends with masculinity, whether Asian or white this myth? another funeral – Kowalski’s own. In American. What does it mean to be between these two events, there is a a man? In their new surroundings the At a deeper level still, Gran Torino great deal of swearing, racist abuse, Hmong find it difficult to know. “The is exploring religion and religious some violence, a lot of humour, and a women go to college and the men go themes. The interaction between journey of redemption. to jail”, the latter via street gangs like Kowalski and the baby-faced priest, the one roving the neighbourhood. which at first threatens to be a Directed by Clint Eastwood, Gran caricature, develops into something Torino can be responded to and Where will the young Hmong man considerably more substantial – if not interpreted on a number of different next door to Kowalski find a male role always convincing. A Hmong shaman levels. And indeed it has been. The model-in Kowalski? Is he what it means adds an intriguing frisson. Salvation, mostly positive reviews (and the to be a man in the ‘US of A’? The confession, penitence, priestly comments on the reviews) on the Web reverberations of Dirty Harry and all responsibility, religious pluralism, and are varied and almost as interesting Eastwood’s previous roles hang in the the spiritual dimensions of life and as the film itself, both for what they air. And where does fathering fit into death are integral to the story and mention and for what they omit or that underfilm standing of masculinity? portrayed as such. fail to pick up. Such variety is a sign Kowalski cannot even properly father of a many-sided film worth taking his own sons. As the baby-faced priest The final crucifixion pose of the seriously, for its strengths and perhaps says to Kowalski, “you know more gunned-down Kowalski is sufficiently also for its occasional flaws. about death than I do, but do you heavy-handed to attract the attention know much about life?” of several critics and nudge them into The R16 classification must be for using the word ‘redemption’. Yet for its bad language and racist abuse. (It Linked with masculinity in the them it is Kowalski who is redeemed, cannot be for the on-screen violence, American psyche (and often elsewhere) and what he is redeemed from is his which is relatively moderate by today’s is the myth of redemptive violence. If own racism. True enough, but not the media standards, although the threat there is a problem, blast the bad guys main truth. of violence pervades the film.) Some off the face of the earth, whether it viewers prissily rejected Gran Torino is the Wild West or Chicago or Iraq. The mode and purpose of redemption on those grounds, yet missed the “We’re right, they’re wrong, so kill in the film – a willing sacrificial death, point: the language is integral to the them off and all will be well.” both delivering Kowalski’s neighbours character and the neighbourhood, and also atoning for his killing in and more importantly, the film itself A thousand actors and rather too many Korea many years ago – passed the subverted racism. presidents and politicians have acted critics by, as did its subversion of the out this myth; many of Eastwood’s myth of redemptive violence. The Other viewers and reviewers majored previous roles are based on it. Kowalski Cross of Christ subverted that myth on precisely this theme of racism, has lived it in Korea and starts living once and for all, but the chattering ss

26 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009 looking back in sorrow after apocalypse happens

The Age of Stupid. “Why Didn’t We to which this is in many ways a sequel Developer Piers Guy is a passionate Stop Climate Change When We Had – is replaced by a series of glimpses advocate for wind farms, but he drives the Chance?” into the lives of real people in all their a BMW and finds himself bogged Review: Paul Sorrell complexities and contradictions. down in a battle with locals who oppose his project to erect dozens of t’s perhaps a sign that climate These stories are drawn together in turbines on a Bedfordshire farm on Ichange has gone mainstream that compelling fashion in the person environmental grounds – an irony not I saw this film at my local multiplex. of British character actor Pete lost on southerners who have been More than that, Hoyts was happy to Postlethwaite (Brassed Off, In the following the fight to keep wind farms have the producer, former Dunedin Name of the Father), who plays the role away from Central Otago’s pristine woman Lizzie Gillett, front a question- of a solitary archivist ensconced in a tussock landscapes. and-answer session after the screening lofty castle-like structure in the now I attended. While The Age of Stupid devastated Arctic – the year is 2055 It is especially disheartening to see contains enough hard infomation to – reviewing real-life footage of stories the third-world characters aspiring scare us into changing our prodigal and events from the disintegrating to Western levels of consumption, ways, the film is structured around a world of 2007. He articulates the lauding America as their cultural series of interlocking stories of ordinary plaintive and inescapable question model. Jeh Wadia, the go-getting people caught up in the complexities of that lies at the heart of the film: “Why boss of a new cut-price Indian airline, an issue that ultimately involves us all. didn’t we do something when we had wants to take millions of his fellow The lecturing tone that characterised the chance?” citzens off the trains and fly them Al Gore’s filmAn Inconvenient Truth – to work – at vast cost to the planet Not surprisingly, oil is the villain of – and bawls out offending employees the piece, and Shell Oil the chief in language that would make Donald whipping boy. While, as Lizzie Gillett Trump blush. Even the socially aware classes from whom most film critics ss pointed out, other oil companies are Layefa reveals that becoming a doctor are drawn remain religiously tone-deaf. also culpable, the focus on Shell helps is only a stepping stone to a bright Redemption in Kowalski’s story is in link the personal narratives into a larger new life as a model and movie star. fact deeply Christian, even if he himself story. Thus we meet Alvin DuVernay, is a most unlikely alter Christus. a Shell exploration scientist whose While The Age of Stupid encourages us home in New Orleans was devastated to think for ourselves about the issues Gran Torino is, technically, not a perfect by Hurricane Katrina and who, after it raises, and avoids bombarding us film. The acting is uneven, several rescuing dozens of his neighbours from with masses of undigested technical scenes fail, and the characterisation the floodwaters, discovers that there’s details, the basic statistics it presents is incomplete. However, Eastwood’s more to life than accumulating stuff. are grim indeed. It seems we have Kowalski is masterful and convincing until 2015 for the resource graph to and gives credibility to the whole Shell is notorious for its activities in show a sufficient downturn in our use production. His performance and the Nigeria, and Layefa Malemi, a trainee of fossil fuels to avoid boosting global interlocking themes of the film itself doctor from the Niger Delata, tells temperatures by a further 2 degrees, make Gran Torino one of the most of her ambitions for herself and her thus precipitating runaway climate honest and thought-provoking films people amidst communal violence and change. I have seen for quite some time. And the pollution of waterways brought it could have been entitled Atonement about by oil extraction and the wealth Confronted with this seemingly with considerably more justice than it has delivered – to a tiny elite. impossible task, we may be tempted to a more meretricious recent film despair. But by showing us a mirror of trumpeting that title. As these stories unfold, we realise the ourselves in all our human complexity, falsity of dividing people into heroes mixed motives and endless capacity for View Gran Torino in Holy Week next and villains, environmental goodies illusion, the film places the solution to year (but don’t show it in Sunday and baddies, however tempting such a the biggest challenge humanity will School). It would be interesting (if simplistic apportioning of blame may face in our time squarely in our own that is the right word) to view it with be in the present scenario – climate hands. n Black Power gang members and find change and global warming are such For further information on the film and the out what they make of it. n complex issues that they reveal the science behind global warming, see ss Permission Art & Christianity mixed motives in us all. www.ageofstupid.net and www.notstupid.org

Tui Motu InterIslands 27 September 2009 book reviews

right? Wrong. There is no difference. what happens when the income gap widens? There are two plausible explanations. One is social mobility – healthier people tend to improve their status. The Spirit Level: Why More Equal to expectations, in more unequal Social mobility may partly explain Societies Almost Always Do Better societies there are greater negative why problems congregate at the Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett factors among the wealthier as well as bottom but not why more unequal Allen Lane 265pp plus 65-page index among the poorer. The key factor is the societies have more problems overall. Review: Jim Elliston income gap between the top and bottom The other explanation is that we 20 percent of a given population. are affected by the average income his is a remarkable book. It differences within our own society. outlines a social theory derived, The authors reduced the top 50 T Regarding the tendency of the poor not from a political or philosophical wealthiest countries to 23, eliminating to spend on inessentials, the research standpoint, but from the analysis of those without sufficient data. New evidence indicates that this arises decades of peer reviewed research Zealand, which came sixth in inequality, does not fare well. They found that the because of shame and pride – the need by hundreds of people. It reaches a to ‘keep up with the Joneses’. startling conclusion that has only statistics on health problems coincided recently become possible. with those for other negative social Because greater disparities in health factors – levels of trust, mental and social problems reflect social status That there are causal links between illness/addictions, life expectancy/ differences in culture and behaviour, poverty and socially undesirable infant mortality, obesity, children’s it seems that material inequality is outcomes is not surprising. Some hold educational performance, teenage probably central to these differences. the poor are poor because they are lazy, deaths, homicides, imprison­ment rates, Disparities provide a skeleton or and that various minorities falsely social mobility. The methodology is framework around which class and claim discrimination when their lot meticulously ex­plain­ed, along with cultural differences are formed. is really attributable to their own easy-to-understand graphs and further failings. This attitude is reinforced information is available on their Statistics from Japan and Sweden show by the incidence of poor people website (equalitytrust.org.uk). that greater equality can be gained neglecting necessities in favour of either by using taxes and benefits relative luxuries. Richer people tend on average to be to redistribute unequal incomes, or healthier and happier than poorer by greater equality in gross income As affluent societies have grown people in the same society. So, when before taxes and benefits. In the final richer there have been long term people in one rich society are almost part of this very readable book the increases in anxiety, depression and twice as rich on average as people in authors outline practical ways to build many other social problems. Contrary another they should be much happier, a constituency for change. n

great little read with powerful message

Passing Bells: wars, non-violence, a world economy which last year spent killed, communities devastated and common morality $1464 billion on weapons, his has been countryside ruined. W J Foote a minority voice. The Glen Press Will Foote can see no redeeming Price: $20 But war hasn’t gone away and neither qualities associated with such mass Review: Jim Consedine has Will Foote. This genial 89-year- destruction. In that he stands with old retired teacher recently published Jesus, Te Whiti and Tohu, Gandhi and ill Foote is well known in peace his fifth book on issues relating to war other great peacemakers of history; like circles in New Zealand. As a W and peace. Passing Bells is a great little them he makes a compelling argument conscientious objector in World War read with a powerful message. Will for the outlawing of war. He traces the II, he spent four years in prison for his succinctly traces the history of wars success of movements of non-violence, refusal to take up arms and fight and kill right through from those emanating both within New Zealand and through others in war. Ever since, he has been a from Europe in the 1800s past The ‘people power’ in other countries like reasoned voice on behalf of pacifism and Great War, 1914-18, through to those the Philippines when twice in the last the need to find ways to constructively 25 years governments were toppled in the Gulf and Afghanistan and Bush’s engage with those who differ, without when mass rallies took to the streets war on terror. Every line he writes recourse to arms. Needless to say, in and demanded change. a world saturated by both images and underlies the futility of such wars and the reality of violence and war and in the human cost in terms of people Will Foote shows in his short pithy s

28 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009 to church – is to be sent away from the eucharist: a drama in three acts church to “love and serve the Lord”.

Each chapter is animated by Fr Why go to Church? Act One begins with the confession Timothy’s enthusiasm, his use of By Timothy Radcliffe OP and forgiveness of our sinfulness, with apt quotations (from Aquinas to Continuum 2008 a reminder that the Eucharist is the Steinbeck) and his sense of humour. Pbk. 214 pp. $NZ39.90 main sacrament for the forgiveness of He is realistic about what can dampen Review: Jim Neilan sin. This is not an exercise in stirring enthusiasm about ‘going to church’ up guilt but giving thanks for God’s – it’s cold, the sermon is irritating, ne Sunday a mother shook her unfailing forgiveness. Our faith is Oson awake, telling him it was strengthened by listening to the the music trite, the pews hard. He time to go to church. No effect. Ten readings, the age-old story of God’s tells the story about the Archbishop of minutes later she was back: “Get out of friendship with humanity. This leads Birmingham sitting beside the parish bed immediately and go to church.” into expressing our belief (the Creed) priest as a woman danced up the aisle “Mother, I don’t want to. It’s so boring! and asking for what we need in the with offertory gifts. He turned to the Why should I bother?” prayers of the faithful. parish priest and said, “If she asks for “For two reasons: you know you your head on a platter, I shall give it”. As a member of the ‘Order of must go to church on a Sunday, and We have papal encyclicals and bishops’ secondly, you are the bishop of the Preachers’, the author has some pastoral letters about the importance diocese.” excellent advice for those who, week after week, have the daunting of the Eucharist. Timothy is not This is how Timothy Radcliffe responsibility of preaching the homily. constrained by the restrictions of the introduces his latest book. The title Their main task, he says, is to help us language these men find it necessary implies a challenge to all the common discover cause for joy and hope from to use. excuses for not going to church – it’s the readings. boring, there’s nothing in it for me, or This would be a great book for use in John Wayne’s, “I don’t much like God In Act Two we are led from the discussion groups. Each scene in the when he gets under a roof”. preparation of the gifts to “lift up our three-act drama brings insights into hearts” and become part of Christ’s what can so often be a routine liturgy. But it’s the subtitle, The Drama of the prayer and actions on the night before Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Eucharist that describes the theme of he died. this book. We are taken on a journey Canterbury, asked his friend Timothy through the celebration of Mass, not Act Three begins with the great prayer to write this year’s ‘lenten book’. He by way of a liturgical commentary or of love and kinship with Our Father has done a great service for all who a theology lecture, but with each part and carries the drama through the wish to deepen their appreciation of being presented as a scene in a three- sign of peace and communion. The the sacrament, which is at the very part drama. final scene – the reason why we go centre of Christian life. n s tracts as he traces the evolution of wars Pope Benedict XVI that there have always been alternatives through non-violent direct action which CARITAS IN VERITATE would have prevented much pain and anguish and brought healing to social Encyclical Letter division a lot quicker. Integral Human Development in This slim volume is a catechism for Charity and Truth beginners in peacemaking who are seeking to understand what has happened in the past century in particular, why we Available in both book and audio format. have such a violent world and what can Book $13.50 + $2.50 p/p immediately available be done so that a peaceful future can be 4 CD audio set with delivery 2 weeks. built for all. It is clearly written, very easy to follow and contains a mixture Freephone 0508-988-988: Freefax 0508-988-989 of good graphics and photos. It would Freepost 609, PostShop, Waipukurau be wonderful if it graced the shelves of email: [email protected] every school library in the country. www.christiansupplies.co.nz

Tui Motu InterIslands 29 September 2009 comment

a man of the press who really made a difference

alter Cronkite died last members. As Benedict XVI puts it, a Wmonth. After many years as Crosscurrents just society is concerned with integral a reporter he became a news anchor Jim Elliston human development for all. in the early days of American TV where he established a reputation for In both cases the focus is on the impartiality and accuracy. In those common good, which also benefits both victim and criminal. days the accent was on information enlightenment. And in this instance a rather than entertainment, and he large part of the reaction has been to the glue of society became one of the most trusted public ‘shoot the messenger’. figures in the US. It would be unrealistic to expect a What Chief Justice said was that Walter Cronkite to wield similar He visited Vietnam in 1968 to see for more than 20 years of increasingly influence today with the greatly himself the state of the war. With his punitive penal policy have not made increased number of media outlets. credibility enhanced by his experience communities any safer; so we need: Moreover, the current emphasis is on as a World War 2 reporter, his report • early intervention for those at risk of items with high emotional impact. that the official line was grossly anti-social and criminal influences; misleading had enormous impact. ‘Guardian’ columnist Madeleine The ensuing change in public opinion • more resources and public support Bunting recently asked: “Where is forced President Lyndon Johnson for probation officers; the new vision to unite us?” given to seek a negotiated settlement, and • a comprehensive strategy to address that religion is outmoded, the magic decide not to run for a second term. mental health issues in crime. of the market has proved illusory and society is becoming more fragmented. sian elias and justice Her other suggestion, that the focus Our problems pale in comparison There is a convention that judges do on victims carries a real risk to justice, with the UK’s, but the trend is in that not speak publicly on political matters. goes to the very core of our justice direction. Judges are not public servants; they system – and, in a way, to the basis hold an independent public office. So of our society. How? It unbalances the On the other hand, New Zealanders it is acceptable for a senior judge, on system. Society – the people of New as a whole are generous and strongly rare occasions, to draw attention to Zealand as a whole – has a duty to inclined to give people ‘a fair go’, with matters of major importance that fall all its members to maintain sufficient a large number of active volunteers within the experience of the judiciary, order to allow them legitimate still helping to glue our society provided that it is done in a non- freedom to live and act. That is the together. We expect leadership from partisan manner. If these rules are not aim of criminal law – otherwise there our politicians, but their survival observed the comments would lack would be no basis for the community depends on public acceptance. credibility. to become involved. The precondition for a new vision Chief Justice Dame Sian Elias was As the NZ Catholic Bishops said is a strong constituency to underpin meticulous in her observation of in their recent submission, “The it. That will occur only if Christians those rules when she recently outlined basis of our society’s right to punish as a whole, rather than the relatively five areas that need new thinking. those who abuse the human rights of few, respond to their Baptismal call to They should be subject to reasoned others is also the basis of our society’s work for the common good. Too often public examination. The dismissive responsibility to protect the human ‘serving the church’ is presented as the response of Justice Minister Simon rights of offenders.” pinnacle of apostolic action. Power – that Government sets the laws and judges apply them – was Two pertinent issues: first, should help But the seismic shift in pastoral an excellent example of talkback be given to victims? Yes, in a manner formation implied by the change of radio-land mentality, rather than the that will enable them to resume emphasis in official church teaching thoughtful response of someone with functioning as members of society. over the past 45 years still has not an important portfolio. Second, is more than punishment of penetrated some places. This includes the perpetrators required from us? Yes. working with non-Christians. In 2000 In recent years there has been a tendency For its own protection the community John Paul II called for pastoral plans to in news reporting to personalise issues, needs to take reasonable steps to enable implement those changes. How many especially with TV, to the detriment of them to function as contributing parishes have responded? n

30 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009 year of the priest

y celebration of the Year for Reflecting on the two sides of the case, today can certainly be inspired by the MPriests got off to a bad start. I could see the truth of what I had life of St John Vianney. But they need A letter to the editor of the London read elsewhere about the choice of an the good sense to choose which of the journal, The Tablet, made a case that St exemplar for the Year for Priests. The particulars of his ministry should be John Vianney, the Cure d’Ars, should saints are always an inspiration for imitated and which should be left to not have been put forward as a model us. But they are not in every single be part of the historical record. of how a parish priest should conduct aspect of their lives a model of how we himself. When lads of the village should shape our own conduct. There is one peril of which we must engaged in stealing apples from trees, be aware as we celebrate the Year for Vianney’s remedy was to have all the Talking with Italian classmates in Priests. Ministerial priesthood is an trees in the parish orchard cut down. Rome 50 years ago, I told them that aspect of Church life from which He used his authority to have drinking in such lands as Australia and New women are, at least for the foreseeable and dancing ruled out in the village Zealand, one of the duties of a priest future, excluded. The fashion in which tavern, seeing them as being occasions was to see to the fostering of a well we celebrate this Year of the Priest must of sin. The writer of the letter to the attended weekly parish dance. Steeped be one that does not feed alienation. in a mind-set similar to that of St John editor suggested that even at this late Priesthood in the ministerial sense date the Church might well be advised Vianney, my classmates could not understand how it could be the duty may be a men-only matter. But it is to make a U-turn in the matter of founded on a deeper reality. This is having St John put forward as a model of a priest to promote such an event. Instead he should be condemning it. the priesthood of Christ in which for the clergy. all members of the Church share. My reading of this Letter to the Editor The needs of our part of the Church In that sense, women are as much a was followed closely by my attendance were different to those of the village part of the priesthood as are men. It at a gathering for clergy, organised by of Ars. The bringing together of the will be important to ensure that the the diocese in which I live. The priest young people of the parish played an Year of the Priest is a unifying event, conducting the seminar session put effective role in lessening the number not a divisive one. We must keep in before us the other side of the Cure of mixed marriages. Many of the mind at all times that priesthood is a d’Ars. His prayerfulness, his openness readers of these lines could say, “My quality shared by all believers, not just to God’s love, the priority he gave to parents came to know each other something enjoyed by a limited group n his ministry as a parish priest, all got through the parish dance (or at the of males. due presentation. parish tennis courts)”. The clergy of Humphrey O’Leary

Humphrey O’Leary is a canon lawyer and Rector of the Redemptorist community in Auckland

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Tui Motu InterIslands 31 September 2009 postscript

off my shoes. Baby Jalori mashes some soft pear into the A mothers journal... rug covering us. I jump up. Find a bib and a cloth to clean the rug. Sit back down again. What are the distractions Kaaren Mathias and worries that... Whoops, now she’s crawling towards t’s a still, subdued morning. I sit out on the verandah. the cup of hot tea. Move tea. Move her. Pick up the pen IHigh cloud arches over the hills. Soon I’ll need to get again. I find it much easier to think about details and plan up and make the Sunday morning pancakes, feed the shopping trips than to sit still and notice holy ground… cat, make the bed, wash the clothes. For now I dig out a Oh dear, now the sticky hands are reaching for my hair new spirituality book and my journal and seek to plumb and clothes. Where is that cloth? I put down the pen, put my heart. My little girl, nearly one, sits nearby stickily down the journal, put away the books. Pick up the baby. sucking a pear. It’s a still, subdued morning. I sit out on the balcony. High Macrina Wiederkehr’s book, Seasons of the Heart, opens cloud arches over the hills. My little girl is nestled on my with the chapter ‘Take off your shoes’. Feel the earth lap, her downy brown hair soft under my chin. I watch between your toes. Wake up. Like Moses and the burning our neighbours out working in the garden. A cow and a bush. Like an autumn tree shedding its leaves. boy walk down the road. The cup of Lady Grey tea I sip is lemony and hot. Green smells of freshly cut grass float up Take off your shoes of distraction to our balcony eyrie. Inside the house, the piano bangs out Take off your shoes of hurry and worry Mary had a little lamb to compete with Ode to Joy on the Take off anything that prevents you recorder. Morning is here. Jalori shares some of her sticky From being a child of wonder pear core. Mmm. Slightly furry. Sweet and grainy. Take off your shoes I look down. My feet are bare. The ground I sit on is holy. The ground you stand on is holy The ground of my being is holy. The ground of your being is holy Kaaren Mathias and her husband Jeph and their four children are living in a remote valley in the Himalayas – setting up a new I pick up a pen to write in my journal. Reflect on these community health programme and enjoying the company of the words that ring so true. How and when do I need to take Lahuli subsistence farmers living fully present in each season

Hope is our Song Peace – Justice – Creation The New Zealand Hymnbook Trust announces a Major National Conference Labour Weekend 2009 October 23 to 26 Palmerston North, New Zealand

Keynote speakers include:

Clive Pearson, Principal, Uniting Church in Colin Gibson: ‘Justice in the hymns of New Zealand Australia Theological College: ‘Public Theology’ hymnwriters’ – issues around the songs and words we sing And other leading NZ hymnwriters: Jim and June Strathdee from United States Marnie Barrell, Bill Wallace, Bill Bennett, America: leaders in music ministry Colin Gibson, Shirley Erena Murray

Wide range of workshop options – equal attention given to words (theology) and to the music Launch of the Trust’s fourth Hymn Book: Hope is our Song – 160 new Songs, Hymns, Carols

Organised by NZ Hymnbook Trust (John and Gillian Thornley: [email protected]) Full information found on Trust website, including workshop options: www.hymns.org.nz

32 Tui Motu InterIslands September 2009