Tui Motu InterIslands

April 1999 Price $4

all you fountains and springs bless the Lord TuiTui MotuMotu InterIslandsInterIslands 11 editorial

Pandora’s Box

Contents wo themes of nature come strongly farmer next door or, more ominously, 2-3 ...editorials Tthrough this Easter issue of Tui into the wild. And what about the bio- John Roberts Motu. One is the autumnal sequence of diversity of species which depend for 4 ...Vatican news dying as a presage of new life. Nature their food on the variety of plant species 5-7 ...A world under threat: the seems to be signing off – but with a decimated by those chemical sprays? mes- s a g e o f M i r i a m golden splendour which already carries MacGillis OP the promise of burgeoning life soon • Another development is so-called 8-9 ...A new dawn in E Timor to return. The other theme is water. ‘terminator’ technology, enabling seed 10-11 ...A beautiful dying Easter is the time when we celebrate companies to sell a product which ger- Mike Riddell ritually the moment of our rebirth as minates once only, so that the growers 12-13 ...Abundant giving: a prayer Christians. Water is a sign of abundant are forced to go back to the seed com- Joy Cowley life and abundant grace, flowing from panies each year. Good for the profits of 14-15 ...So what did happen on an abundantly loving God. This theme the companies and their share-holders. Easter morning? has special meaning when the rains Not so good for the growers. John Dunn do not come. The sudden breaking of • Most dangerous of all is what one easter magazine drought with the first autumn rains might call the Thalidomide factor. The 16-19 ...The waters of Rome has an almost magical greening effect: new bio-technology enables the research Judith Graham we are reminded how much our lives biochemist to tamper with the genetic 20-23 ...God and garlic soup depend on the basic elements and their code itself. Agriculturalists for thou- Nick Thompson regular supply. 24 ...It’s another story now sands of years have experimented with Jenny Collins It is the last Easter of the Second Millen- selctive breeding of animals and crops 25-26 ...In the light of the resurrection nium. While many people are already to produce the amazing variety of pro- Mary Betz preparing for a New Year’s Eve party ductive species now available. But their 27 ...Intruders in the home – the box methods were simply an accelerated ‘se- Paul Andrews SJ to end all parties, there is also an omi- lection’ process, mimicking what nature 28-29 ...Book reviews nous sense of looming crises. While the Kathleen Doherty, Y2K bug is a worry, it pales into insig- has been doing quite successfully for Jim Consedine, John Stone nificance beside the issue of Genetically millions of years. The new technology, 30 ...Crosscurrents Modified food. The complexities of this however, interferes with the integrity 31-32 ...Postscripts are beyond most of us; but there are at of the gene pool itself, with little heed Selwyn Dawson, John Honoré least three points raising serious ethical of possibly disastrous consequences to questions: the world’s ecosystem. Have we so soon Cover Photo:Terry Coles forgotten Thalidomide – or Mad Cow • It is possible now to take a gene for disease? When one pauses to contem- Independent Catholic Magazine Ltd resistance to a particular herbicide and plate the infinitely delicate biochemical P O Box 6404, Dunedin North introduce it into a food crop. When the balance which enables life processes to Phone: 03 477 1449 crop is sprayed with weed-killer, all the work, then the new technology is like Editor: Michael Hill, IC weeds are killed but the crop remains using a sledgehammer to tune a Concert Assistant Editor: Frances Skelton unaffected. Better yields, cheaper food, Grand Piano! Illustrator: Don Moorhead and higher profits for agrobusiness. Directors: Why not? Unfortunately things are not Sr Miriam MacGillis (see pages 5-7) Tom Cloher that simple, because the pollen of the calls upon New Zealand to declare Annie Gray genetically modified species can spread itself a Genetically Modified Free Elizabeth Mackie, OP anywhere – into the crops of the organic zone, showing again the sort of moral Margaret May ss Judith McGinley, OP Ann Neven, RSJ Tui Motu welcomes discussion of spiritual, theological and social issues, in the light of gospel values and in the interest of a more peaceful and just Paul Rankin, OP society. Divergence of opinion is expected and will normally be published, Patricia Stevenson, RSJ although that does not necessarily imply editorial commitment to the view- Printed by John McIndoe Ltd point expressed.

2 Tui Motu InterIslands A ‘Commotion Event’

t has become fashionable to knock the churches, either as him out of history by putting Idinosaurs headed for extinction or as just plain irrelevant. him to death. Newspaper journalists reminded me of this when I was seeking to get some information about the recent Harare Assembly of aster reminds us that his the World Council of Churches into the Wellington dailies. Ecause triumphs and is as I was told by one that his paper was not interested in the relevant and as challenging as churches unless there was some controversy or sensation afoot. ever. Celebrating Jesus’ resurr- ection must be about cele- Fortunately not everyone sees it that way. South African brating the victory of his cause. President Nelson Mandela cancelled engagements to attend It is one that will not go away, a session of the WCC assembly. He acknowledged the role of that still holds promise of the the churches in educating black youth of his generation and fullness of life with a challenge the forthrightness of the WCC in standing in solidarity with to all the forces of ‘death’ at work in our world today. the black liberation movements of Southern Africa, through grants from its Programme to Combat Racism fund. Following the Easter event the movement associated with Jesus’s cause became known as the Way. It had a loose, He also requested the churches to identify with the struggle fluid and relatively unstructured existence. When it was for democracy and human rights in Africa and to assist in institutionalised and became church, the maintenance of the confronting the issues of growth and development on the institution rather than the furtherance of the cause became continent. Mandela saw the churches as vital and relevant in the focus of attention and absorbed people’s energy. their identification with the cause of justice and well-being for the people of Africa. His plea was warm and personal: At the WCC Assembly Japanese theologian Kosuke Koyama “But for the churches,” he said, “I would not be standing reminded us of the significance of the cause. He spoke of the before you here today”. compassionate God who seeks to turn the world upside down by running from the centre to the periphery. Jesus modelled Yet much of institutional Christianity may have had its this in his ministry by spending most of his time with those day. While there are many who would cling to the creeds, at the periphery, and challenging those at the centre who orthodoxy and forms of the past, there are also many seeking held the power. The gospel, Koyama said, is the commotion a more relevant understanding of their faith. Frustrated by the event ushered in by Jesus Christ. The invitation to be part of churches’ reluctance to change, they have left the institution the Jesus commotion, to be at the periphery, challenging the in significant numbers. Some have joined a host of alternative centre and seeking to turn things upside down, comes once groups where there is greater freedom and safety to explore again to us this Easter. matters of theology, spirituality and values. Because it is fashionable to dismiss the significance of the We need to remember that Jesus never set out to establish a churches, its members may be forgiven for thinking they are church. Rather, he was passionately devoted to a cause (reign of little significance. But Easter – with its reminder that the or kingdom of God). In his lifetime it gave rise to just a small Jesus cause cannot be written off – is a powerful reminder movement of committed people which he never sought to that when we identify with that cause we are doing something institutionalise. Because his cause challenged the ecclesiastical significant. The institutional forms of the churches may be and political power holders of the day, they attempted to write increasingly irrelevant, but the Jesus cause is as valid as ever. ss John Roberts leadership that was demonstrated in the and enables this generation, for the first Rev John Roberts is a Wellington campaign against Nuclear weaponry. time, to see ourselves in proper context. Minister working in the enabling Unfortunately, under our present To become educated and enlightened ministry team at Ta Taha Maori leadership any such decisions will be to a new world-view, to see Creation Methodist Church. follow strict economic and political as one wonderful masterpiece of an He attended the WCC Assembly expediency, not ethics. Will it interfere Ever-loving Creator: that is the first and in Harare last November. His with profits – will it garner more votes? necessary step towards a humbler and a account of the Assembly was But Sr Miriam also offers us an Easter saner evaluation of our world, preserv- printed in the March issue of hope. Science itself opens our minds ing the earth uncontaminated for future Tui Motu. to the great sweep of our cosmic past generations. M.H.

Tui Motu InterIslands 3 overseas news

Pope John Paul Vatican News receives FAO medal Before Christmas Pope John Paul was Vatican champions Pinochet awarded the Agricola Medal by FAO, General Augusto Pinochet came to power in Chile in Septem- the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United ber 1973, overthrowing the left-wing, democratically elected Nations. The award was made in recognition of the Pope’s President Allende. Immediately there were gross human “continuous struggle against hunger and malnutrition and rights violations including massacres and the use of torture. his demonstrated concern for the plight of humanity’s poor, Over 2000 Chileans lost their lives and many disappeared. and for the peace of the world”. After seven years Pinochet was forced to hand over the presi- The medals have been awarded since 1977 to people who have dency into civilian hands, but he retained command over the played a prominent role in increasing world food production, army. Before his eventual retirement he helped set in place a at the same time expressing their solidarity with millions of constitution giving senators (like himself) immunity under people who suffer from hunger. Chilean law. During the reign of terror the leader of the opposition had Mary McAleese agreeably surprised been Chile’s own Cardinal Raul Silva. But not all church A recent visitor to Pope John Paul was President Mary authorities backed him; some, including bishops, backed the McAleese of Ireland. But instead of the “tired, weak and Pinochet regime in the name of anti-Marxism. A key figure feeble old man” she had expected she was agreeably surprised before, during and after the Pinochet coup was Archbishop to find him “ferociously alive intellectually – he wanted to (now Cardinal) Angelo Sodano, who was Papal Nuncio from talk”. Their conversation concentrated on peace negotiations 1977-78. He cultivated strong relations with right-wing in Northern Ireland. politicians and with Pinochet himself. While in Rome, President McAleese also met the Archbishop It is this same Cardinal Sodano, now Vatican Secretary of of Canterbury for the first time. Both he and the Pope praised State, who has petitioned the British government not to allow her role in Ireland’s process of reconciliation. ■ the General to be extradited to Spain for trial. This petition, which would have needed the approval of Pope John Paul, raises serious questions. Many ask how the Pope who has cam- paigned so strongly against human rights violations can now Nourishing the appear to be supporting a man who is guilty of just such viola- tions. Is the Vatican slipping back into a policy of endorsing Soul crimes perpetrated by the state in South America? Cardinal Programme of Personal Enrichment Sodano argues that it’s necessary for Pinochet to return to Chile in order to speed up the process of reconciliation in a Offering an understanding of personal transformation and strife-torn country. But local bishops say his presence would an experience of the inner journey for men and women. have precisely the opposite effect, since under the immunity Tuesday Evenings 7.00pm – 9.15pm clause he cannot be made to stand trial. 20 April-8 June and 20 July-7 Sept 1999 The Vatican is also promoting the humanitarian argument. Presented by the Futuna Ministry The General is now 83 years of age. But hardly anyone is asking for his imprisonment; simply that he should come to trial so that questions may be answered and Pinochet made Wells of publicly responsible for what he did. Should the Vatican have made such an intervention? Living Water Catholics number over one billion A Residential Programme of Personal In the latest edition of the Vatican Directory, the Annuario and Spiritual Renewal Pontificio,Catholics in the world for the first time are quoted Eleven Weeks: 13 Sept - 26 Nov 1999 as exceeding one billion. The statistics show they number 7 Feb - 21 April 2000 17.9 percent of the world’s total population: 62.9 percent Or 22 Weeks: 7 Feb - 7 July 2000 in the Americas; 41.4 percent of Europeans; 14.9 percent Inquiries or applications to: of Africans; 3 percent only of the people in Asia; and 27.5 Coordinator, Futuna Retreat Centre percent in Oceania. While there is no noticeable change P O Box 17 087 Karori, Wellington in the number of priests, the overall number of religious is Phone: (4) 4768 734 Fax: (4) 4768 609 declining world wide.

4 Tui Motu InterIslands ecology A world under Threat “You need to declare New Zealand a Genetically Modified Free Zone – before the whole world,” said Miriam MacGillis OP to audiences up and down the country over recent weeks

y declaring itself a nuclear free across the face of the planet, and of these pede to irreversible disaster. zone and ‘thumbing its nose’ at myriads of species homo sapiens is simply the great powers, New Zealand the most recent and the most lethal. A false cosmology Yet why, asks Berry, do the powers-that- onceB sent a powerful message of hope to During the long history of life on earth be take no notice? Because the Western the peoples of the world. And it is just the greatest cataclysms have occasioned such a gesture that is needed today, for – the mass extinction of species. And world is steeped in a false cosmology. or so Miriam maintains – the ecological this is precisely what human activity is Every world-view is an attempt by crisis is the supreme issue of our age. causing at this present time: the mass humans to answer the same perennial extinction of species. Our children questions: why the seasons? why birth Sister Miriam is a gentle, homespun and our grandchildren will simply not and death? why pain and pestilence? woman; a Dominican who preaches know many of the plants and animals why the destructive force of tempest and not through rhetoric but by her sincer- which are commonplace to us. We – our earthquake and tsunami? Why nature ity; an unobtrusive person who com- generation – will have wiped them out. ‘red in tooth and claw’? municates her message with simplicity and a quiet passion. She has dedicated In previous cataclysms species have The Western world-view coming down her whole life to this cause, although been wiped out, but DNA, the staff of to us from classical times is profoundly she modestly attributes the content of life itself, has remained intact. What dualistic. The divine is seen as perfect, her message primarily to the Passionist humanity is presently engaged in is transcendent, other-worldly. Whereas priest and world renowned ecological the wilful ‘modification’ of DNA itself, this ‘lower’ world of change is imper- spokesperson, Thomas Berry. alongside a progressive destruction of the fect, transient: containing the relics of oxygen membrane which surrounds the a golden age in the past, perhaps to be According to Berry humanity is facing earth providing the breath of life for its restored at the Parousia to come. In this a gigantic schism in world views. Do creatures. In recent times some 70,000 scenario Christ returns at the end of this we, he asks, see the human species as new chemicals have been created, some age to “make all things new”. The im- integrated into the natural world – or of which impair or destroy the endocrine perfections of our present existence are do we see humankind as separate and balance within the bodies of humans seen as abnormal, temporary, ‘sin-full’. above the world of matter and life? This and other species. These facts, says Sr present age appears to be the end-times Miriam, demand a “monumental call Indigenous peoples, whether the of the Cenozoic period. The last 65 to arms” to bring to a halt this wanton Polynesians of the Pacific or the million years have seen the floweringof process of mass destruction, which is American Indians, have a totally an unprecedented abundance of species nothing less than a lemming-like stam- different sense of the earth: of the

Tui Motu InterIslands 5 ecology divine and the human. Their world is tion-centred and tend to read history hypotheses available. Now we know one. The divine is immanent. The world as a discontinuous process. so much more. We know the material is inhabited by a Great Spirit, and the universe had a beginning. There has beasts are its children. The cycle of life Berry regards these institutions of the always been Spirit and Mind indwelling. and death is all part of a continuous West as ill-equipped to face up to the What we need to learn and to teach our process. It is ‘the way things are’ – ecological crisis because they see a radi- young is that there is a story of evolu- neither perfect or imperfect. cal discontinuity at the root of the world tion lasting more than 14 billion years as they experience it. The other-than- in which our world has been shaped. The Western way is to refashion the human has no voice. They have become Our children are being born into a time landscape to suit a passing human fixed in a dualistic mindset. of grace for they are the first generation need – whereas indigenous peoples who can learn the story from its very strive to live in harmony with the earth The way out Berry, however, is not pessimistic. What beginning. Evolution must no longer be as they experience it; for that is to live taught in the mechanistic, purposeless in harmony with God. They therefore fashion of the old cosmology. see Western destruction of their world indigenous peoples see as an obscenity. For them the emphasis the Western destruction The universe as one must always be on inner transforma- Thomas Berry and his scientist col- tion, not a violent manipulation of the of their world as an laborator, Brian Swimme, maintain environment. For example, in North that ‘uni-verse’ means what it says: one America the coming of the European obscenity expression, one revelation. The universe has entailed a 95 percent destruction science has provided us with, especially is closed enough that its substance co- of the native forests. in recent decades, is the data to enable heres together and does not fall apart. Each atom retains an identity so that the Four institutions underpinning us to retell our own story. We can begin to begin to know and understand the ‘selfness’ of Carbon is not the selfness this cosmology earth and the universe in a way our of Nitrogen. Yet it is open enough that • the global economy: which exists to parents never could. It is not enough each part can relate to every other part, transform material things into com- for us to find scapegoats, to blame the and this relationship enables change modities for human use scientists or the industrialists or the to occur. It is this open-closed character • governments: which exist to protect economists. We are all responsible. So which permeates all things. people and their property. Only persons we must make the change ourselves. He have rights. Not nature, not the earth From this foundation three observable thinks this will only come about from the education system principles ensue: • : which more and the grassroots, from the bottom up. more exists to train people simply to be • there is a constant movement of more efficient producers and consumers Once upon a time the Creation myths differentiation. All the elements of • Western religions which are redemp- and the story of the Fall were the best matter have evolved out of the original

About this time her Order was left a piece of land, some 170 acres, in rural New Jersey. The property became Gen- Re-inhabiting the Earth esis Farm. Initially Miriam concentrated on encouraging the locals to change their dietary and cooking habits, and ister Miriam MacGillis attributes her ‘conversion’ to her substitute a more wholesome diet for the ‘junk food’ which Spresent beliefs to two chance encounters. The first was dominates popular American cuisine. meeting a 17-year-old girl during the time of the Vietnam war, whose passion for the peace process kindled the same Then they started to grow organic vegetables on the prop- fervour in her. “Before that time,” she says, “I was asleep”. erty, but found they could not compete with all the hidden subsidies which the American economy gives to supermarket The second encounter was in 1977 when she first heard produce. However, progressively they have gone into part- Thomas Berry speak. Her Order had encouraged her to nership with local families – 190 of them – who now are work in Peace Education, but she was becoming aware of partners in the farm, sharing its abundance as well as its risk. the failure of the so-called ‘green revolution’. In the Philip- pines the poor people were still starving, because they could Now, Genesis Farm is also an education centre, where people not afford to buy the petrochemical products needed for the come to learn together how to build a better world and a radical increase in productivity of the land. Berry persuaded more just society, using principles of ecology, biodiversity her that it was a new world-view that was needed, not just and reverence for the earth. ■ tinkering with the old technologies. M.H.

6 Tui Motu InterIslands hydrogen. • all things exhibit an interiority. Within did you know..? themselves all beings contain the mys- tery of their origin. Each element, each atom is unique and irreplaceable. • there is a communion which holds all the parts together. So the story of the Universe is the creation of a Commu- nity of Being. And all this was in place before human beings came along. Then the human emerged with the power of self-reflection. But we are dependent beings. We depend on the whole planet, materially and spiritually. Each animal or plant species we destroy destroys us. The weight of heavy tractors can reduce soil fertility. Recent research in Germany Just as hydrogen and oxygen combine has shown that when a tractor exerting a weight of five tonnes per wheel passes six to form a new substance, water; so hu- times over one piece of ground, the density of small invertebrates in the soil beneath man beings and groups need to come is reduced up to 80 percent. This has devastating effects on soil fertility, and the together in just such combinations damage is made even worse by ploughing the ground. of opposites. The Christians and the Muslims come together. The breakdown So – how does my work impact on the of difference and antipathy leads to a earth’s work? Are they mutually enhanc- Free breakthrough towards unity. This is all ing? It is simply unbearable, says Tho- part of the law of nature. mas Berry, to destroy a forest in order Christopher Exploitation of any kind is evil because to make disposable chopsticks! Why News Notes it contradicts this fundamental law cannot we rely on the sun for energy of unity. Yet the universe, because it like the rest of the earth’s organisms? is changing, entails the presence of The squandering of fossil fuels destroys Over 60 titles to choose chaos, of death, of pain and disease. an irreplaceable resource as well as pol- These are not evil. They are conditions luting the atmosphere. Monocultures from - below is a selection stultify and destroy the interdependence of inevitable change and they prompt #359 Saints: Past, Present, new creativity. Even certain forms of of ecosystems. They are contrary to na- Future ture. Whereas diversification of species violence are simply ‘the way things are’. Holiness in action changes produces abundance of life and allows When the lamb is eaten by the lion, it the world for self-healing. Meanwhile multina- does not ‘die out’; it ‘dies in’! #373 Ten Commandments tionals like Monsanto are manipulating for the 21st Century and endangering the gene pool itself. Thomas Berry asserts that this change How they shape our lives of thinking must include the Christian In New Zealand we have the conditions #379 Let Go...let God In church. Salvation history, whether for where sustainability is possible if only Your Life Jew or Christian, leaves the Cosmos we educate our people to do it. But we Rely on the Lord’s help in behind. Only in Wisdom literature is are tied into a money system which good times and bad the Cosmos still honoured. What we enslaves us. We as humans have the #392 Everyday Ethics all need to do is to come back down to power and the privilege to celebrate and Understanding ethical con- earth and, as T.S.Eliot said, to “see the reverence the great beauty of living crea- sid- erations demands place for the first time”. tion. Each place on earth should reflect work at forming – Some consequences and hopes its own special flavour; each country and informing – The work of the earth is a work of self- its peculiar genius. The Macdonald’s If unavailable at your local Parish emergence. The whole living commu- culture is an affront to all that is won- Church write to us today...all items nity from microbes to elephants exists derful in the individuality of peoples. available free on request as one, interrelated, constantly evolving The way back for a threatened species The Christophers, P O Box 1937, whole. Human work needs to relate and is to re-invent the human experience. ■ Wellington reflect the work of the earth. It is part of Inspirational ❋ Timely ❋ Practical the process, not opposed to it.

Tui Motu InterIslands 7 church in the world A New Dawn in East Timor

Tui Motu speaks to two East Timorese doctors, who are hopeful that their country will soon be free

ui Araujo and John Martins Rui Araujo (left) know what it is to go through and John Martins, hell. They both lived through postgraduate students in Public Rthe trauma of the Indonesian annexa- Health at Otago tion of their country before going to Bali to study to become doctors, and both have been in general practice under regime, being Muslim, demands that place to run, so we were advised to give the Indonesian regime. all the people have a religion, and that ourselves up to the military. Several John and Rui spoke warmly of the con- perhaps persuaded some to embrace members of my family were arrested tribution and leadership which Bishop Catholicism which stood for them, as under suspicion of having collaborated Belo has shown towards the cause of opposed to Islam which was the faith of with the guerillas. the oppressors. Catholics now form the East Timorese independence. The In- “We learned to cope with the oppres- majority of the population.” donesian regime has been extremely sion and the suspicion – but we could autocratic, and the bishop has spoken How badly did they suffer? “Terribly”, never accept it. Later, when I was GP in out fearlessly against its injustices. He says John. Thousands lost their lives, Dili, I used to receive anonymous letters is a brave man, and is well respected both through the direct action of the from the so-called People for Integration throughout the country. military, like his uncle and aunt who – East Timorese who collaborated with “We expect our bishops to speak the were taken away by the military and the regime”. shot. Others died from starvation, dis- truth,” said John, “and to attack what Both John and Rui were accused of col- ease and deprivation. It was worse in the is unfair. We look to them to be a voice laborating with the Fretelin, by giving country areas than in the city. for those who are unable to speak for medical treatment to the guerillas. The themselves. We hope for such a stance Rui and his family had to flee their Dili Massacre took place in 1991 while pastorally – but we are surprised and home and live in the bush with the they were studying out of the country, encouraged by it politically”. Fretelin guerillas for three years. “I was but Rui described how his patients in Both are old enough to remember the 11”, says Rui, “I was traumatised by the Dili were traumatised by the experience. old Portuguese days – “benign but experience. I witnessed many killings, One woman had lost her youngest child backward. There was no oppression”, especially when we were shelled from and was reduced to a state of acute says John, “and there was a legal system the sea and bombed from the air. The paranoia. Indonesians used American ‘Bronco’ which was just. Then came the invasion hat about the present situ- aircraft from the war in Vietnam. They and it brought turmoil and disorder. It ation? They both have con- dropped napalm on us. I saw one family was our first experience of war, and it siderable hopes for the fu- of six all killed by a shell when they lit was terrible. Previously about a third ture.W The political movement towards a fire to cook by. of the people were Catholics, but with independence has moved too far and is the troubles the people experienced “The Indonesian soldiers burnt the irreversible. The problem lies with the the Catholic Church as a refuge. And crops so as to drive the guerillas further military who ruled the roost in East they saw Bishop Belo as their defender. into the bush. Eventually we had no Timor for so long and do not want to Another factor is that the Indonesian

8 Tui Motu InterIslands lose face. They are arming the ‘militia’ the Fretelin guerilla leader and is now But, they insist, aid from countries such against the independence movement: under house arrest. He is not a ruthless as Australia and New Zealand will be these are a minority of East Timorese man, say the two doctors. He is a good vital during the early stages. They see who collaborated with the Indonesian Catholic and indeed was a seminarian. no point in harbouring resentment regime. They do not want to lose their Like Mandela he was once involved in against Western governments who could privileged status and they fear a backlash the armed struggle. Nevertheless even have done so much more to help their against them. the Indonesian leaders recognise that struggle. So there is considerable hope he is a moderate man. for the future. Rui felt that if the East Timorese are allowed a free vote there could be a The country is poor economically and The Catholic Church is going to have peaceful transition towards independ- technologically – but, they say, it is an important role to play, and John and ence, because the Catholic Church is rich in human potential. In spite of the Rui look forward to taking a responsible sufficiently powerful to ensure it. The oppression there are plenty of educated part in shaping a healthy future for their key figure is Xanana Gusmao, who was people who can lead a new country. country. ■ Reconciliation essential, says Bishop Belo ringing peace to the troubled land South Africa as an example. “That is that enemy, and that enemy becomes Bof East Timor will come about in an extremely important conjunction your partner.’ large part through a process of recon- of meanings,” he said, “for it is only “So, what does he mean by that? Simply ciliation, said Bishop Carlos Ximenes through establishing and agreeing that in order to make a new start to lives Belo, to New Zealand audiences dur- on the truth that we can achieve fractured by violence and fear, we must ing his visit in March. The bishop was reconciliation.” talk with our persecutor,” said Bishop in New Zealand at the invitation of the Belo. “Recognition must be made by NZ bishops and the Catholic Agency he bishop related a story told by the perpetrators of crimes as to the facts for Justice, Peace and Development, Rev. Mpambami to the South T of what happened, and victims need Caritas Aotearoa. Reconciliation, he African Commission: “Peter and John to be prepared for the recognition that said, is crucial if societies which are are friends. It happened that Peter stole crimes in which they have suffered need split apart by politics and terror are to a bicycle from John, and then after three to be put to rest, and only then can regenerate and become places where weeks Peter came to John and said, the burden of shame, fear and anger human dignity is respected. ‘John, let’s talk about reconciliation’. be relieved. This needs to happen in a “Reconciliation is not simply made “And then John said, ‘I don’t think we mutual process based on equality and by shaking hands and speaking some need talk about reconciliation at the dignity for all concerned.” fine words. It certainly does not mean present moment until you bring back Bishop Belo told his audiences in forgetting the past and marching on my bicycle. Where is my bicycle?’ Auckland, Wellington and Christ- regardless. Reconciliation means much “And Peter said, ‘No, let’s forget about church that living in fear, faced every more than that. It is not an easy proc- the bicycle; let us talk about reconcili- day with violence, creates victims who ess: it is strenuous and difficult.” ation.’ are paralysed and captives to the past. “Our concern must be to break the Nevertheless the bishop insisted he “And then John said, ‘We cannot talk cycle of violence. There are many parts had not come to New Zealand to talk about reconciliation until my bicycle of the world where violence continues about crimes that had been commit- is back.’” ted in East Timor. “Although enough for many years after the initial events. can never be said on that subject to Relating this to East Timor Bishop Belo Think of the Middle East and Northern satisfy the many victims, I want to said reconciliation would not come Ireland. Our concern must be to create concentrate on the future and perhaps about until the people who were victim- new living conditions where victims can to suggest some ideas about working ised sat down around a table and first become survivors. for a true and just peace through the talked about what had happened. “The “To do that,” the bishop concluded, processes of reconciliation.” bicycle may be replaceable but the dead “requires true reconciliation – both are not. We cannot go to a shop and buy individual and social ”. Bishop Belo noted that often the back those people who are dead. word reconciliation was linked to the word truth. He instanced the Peace “Nelson Mandela said: ‘To make peace and Reconciliation Commission in with your enemy one must work with Peter MacDonell, Wellington

Tui Motu InterIslands 9 theology in context A Beautiful Dying Easter in the context of a New Zealand autumn, as seen by writer and theologian, Mike Riddell

aster is, for us, a journey into we enter into it not only with our minds peaceful New Zealand towns, centred darkness. The hem of the day is but with all our senses. For us, this death upon a Post Office, a grocer’s store, a drawn in as the shroud of night is embodied, incarnate, sacramental. petrol station and a War Memorial, are lengthens.E It has always seemed ap- The symbolic encounter with the falling strange places to sleep in if you stretch propriate to me that sometime during shadows of Jerusalem is coloured in our out on a bench in your oilskin, before lent, I find my morning prayer swathed imaginations by the musty smell of the the dawn shows itself above the scrub in darkness. The journey we travel with air, and the drawing in of our lives as hills like a terrible unhealed wound. Jesus is, after all, one of abandonment we prepare for the looming embrace of Nowhere have I felt more strongly the and shadow. It seems almost as if the winter. We are moving away from our atmosphere of the graveyard. elements concur, as we stand on the source of light and heat, on a journey cusp of a season of stripping and dying. into barren desolation. Suffering can be creative if it finds a voice. But our innocence denies us the Let us not imagine that our experience hat sense can we make of privilege of religious suffering. The ster- of Easter is not markedly different from the death of Jesus for our- ile plastic flower on the tombstone slab those who celebrate it in the North- selves, at the other end of signifies an anguish blocked off from ern hemisphere, where the emphasis theW globe and some two millennia on self-understanding.” And in the works (amidst the early signs of Spring) is on from the original events? The tradition of Colin McCahon, we discover an resurrection and new life. We may be we have received from our forbears in omnipresent darkness which constantly following the same events in the life of the faith is not merely about death as threatens to overwhelm the landscape the same Lord, but our perspective on such. It contains elements of abandon- and its inhabitants. them is richly coloured by our location ment, of redemptive suffering and of What is the source of this pervasive at the bottom of the world. To under- gloom? Outsiders have marvelled at stand this is to recognise that the essence At the heart of of our Christian life in New Zealand is how a nation seemingly so untroubled subtly different in important ways. Pakeha culture, there can produce such dark and pessimistic motifs. Probing below the sun-washed, Our work of faith, it seems to me, is is a darkness friendly and uncomplicated life of our not to try to recreate the experience Antipodean culture is a troubling and of our European forbears, for whom surprising voyage. It reveals an angst- atonement. And finally, of course, more Easter eggs and bunnies may have some ridden, raging and slightly paranoid nebulous for us to take hold of, it speaks peripheral connection with the rebirth society, desperate to avoid underlying of hope and renewal. So much is given they are observing. Rather it is to drive desolation by maintaining concentra- to us by our heritage of belief. But again, to the depths of what it means to re- tion firmly on the surface of existence. let us ask what special significance we member the passion and resurrection of can make of these themes in our own Identifying the roots of such blocked Christ in a land where life is draining context. and private suffering is a difficult back into the soil under the gentle brush process. However, I suspect that there of autumn. What is the special signifi- At the heart of Pakeha culture, there is some organic connection between cance of Easter for us as the people we is a darkness often remarked upon by the darkness at the heart of national are, in the whenua where we (Pakeha) our artists and social commentators. identity, and the rape of the land by are only beginning to find our roots? Sam Neill, in his documentary review European settlers. There is little point of New Zealand film, wondered about in allocating blame for this. The new An obvious point of reference is that of the gloom and savagery which seems to immigrants were overwhelmed by the darkness and dying. For us at Easter, feature so prominently and often. crucifixion will always be a deeper and opportunity represented by vast tracts of more resonant aspect of remembrance James K. Baxter, our prophet and po- ‘virgin’ land. Their vigorous and casual than that of resurrection. This is because etic theologian, had this to say: “Those clearing of the land was in keeping with

10 Tui Motu InterIslands the common view that it was a resource kind of crop, grazed imported grasses; defeated. It is of some interest that to be used and made ‘productive’. the erosion, the overfertilisation, pol- the remembrance of Anzac Day has lution..” reached new levels of significance in But to view some of the photographs contemporary New Zealand life. It of bush clearance from the early days of Compounding this psychic laceration is is perhaps the only national ritual we settlement is to be reminded of images the subsequent his-torical experience of have with sacral overtones. The words of post-holocaust Hiroshima; a smoking Europeans in their new home. Feeling on many memorials have the legend and barren wasteland. In retrospect, it isolated at the end of the world, they Greater love has no man than he gave up was naive to imagine that such desecra- maintained a strong sense of identity in his life for his friends, forever associating tion of the environment could be car- their links with a Britain which was still the event with the symbolism of Christ’s ried out without wounding our national regarded as ‘home’. This connection was passion. soul. This is something that Maori have maintained with a tenacity born of des- always understood, and Pakeha are only peration which saw many settlers regard And why not? It is, like the passion of beginning to know. themselves as the keepers of ‘England’s Christ, redemptive suffering. It contains farm’, and generated enthusiasm for the elements of abandonment and pain Keri Hulme in The Bone People has Joe participation in European wars. experienced on behalf of others which listening as a kaumatua explains what have been features of the traditional has happened to the mauri of the land: t thus came as a violent shock when Christian understanding of the cruci- “Maybe we have gone too far down New Zealanders found themselves fixion. It is not, of course, of the same other paths for the old alliance to be abandoned by ‘Mother England’. order. But is there not something of the reformed, and this will remain a land IThe crucible of such desertion was the grief and holiness of Good Friday car- where the spirit has withdrawn. Where Anzac experience of Gallipoli. It was ried over into those eerie dawn parades the spirit is still with the land, but no more than a heroic defence of an impos- at which we remember our own dead? longer active. No longer loving the sible piece of territory; those who went land.” He laughs harshly. “I can’t imag- through it knew that they had been And perhaps it is not stretching things ine it loving the mess the Pakeha have casually used by British officers and as too far to suggest that through the made, can you?’ carelessly left to their fate. The betrayal tragic isolation and death of our Anzac was deep and abiding. soldiers, nationhood was born. Some “Joe thought of the forests burned and years ago, an exhibition at the Auck- cut down; the gouges and scars that Those who fought had put their lives on land Museum of New Zealanders at dams and roadworks and development the line for the defence of high ideals, and war was suggestively entitled ‘Scars on schemes had made; the peculiar bar- for the protection of their communities. the Heart’. That is what we are talking ren paddocks where alien animals, one In return, they had been forsaken and about; the scars on the national heart which are touched upon whenever we symbolically re-enter the depths of Easter in the New Zealand context. ut what of the hope? How, in the midst of autumnal dying, do we laid hold of rebirth and Bresurrection? In Otago, this is not dif- ficult. Here, the ebb and decay of the season is glorious and resplendent; it is a beautiful death. The journey into darkness is not one to be afraid of, but rather to be savoured and appreciated. The heavy mulch of fallen leaves will in time produce regeneration. And here in a young land, as we come to embrace the wounds of our national spirit rather than suppressing pain or rendering it into violence, perhaps even here there is the chance for the Easter spirit to grant us a fresh vision for life in partnership with the land. ■

Tui Motu InterIslands 11 spirituality Abundant Giving a prayer of the heart

e call you Jesus – but your Moreover, you didn’t just teach prin- name is Abundant Giving. ciples, you lived them. We asked for As I see it, abundance is the status and your answer was a simple truestW description of the divine that we birth in an animal shelter. We prayed have. God is Abundant Giving, and for comfort: you lived the lack of it. you, dear Jesus, are the human face of We wanted protection: you gave Abundant Giving. yourself away. What kind of teacher were you? We became angry, be- You came to show us the Way. I used lieved you mad, and threw words to think that you had a choice in this. back at you like stones. We did Now I realise that it is in the nature of not understand then, that the the Giver to give and choices don’t come great gifts from God are the ones into it. I’m also aware that divine gifts we don’t want to unwrap. It took are not earned, they are simply needed, a long period of discipleship for us and you are the answer to the need, to discover that all the things we the pouring out of God on a troubled had wanted added up to poverty, people. and that your life did indeed hold It is my belief that your maranatha has the secret of true freedom. no limits, that you have come at all In those early days the only thing that times, to all cultures, bearing different kept us with you was – well – you human identities. We know you as a know, the love. There! I didn’t want to man called Jesus Christ, but you did say that word lest it be confused with not ask us to worship a name, only to our lesser kind. You see, previously try to understand the Abundance from we’d had love in different types of whence you came and to recognise it containers, some fine, some a bit in ourselves. The kingdom is within you, small or difficult to access. Love you told us. had always been a commodity easy journey. You did not label the gifts of life “good” or “bad”, but understood Your Way may have been what we traded in the market place. People bar- all as abundance. We saw you unwrap needed, but it was not what we wanted. gained for those little containers, and we difficult gifts and, as we did the same, It seemed to go against our instinct for each guarded our hoard of love, afraid of being cheated. we discovered that with each unwrap- divine gifts ping our small hearts grew larger. We hen, suddenly, there you were feasted with you – food for body and are not earned, with love that had neither con- food for soul. We walked miles with you they are simply tainer nor condition, a huge sea over rough territory, and saw how you Tof love that swept us away and drowned remained unmoved by praise or blame. needed what we had been. I think that marked We watched as you gave all your energy the beginning of our understanding. to others, and then filled up again with Just the beginning, mind you. But we survival on this earth. Sell all you have prayer. We listened. And, day by day, did realise that love was the nature of we understood more. and give it to the poor, you said. Take up the Abundant Giver. your cross, you said. Do not be like the Your ideas of goodness were not ours. Pharisees. Those who love their lives will So, one step at a time, we tried to walk You gathered food on the Sabbath, did lose them. Don’t care about tomorrow. on your Way of the present moment, not always respect religious leaders, and Your strange utterances sounded doom forgiving ourselves and others for past you embraced those people that others and gloom in our ears and had us step- failure, and letting the Abundant Giver called sinners. You showed us that it was ping backwards. take care of the future. It was not an all right to show weakness, to weep, to

12 Tui Motu InterIslands be angry, to laugh like a child, to have our Way was the unwrapping of ing, and we feel a certain helplessness doubts and to cry out with pain. You the total gift and included the beside you. took us through everything we could fear of death. As you entered the Ypain of your last and greatest crucifix- You understand. Your laughter says to expect from life, and showed us how to us: “See? Now you have witnessed what celebrate the freedom of truth. Then it ion, you spread your arms to embrace us you already knew in your heart. Every was time for the last and the most dif- and impress on us the importance of the pain is celebration unborn, and every ficult lesson, the one we all dreaded. The dying process. You did not resist death. death is just another beginning. That is Abundant Giving of God would take on You did not curse the hurt you suffered, growth. That is the Way.” the darkest fear of our minds. He would but forgave those who had inflicted it. walk into the worst possible dying proc- And, at the last moment, you walked For a moment we do see. It is all sud- ess, and come out on the other side, to free of the burden of any resentment, denly so simple that we wonder how show us the reality of being. through the doorway of darkness and there ever could have been a time when we did not see it. Then, the Eastering Of course, there had been all kinds we meet you along moment is over, and we go back to of little crucifixions and resurrections our daily routines and more of those before. We had experienced those with the way and our difficult gifts. But behind all our days, you, the disappointments that steered hearts burn within us we have the shining laughter of the us in the right direction, the aches and Abundant Giver and the knowledge that illness that taught us we were not our into the light where you belonged. Then there is nothing outside God’s Love. ■ physical bodies, the insults that helped you turned and came back to us to show us see the pain in others. Every difficult us what a small thing death was, just a gift, it seemed, had hollowed us out and ripple in the endless sea of love. enlarged our capacity for love. Now Today we meet you along the way and we were at the stage where we sought our hearts burn within us. Oh see, we teaching from God in almost everything are on fire with the love that knows no that happened to us. But what of death? fear! We want to sing and dance, shout, What of the last life experience for embrace, but we are not big enough to Joy Cowley which we were all born? What did that give appropriate expression to this meet- mean? Photo: Patricia Williams Tin Fence

usting tin fence corroding and worn, R cowering visibly in the rising sun, as the poignant rays uncover its gaping holes, like the toothless gaps in an aged mouth.

Bared of frills, it wears shame to cloak its exposed frame; its depravity brings arched-looks from passers-by in their designer clothes.

This fence of the north-south boundary has been there half a century, demanding little, emptied of desires, but challenging with its deliberate bareness.

Tin fence stands in mute starkness staring at the imperatives of modernity, with its displays and special effects of boistrous superfluous flimsiness.

Here is a drama of contrast, of bare essentials pitched against extraneous clutter of life today, purposeful emptiness against reckless wastage! Laetitia Puthenpadath

Tui Motu InterIslands 13 easter scripture So what did happen on Easter morning? Christ, my hope, has risen: he goes before you into Galilee (Sequence, Easter Sunday Liturgy)

Theologian and pastor John Dunn examines what scholars say about the Resurrection. How, he asks, does it affect our Christian faith?

he resurrection of the crucified of whom are still alive, though some have at all times. One thing the sources do Jesus of Nazareth is central to died. Then he appeared to James, then show is the change in the disciples: my faith. I believe in him. As a to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one within a short time after Jesus’ death, pastor,T I know that many people have untimely born, he appeared also to me. they had reassembled, overcome their a beautiful, simple faith in Christ risen. that fear, and were preaching that Jesus had Yet like many with a critical, question- The four repeated s show hints of an early confession of faith which Paul been raised – something we continue ing consciousness, I struggle to grasp to do today. the dimensions of the mystery. All our has handed on. And Paul’s list of who Christian faith depends in some way received the appearances and in what second issue in our resurrection on this ‘something’ called the resurrec- order, notably misses out the witness of faith is the role of the women tion. Paul and some of the Corinthians the four Gospels that women were the in the accounts. We have seen first to hear of or experience the resur- Aalready that Paul omitted to place struggled with it too (1 Cor 15). Some people describe it as a trans-historical rection. Paul’s account is historically women first in his list of primary wit- event, in that it happened in history and the earliest, and thus demonstrates an nesses. maybe his source knew nothing yet transcends space and time. established resurrection faith tradition about them. But the Gospels all place by about 52 AD. women first at the empty tomb. They Where do we get our information about The Gospel writers also make responses do not see Jesus, but in Matthew, Mark resurrection from? None of the Gospels to early polemics against the resurrec- and Luke, they receive the resurrection describes Christ actually rising. Only tion. One such seems to be: “he did message from heavenly sources; He has the apocryphal Gospel of Peter attempts not rise: someone stole the body.” So risen; he is not here! to do this. It portrays the guards seeing Matthew says guards were placed at two men descend into the tomb, and re- Mary Magdalene is named in all four the tomb (28:11-15) – yet no other ascend supporting a third man. A cross Gospels. In John, Mary Magdalene first writer alludes to this – who were bribed follows them. Paul and the four gospels discovers the empty tomb. Then, Jesus to keep quiet about a claimed theft of are our major sources for empty tomb comes to her, unrecognisable until she Jesus’ body. In Matthew’s account it is stories and for subsequent appearances hears his word – her own name, Mary! the Chief Priests and elders who are of the risen Jesus. Further, the accounts The import of all this is that the Catho- guilty of this cover-up. Samuel Reima- are made up of earlier sources which lic tradition that Jesus appeared first to rus (d.1768) used the same argument by have been re-worked by the Gospel Peter needs to be revised, and the wit- accusing the disciples of hiding the body writers. Paul’s account is the earliest, ness of women, legally unacceptable as it in order to claim (falsely) that Jesus had and already shows that he is consciously was at that time, needs to be honoured been raised. handing on a tradition: as the first ground of our faith in the For I handed on to you as of first impor- Thus the biblical sources present a resurrection. tance what I in turn had received: that variety of witnesses to the resurrection. A third issue is the question: what does Christ died for our sins in accordance The fact that different weight can an empty tomb prove? The absence of with the scriptures, that he was buried, be given to different parts or ‘layers’ Jesus’ body from the tomb can never be, and that he was raised on the third day presents a series of possible inter- by itself, the basis of resurrection faith. in accordance with the scriptures, and pretations of the resurrection. This The witness of the women and Peter and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the challenges and engages our faith but the other disciples provides that. On the twelve. Then he appeared to more than does not destroy it. We need to have a one hand, some writers have held that 500 brothers and sisters at one time, most faith robust enough to look at the truth the Jewish world-view of the time would

14 Tui Motu InterIslands have rendered belief in the resurrection objective appearing of the risen Christ incredible if Jesus’ body were to be still to the disciples, which involved visual in the tomb. On the other hand, some elements but which also aroused faith. Protestant theologians of this century The German bishop Walter Kasper per- have made the counter-claim that Jesus’ haps expresses the middle ground when resurrection does not necessarily have he speaks of a seeing believing. to be limited to bodily resurrection. In A further recent contribution has been that case, they would still believe in him the insight that the experience of Christ and his resurrection were his body to be risen was a social experience. Thus the uncovered today. risen Christ ‘appeared’ to his disciples, his ties in closely with the but something also happened to the fourth issue. What do we mean disciples. In this view, just as God raised by ‘appearances’? The verb Jesus from death, so God also acted Unlike our brothers and sisters of the ophtheT – “he appeared, he made him- upon the disciples that they too were northern hemisphere, we celebrate self to be seen by”– lies beneath most changed and came to faith in the risen Easter in the autumn. The mighty Pacific translations. The ‘appearances’ involve Jesus. The Church is born here, when Ocean surrounds us, and separates an experience that joins the risen Jesus Jesus and the Church become “one our land and our self-awareness from complex reality which coalesces from and his disciples, such that they know the rest of the world. Above us, the a divine and a human element” (Vat II he has come to them after his death. But Southern skies invite us to ponder the Lumen Gentium 8). then the problems start. At one end of mystery of the universe from where we the spectrum are those who hold that it Resurrection in its fullest sense involves stand. was an objective experience, where the more profound meanings: Jesus is God’s And our cultures – Maori, Samoan, disciples saw Jesus in the same way that a Final Word to the universe; his resurrec- Tongan, Niuean, Tokelauan, Raro- witness sees and identifies a robber. And tion has final meaning for the stardust tongan, English, West Indian, Scottish, just as the court believes the witness, so from whence we came and the future Irish, Dutch, Iraqi, Filipino in my parish the Church believes the first disciples. to which we tend. Furthermore, Jesus’ alone – and the particular way they mix, They themselves in this view did not resurrection is about ultimate reconcili- remind us that we come to recognise have faith, because they saw Jesus. See- ation among ourselves, with God, and Christ risen in our own communities ing and believing are separated. our universe, in which we become God’s and places. The metaphor of Galilee sons and daughters. It has a theological At the other end of the spectrum are united the first disciples’ faith in the meaning, confirming Jesus’ identity those who say that the disciples had Reign of God and in Jesus Risen in a and mission and revealing him as the an experience provoked and founded way that tied them deeply to their land ultimate human face of a trinitarian by the risen Jesus, but that it involved and local consciousness: he goes before God who is love, a God who says No to not an empirical seeing, but rather a you to Galilee: you will see him there! sin and suffering andYes to the human subjective coming-to-faith that Jesus was Where is our Galilee where he goes race of all times. risen and with them. Believing replaces before us and awaits us, this Easter? May seeing. In between the extremes lies the inally, what does the resurrection we too “see him there”. ■ usual Catholic position, which holds of the crucified Jesus mean for Fr John Dunn is parish priest of that the appearances did involve an us in Aotearoa New Zealand? Beachhaven and lectures at C.I.T., F Auckland God speaks to the untouchables hey are the lowest of the low, the Safwat attends Samaan El-Kharaz, the Bible Society Tuntouchables. They are the people church in the cave adjacent to the dump. who scrounge and survive on the main “I’ll serve in this church until the last day rubbish dump of Africa’s largest city, of my life,” he says. “I’m happy while I’m Cairo. Even there, however, the Word of serving God and showing love to other God reaches people, touches their hearts people”. and transforms their lives. The Bible Society in Egypt in co-operation Safwat Fakhry is one such person whose with the Coptic church regularly supplies ..providing Scriptures life has been changed. He works the gar- Scriptures to these ‘untouchable’ people. to everyone in their bage dump from 5 o’clock in the morn- As well as the cave church, there are skills ing. Safwat sees no shame in his job. “I’m training workshops, a school and a hos- own language happy to be a garbage collector in this pital, all initiated by the Coptic church. place. After all, Jesus was born in a humble It is a church rooted in the Word of God. To help... place beside the animals!” (Bible Society) freephone 0800 4

Tui Motu InterIslands 15 easter magazine The Waters of Rome Clean, fresh water – a basic necessity of life. And an abundant water supply is a key amenity in successful town planning. With none of the advantages of modern technology, classical Rome achieved this – and following the squalor of the Middle Ages the Renaissance Popes restored the old system, providing the people of the city with constantly flowing pure water to drink as well as the music and beauty of hundreds of fountains.

Judith Graham tells the story of the waters of Rome and explores a few of those fountains.

s I write this, it is raining and there is no sweeter music in the wasteland of our drought. These fierce days of summer have brought home to many of us theA meaning of the phrase aqua vitae – the water of life. We take water so much for granted that when councils talk of rationing it or metering it or privatising it, we are shocked. Isn’t water a basic requirement for life – a right we all have – to use freely? The drought makes us realise yet again that the resources of the Earth and the Sea and the Air cannot be wasted, that water is a gift from the Creator. Earlier civilisations regarded this resource with somewhat more respect than we do. Nomadic camps sought oases in the desert; the ancient Greeks saw springs as sacred, as places where mortals could be in touch with the deities, as sources of healing of the soul and body, as places where oracles assured mortals somewhat obliquely of their future, as places of cleansing, both physically and spiritually, and finally as sources of beauty.

An old wall fountain in the Via Flaminia, built by It is not surprising then that the practical Romans copied the Pope Julius III about 1550 designs of the post-Alexandrine Greeks in ensuring that their

16 Tui Motu InterIslands great Capitol, built in a hot valley a Greek historian in about 74BC. surrounded by seven hills, had sources Another Greek, a doctor, Galen, wrote of water that supplied the populace’s in AD 164: “The beauty and number needs, but were also objects of beauty. of Rome’s fountains is wonderful”.

For the first four and a half centuries of The Goths destroyed the aqueducts their existence, the Romans depended and most of the dehydrated fountains on springs, wells and the Tiber for were destroyed in the sack of Rome their water. Now more water was AD 537. Modern historians would needed and it was to be valued. I am have known nothing about the not referring here specifically to the construction of the ancient water 11 splendid aqueducts stretching for systems of early Rome had not a miles across the hills of Rome down manuscript written in AD97, De to its centre. They served purely to Aquis Urbis Romae by a certain Sextus carry water from the springs in the Frontinus, been discovered in the hills to the streets of Rome. But here monastery of Monte Cassino in 1429. they surfaced in a castellum or fountain Frontinus was a conscientious public often of monumental proportions. administrator, a Roman Commission- At the time of Constantine the Great er of the waterways, and he records there were 1,212 fountains in Rome. the construction and upkeep of Visitors to the city marvelled: “Water is the 11 aqueducts in Rome. He was brought into the city in such quantity Il Facchino – the Porter – a 15th Century meticulous in tracking down the that veritable rivers flow through the wall fountain in the Via Lata, Central Rome. illicit watercourses “diverted by private city and its sewers; and almost every Attributed to Michelangelo the carved face citizens” he wrote, “just to water their house has cisterns and service pipes has suffered the ravages of time, possibly gardens”. He was so good at keeping the because its features resembled those of and copious fountains”, wrote Strabo, Martin Luther waters flowing to the fountains,

The Trevi Fountain: only a short walk from the centre of modern Rome, the Piazza Venezia. This splendid and extravagant fountain is the main outfall for the Acqua Vergine Antiqua. The present version of this castellum was completed in 1762, and the legend is that if a visitor to Rome tosses a coin into its basin, then he or she will surely come back sometime

Tui Motu InterIslands 17 easter magazine

the popular baths, the public buildings and the ground floors of private houses and then on to flush the sewers and eventually discharge into the Tiber, that he was able to write: “The appearance of the city is clean and altered; the air is purer; and the causes of the unwholesome atmosphere which gave the air of the city so bad a name with the ancients, are now removed”.

In his delightful tribute to The Waters of Rome (1966) H.V. Morton lists only about six ancient fountains which can still be identified. t was left to the Renaissance engineers and sculptors to the Popes Sixtus V and Paul V to repair the aqueducts and reintroduce the terminal fountains based on the Iancient castellum. These are still the glories of Rome today. They are not just limited to the Trevi fountain ofThree Coins (in a Fountain) fame (pictured p17). There is the fountain in front of the Pantheon, the Barcaccia (old Boat), the Baboon, the Porter. There are fountains of lions, dolphins, horses, a masked face, a pine cone and the Forge of Vulcan. There are fountains of the two river gods, the Nile and the Tiber. The Vatican Gardens has a splendid scale model of a 17th century three-masted warship (see picture below). These fountains were especially built by the Popes from the 16th and 17th centuries on, to “distribute aerated water to the population and, at the same time, gladden their hearts”. (H.V.Morton)

Morton’s favourite is the quite enchanting fountain of the The fountain of the Tortoises in a Roman backstreet, dates from Tortoises in the Piazza Mattei (see illustration right). It was 1584. Four bronze youths surround the basin, originally holding sculpted by Landini and completed in 1584 to carry water up four dolphins. But 70 years after Landini built the original from the Trevi to the Piazza Giudea, but the Mattei family basin the group was winsomely completed – by four tortoises somehow had the water diverted to supply their adjacent palace: “Four life-sized bronze youths... lean against the stem The tortoises are seen bent on getting into the water; the of the fountain and with uplifted arms, push four bronze muscled arms and legs of the young men and the purposeful tortoises over the rim of the marble bowl above them” . intent of their stretching fingers in helping the tortoises over (H.V.Morton) the fountain’s rim, hold the visitor’s eye. The tortoises were added in 1659. They were originally meant to be dolphins and why the sculpture was not completed by Landini is a mystery. But the tortoises are an inspired piece of whimsy. When The Waters of Rome was published in 1966, the municipality of Rome was considering a change to the unique water systems of Rome. Unique, because the present six aqueducts still provide continuous streams of water that flow in and out of Rome without being stored in reservoirs. The waters of the six supplies are not mixed and some are more desirable than others. It pays to sell a house that has water from Acqua Peschiera or Acqua Felice. The Acqua Paola is not The Galleon for drinking, though it plays in the Vatican fountains. Some fountain, built by kitchens have a special tap of it for washing up. The Acqua Paul V in 1612 Vergine water is reputed to be the best for boiling vegetables. when he first brought aqueduct water supply to the Vatican (Acqua Paola)

18 Tui Motu InterIslands It was T.S.Eliot who spoke of the significance of the sound of moving water in The Waste Land:

“If there were the sound of water only not the cicada and dry grass singing but sound of water over a rock where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop”

iving, moving water – this is the gift the classical Romans and the medieval Popes left to their city. Tourists may not hear it because of the noise of traffic. LIt is the sound drought-stricken people long to hear in our country. It is the living water Christ spoke of beside a well in Samaria. Little wonder that Christians from the earliest times adopted flowing water as the sacrament of rebirth. ■

A wall fountain in the Via Cisterna. The old Roman title SPQR (“for the Senate and the Roman People”) is still written on all manhole covers in modern Rome Fonts, bathhouses and the waters of rebirth wo aspects of Roman architecture The shape of the early fonts drew in other Fr Aidan Kavanagh observes: “Early Tassociated with an abundant supply symbols: a sarcophagus (stone coffin) to baptisteries were gloriously womb-like of fresh water, were the great public baths signify death and rebirth; or a cruciform – filled with fertility, vines, sunlight, and the early Christian baptisteries. The basin shaped like Christ’s cross. Both water and a humid atmosphere. From largest surviving ruins in Rome are these suggested that the baptised person plunged them issued a new people, whose Baths. In a hot climate part of civilised into Jesus’s pattern of dying and rising. purpose in life was to beget others by living was the cult of the bath. the Church, Christ’s bride... Consciously or subconsciously “The Church focused its most the bathhouse mentality important time of the year upon influenced the way the early the catechumens, viewing them Christians celebrated adult almost as living ‘sacraments’ of baptism. This first and climactic conversion... The Lenten readings event in a new convert’s life was were thus directed not only at celebrated with great solemnity the catechumen but at the whole on the most important night of church, as both prepared to relive the Christian year: the Easter Christ’s passage from death to life”. Vigil. And the baptisteries were almost as big as the basilicas, The picture and discussion on created on a grand scale once Christ- The illustration shows a fifth-century early Christian fonts is taken ianity became the official religion font in Tunisia. Adults were baptised from an excellent little monograph of the Empire from the time of individually, descending into the water Ancient Fonts, Modern Lessons by T. Constantine. In Rome the baptistery and passing through it as if through Jerome Overbeck SJ (Liturgy Training at St John Lateran survives from the birth canal, emerging as ‘new-born’ Publications), Price $18. The author the 4th Century, and in its massive Christians. The font is womb-shaped, also talks about Baptism and church porphyry basin Constantine himself and is decorated with the cross of Christ, layout, and includes useful liturgical is supposed to have been baptised. also the tree of life – Paradise regained. directives and Blessing texts. M.H.

Tui Motu InterIslands 19 easter magazine

God and

Garlic Why do people go on pilgrimage? For fun, for a change, to seek God. Kiwi Nick Thompson found all these things on the road to Compostella in Spain – but like St Theresa, he found God mostly “among the stewpots”

Nick Thompson beneath a statue of a pilgrim at Alto de San Rogue, Galicia

...the pilgrim way to Compostella don’t think Luther would have At the moment I am living in to walk for five weeks through settled approved. He had his suspicions Glasgow where I am doing research in countryside rather than the wilderness about those clerics, nuns, and Reformation theology. As a consequence of the South Island national parks. devoutI lay-folk gadding about on such thoughts niggled at the back of my pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostella. mind as I made preparations to walk a Besides, it seemed not a bad walk for an Delicacy prevents one from being more 735km section of the Camino Santiago – aspiring Church historian. Since the IX specific, but the modern equivalent the ancient pilgrimage route to Santiago century pilgrims have made their way to might involve a couple called Mr and de Compostella in northwestern Spain. Santiago from every corner of Europe. Mrs Smith and a motel room well off However I persuaded myself that this The roots of Christianity in Spain reach the beaten track. As far as the Protestant was not a pilgrimage as such. Rather back well beyond that, and it is difficult reformers were concerned, the medieval than seeking any particular spiritual to walk the Camino for more than an predilection for pilgrimage sprang from benefit, I was taking a much needed hour without meeting some reminder of a kind of spiritual escapism: a flight holiday. I’ve done a fair bit of tramping this legacy; whether in the buildings, in from the circumstances of every-day in New Zealand, but never for more the landscape or in the life of the people life through which the baptised make than a week at a stretch, and I was along the way. the genuine pilgrimage of faith. curious to know what it would be like

20 Tui Motu InterIslands ut what is at Santiago that perhaps still has) a tremendous symbolic He remains the attracts the pilgrims? What importance. For medieval pilgrims, patron of Spain made it medieval Europe’s most the end of their journey was not the and the eve of frequentedB holy-place after Rome shrine itself, but the beach at Cape July 25th, his and Jerusalem? The legend has it that Finisterre, (finis terrae: the end of the fiesta, is marked the Apostle James, brother of John, earth) a further 100km from Santiago. with joyful cele- preached the Gospel in Spain for a There the pilgrims would take a cockle brations in the number of years after the Ascension. shell and fasten it to their clothing as a streets of San- He apparently did not meet with much token of their journey. The Lord had tiago. These are success, and returned to Jerusalem sent the Apostles out from Jerusalem, followed the where (as you know from Acts 12.2) and here by the great ocean one stood next day with a Herod had him executed. After this, two at the farthest reach of the Gospel, ‘the solemn Mass at of James’s disciples are said to have taken ends of the earth’. To walk to Santiago which a memb- his body to Jaffa. There they boarded was, as one writer has put it, to ‘beat the er of the Spanish a miraculous stone boat (sic) which bounds’ of Christendom. royal family is carried them to the Atlantic coast of always in atten- Spain in modern Galicia. In the nearby Of course it is no coincidence either that dance. hill country they buried James. Early the Camino’s rise in popularity occurred in the IX century a hermit, Pelagius, at about the time that the Arab rulers s e t o u t reported to the local bishop that he of the Holy Land decided to discourage f ro m t h e had been led by a star to the burial site Christian pilgrimage to Jerusalem. t o w n o f S t J e a n i n At this time too the Arab emirates of theI French Pays-Basque. My aim of the Apostle and it was over this spot that the present shrine of Santiago de southern Spain were pressing up into the was to arrive in Santiago for the fiesta. Compostella (“Saint James in the field small Christian kingdoms to the north. On the day I left, the clouds hung low of the Star”) was built. In many of the churches along the over the Pyrenees and I decided to avoid Camino one can see images and statues the ancient alpine path and take the It’s a wild tale, and the Cathedral of the Apostle in what I found one of road into Spain. In general the Camino authorities at Santiago are disarmingly his less winsome incarnations: Santiago follows narrow tracks, country lanes and sceptical about its truth. Their printed Matamoros, ‘slayer of the Moors’, rears rights-of-way, but the painted yellow guides speak of Pelagius’ ‘discovery’ in up on a white charger, sword flashing arrows which mark it are also found inverted quotation marks. Yet whether in his hand, as Arab soldiers writhe in on city pavements and on the verges of or not it is James who lies in the silver defeat below. In this guise, James is highways. The first day’s walking took casket beneath the high altar, the said to have led the Christian armies to me across the Spanish border, and I geography of the pilgrimage had (and victory at the battle of Clajivo in 844. stopped at the pilgrim hostel attached to the collegiate church at Roncesvalles.

Pilgrim replenishing water bottle at At Roncesvalles pilgrims are issued fountain in Espinosa-del-Camino, with a credencial of passport which Castilla-y-Leán entitles them to stay in the Refugios or hostels established by religious bodies, local authorities and various other institutions along the way. The credencial is presented and stamped at each stop. Provided that you can show that you have completed at least 150km of the journey on foot (or 200km on a bike) you will be issued with your Compostella, or certificate of pilgrimage at the end of the walk. On the evening of the first day the pilgrims gathered at Roncesvalles were invited to a Mass celebrated by the Augustinian Canons who keep the hostel. Most of the pilgrims were

Tui Motu InterIslands 21 easter magazine

Spanish, but there were also French, a of Santiago I walked with Olivier, a a wonder that he had room for his few Belgians and Dutch, a South African, student from Tours in France. He had toothbrush and underpants. and, of course, one New Zealander. As just finished his military service and was an English-speaker I found myself on pilgrimage in order to decide what he I was generally happy to enjoy all of this one of a small minority. My Spanish would do next. Along the way we were as a colourful expression of the church wasn’t up to much more than a bit of joined by two friends of his – Thierry, catholic. However, after a long hot fairly limited small-talk. Whenever I a seminarian, and Alain, a computer day the company of God’s elect could was asked about my nationality, the technician. I was glad of the company, become trying. One baking afternoon response was almost always a blank and while conversation in French was we came across a group of dejected and stare, a spark of recognition and then: sometimes tiring, it was a good deal less footsore pilgrims sitting on the roadside Ah Eres Hollandes! No, I would have to effort than anything I could manage in waiting for a bus to the next town. explain, it was not Zeeland but New Spanish. Olivier and Thierry exulted Thierry cast them an austere glance Zealand, the small group of islands in a nostalgic and often rather severe over the top of his clerical lunettes. near Australia. This usually elicited an variety of Catholicism. We would set “Can they be real pilgrims?” he asked, uncomprehending non-sequitur to the out early each morning in order to get in as he marched vigorously by. It was all effect that there were a lot of Dutch I could do not to give him a slap across pilgrims on the Camino. However, on the back of his sunburnt calves with my the odd occasion I managed to make pilgrims from all corners walking stick. myself understood. I then lost count of of the world would sit evertheless we would all of us how many times I had to listen to the sit down to eat in the evening, hilarious one about how everyone in down in the evening to eat pilgrims from all corners of las Antipodes has to walk upside down. theN world: Catholics and Calvinists, n the second morning I was as much walking as we could before the believers and non-believers, Christians, woken by heavy rain falling sun got hot. As we set out Olivier and Buddhists and New Age Travellers. outside the shutters of the Thierry would chant a few decades of Around those hostel tables we talked Ospartan dormitory. This (and the the rosary. Each of these was announced long into the warm evenings on every consequent mud and wretchedness) with the virtue (eg. obeissance, humilité) subject from Basque nationalism to followed us for another few days until on which we were to meditate. Later Gnosticism. Most of these exchanges we emerged onto the plain of Castille. in the morning, Thierry would stride switched from one language to another For the next few weeks the sun beat out ahead of us reciting the office from depending on who was speaking. For down upon us until we entered into two generously proportioned volumes the first (and probably the last time) in the Atlantic mists and moderate temp- of breviary. In his modest pack he also my life I chatted in clumsy Latin with a eratures of Galicia. carried a soutane – indispensable for attending Mass in the evening. It was From Roncesvalles until four days short

22 Tui Motu InterIslands professor from Madrid about the job of a classroom opened up for pilgrims prospects for lay theology students! in the minor Seminary, I hobbled to the Pilgrim Office to collect my While we had all bought our own food, Compostella. I was impressed to notice there was inevitably a grand pooling that on the desk of each of the officials of resources at each meal: half a litre there was a bulging computer print-out of wine looking for a drinker, a spare of names in the Latin accusative case. So end of bread, an unfinished tin of I have it certified: Dominum Nicolaum sardines. At the end of one day in the Thompson hoc templum pietatis causa tiny mountain settlement of San Juan visitasse. d’ Ortega the priest arrived, dusty and weather-beaten, in an equally dusty and n the 25th of July, the feast of weather-beaten car. He invited us all to Saint James, I walked to the Mass in the local church. After Mass we solemn Mass in the Cathedral. were ushered into the parish kitchen. InsideO dishevelled pilgrims, city On the wall in large red plastic letters dignitaries and the Spanish nobility all were the words of Theresa of Avila: jostled sweatily about the sanctuary. It tambien entre los pucheros se encuentre was a remarkably egalitarian throng. dios (God is also found among the At 11 am the organ rumbled into life stewpots). There the priest and some of and a long procession of ecclesiastical Cathedral at Santiago de Campostella where the local men served us an evening meal potentates, grandees and satraps drew the alleged remains of St James are held of garlic soup and bread. As we ate the nigh unto the altar of the Lord. At their were the pilgrims solemnly blessed. priest walked around the room telling head glided my walking-companion After Mass I met a young Swiss pilgrim, us about the history of the parish. The Thierry, acolyte extraordinaire, and he asked sourly whether I thought next morning he was up at 6.30 with a resplendent in a white alb and hands the congregation had come to meet God big aluminium pot of milky coffee on clasped reverently in front of him. As I or to see the botafumeiro. I suppose, the boil and more bread rolls for us to leant for support on a pillar it dawned in fact, that God enjoyed the party as eat before setting off. on me why he had squeezed a soutane much as anyone else. into that small pack of his. It was a ticket lost contact with Olivier, Alain and to a front-row, velvet-padded seat at the Along the Way I met a multitude of Thierry in the Galician village of show of the year. souls all anxiously in search of God Triacastella. I was struck low with and the ‘spiritual’. They recited rosaries, diarrhoeaI and spent the best part of 18 in the glorious diversity... they kissed statues, they practised yogic hours sleeping in a paddock under an I think I caught a glimpse chanting, and talked avidly (inter alia) oak tree. Earlier in the week I had met a about Celtic spirituality, reincarnation minister of the Dutch Reformed Church of heaven and the Knights Templar. I hope that who had walked all the way from Le Puy they found what they were looking for. in France. He told me that while the I set out with no expectations, but in physical pain of walking day after day And a show it was. At the end of the service the botafumeiro, a metre-high the glorious diversity of the pilgrims, the never eased up I would find that there long conversations, the shared meals, came a time at which it would finally censer was carried to the front of the altar by six men in crimson robes. and in the parish priest with the pot stop getting worse. I am not sure that of garlic soup in San Juan d’Ortega, I ever reached this plateau, but by the The Archbishop of Santiago ladled a generous helping of incense onto the I think I caught a glimpse of heaven time I reached Santiago I was finding nevertheless. the levels of debilitation quite sufficient. burning coals inside the censer, and On the eve of the fiesta I limped beneath then it was attached to a rope slung Saint Theresa was horrified by the the city gates at Santiago to the wild over a pulley high above the altar. activities of those she called los Luteranos. pealing of the Cathedral bells and the With a series of jerks at the other end I don’t imagine that Luther would have thunder of fireworks unseen against the of the rope the six men managed to set much cared for her brand of piety midday sky. They were practising for the the censer swinging back and forward either. But I suspect that he might celebrations that evening. across the transept. Higher and higher it have brought himself to agree with her swung in a mad, flailing parabola. As it that, “God is also found among the I spent those celebrations in a daze. I felt plunged from the roof of either side of stew-pots”. I hope that they are both that I should feel elated. Instead I found the transept, flames and smoke belched sitting down to a bowl of garlic soup myself exasperated and overwhelmed by from within. The congregation gasped right now. ■ the crowds. After a sleep on the floor and a thousand cameras flashed. Thus

Tui Motu InterIslands 23 easter poetry

It’s another story now

nlike the others who fled Insufficient grounds fearing for their lives for heaping you with the burdens sheU remained at the foot of the cross. of the original Eve for no suggestion of sin On the third day she rose marked your healing again bearing the spices when the seven devils departed of anointing for the broadways of hell into the garden of the dead and Mary of Magdala became a disciple.

but the sepulchre stands open Did you hear your story Revelation removed when a myth was born and who can anoint a loved one and you became the woman or mourn His loss fallen at Christ’s feet in its absence? in the house of Simon the Pharisee when you, leper by another Even the advocacy of angels name, replaced absent hospitality falls on ears with an act of love? unready for resurrection until the Lord calls Whose story was it her to a new anointing when Mary of Bethany as apostle poured a pound of spikenard in acknowledgment of the rising of Lazarus to the apostles, from the dead, who doubted a sign of Christ’s healing priesthood, so much of the Easter story yet not much thanksgiving for a could rely on the witness of one brother’s life? Woman when the first Eve proved Who told a story subject to temptation when another woman taken in adultery faced the full force of the law alone a primary protagonist for in seduction the male is absent in the fall without cause for faced with the burden absorbing the ancient imagery of sin and sex of guilt one by one they went away into an allegory beginning with eldest of the people’s unfaithfulness to Yahweh, releasing the woman beyond redemption: from the judgment of the fallen? it’s what they feared most. Who told the story or does the scarlet woman of myth create around her elements of infamy the shifting reflections of an elusive truth? From apostle to the apostles to fallen woman id you hear the story of Genesis you became D where death stunted the tree of life easier to construct I suppose and the serpent betrayed as a narrative of the female body a woman’s innocence affirming celibacy and man’s humanity? above truth Are you the new Eve a conflation of all women first mistaking the Lord for a gardener from the male view. then recognizing the source of life rising anew in the Easter garden?

Did you know the story? Jenny Collins

24 Tui Motu InterIslands easter scripture In the Light of the Resurrection: Revealing Women Matthew’s Easter Narrative by Mary Betz

fter the sabbath, as the first day of the week was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to see the tomb. And suddenly there Awas a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from Heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. For fear of him the guards shook and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women: “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has been raised from the dead, and indeed he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.’ This is my message for you.” So they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them and said: “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshipped him. Then Jesus said to them; “Do not be afraid: go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Pre-Easter Historical experience, mystery, t was in the hour between darkness had not wavered, and in fact had taken new creation, self-revelation and and light on that early Sunday on a stronger intensity. Though Jesus communication of God, fulfilment of morning that the women walked had spoken of his coming suffering and human life, transformation by the Spirit Ito the tomb. It was there they had sat death, nothing could have fully prepared – resurrection is all these. But on that first two days before as Joseph had wrapped them for what had happened since the Easter, Jesus’ followers had no developed Jesus’ body and lain it to rest for the last Passover – his arrest, condemnation resurrection theology, nor even a clear time. They headed there now, out of and crucifixion. The men disciples had idea of Jesus’ identity or significance. grief, loneliness, intuition, hope? fled in fear from Gethsemane, and the All they had was the memory of their news came to the women of Jesus’ arrest. relationship with him, and of the events They hardly knew what to expect, of his life in which they shared. Friday afternoon the women found or what more could be done, any themselves helplessly looking on as he more than they comprehended the In Matthew’s Easter story, as in his account who had been teacher and friend hung of Jesus’ death and burial, we find the happenings of the past few days. They dying on a cross. were still in shock, heavy with grief, narration of events, unlike anywhere else They hoped Jesus knew he was not in the gospel, totally dependent on the struggling to make sense of both the totally abandoned. They hoped he knew presence and witness of women disciples. miracle Jesus’ life had been for them The narrations also make it belatedly clear and the horror of his death. that they kept vigil with him, offering that these and many other women had their presence in silent solidarity with followed Jesus throughout his ministry. They had known Jesus throughout his his suffering. They hoped he knew that Through Matthew and the women disciples ministry in Galilee, and with many fear and anguish did not threaten, but we see the events of the first Easter, and other women had followed him and rather strengthened their fidelity to him. over time, our sight sharpens into insight. provided for him. They had continued Two of the Marys had sat opposite the The man whom they have journeyed with – to accompany Jesus as journey and tomb as Jesus was buried, and now after the man of compassion and wisdom – will ministry took them beyond Galilee the Sabbath, they returned to wait in the be slowly understood through his life, death into Judea, and finally to Jerusalem semi-darkness. and resurrection to be the self-revelation itself. Jesus’ compassion and healing of God. had not faltered, his incisive teaching

Tui Motu InterIslands 25 easter scripture

hat did the women see reconciled to the risen Jesus, their when they went to the brother disciples are commissioned for tomb that first Easter the further proclamation of the good morning?W According to Matthew, they Post-Easter news. (and in part, the guards) were the only witnesses of the “Easter events’. On that first Easter, did the women see beyond the empty tomb, or really Matthew records signs reminiscent understand the angelic messages of the theophanies of the and the return to life of their Hebrew Scriptures: the beloved? Did they make sense earthquake, the angel, of Jesus’ life and suffering? Did lightning, white clothing, they see God’s hand in the rising and the human reaction of of Jesus, and beyond that to the fear. The description of the implications for their own futures? angel’s luminous appear- ance before the women and Perhaps it was only with the guards also evokes Matthew’s passing of time that their sight account of Peter, James and became insight, that the paschal John’s vision of Jesus’ mystery became one with the transfiguration. As in the mystery of their own lives transfiguration, a message – the times and cycles of about Jesus is given in word pregnant waiting, of pain as well as in signs. Unlike and suffering, of new life after the trans-figuration, emerging from the darkness of the womb, of letting go the witnesses at the tomb and being open to God’s (the women disciples) are surprising new directions. not bound to silence, but are given a direct commission to Jesus risen would come to mean speak about what they have not only seeing the face of God in seen and heard. Jesus who walked among them, but in the Spirit of Jesus who now The rolled back stone and the dwelt in them, and among them in empty tomb were physical evidence that one another, and in all who suffer, thirst, something had happened to Jesus’ body, hunger for justice, search for peace and but were no proof of a resurrection. Sent as apostles of the resurrection, truth, participate in the cycles of the Women were not considered legal the women hasten with both fear and paschal mystery in their own lives. witnesses in that time and place. Yet joy to bring the angel’s invitation of nonetheless it was women to whom reconciliation to their companions. But atthew’s account of Jesus’ the message of Jesus’ rising was given, Jesus himself intervenes, undertaking death, burial and rising women who were sent to relay the to dispel their fear and leave them with reveals women to be critical the sheer joy of his presence, and the witnessesM of those events linking Jesus’ message to the absent disciples. confirmation of seeing with their own ministry with the proclamation of The missing disciples – those who had eyes the truth of the angel’s message. Easter. And women’s revealing/sharing followed Jesus but betrayed him, fallen the resurrection news enabled not asleep rather than prayed with him, only the reconciliation and apostleship denied knowing him, deserted him with the passing of of their brother disciples, but the at his arrest, and were nowhere to be time their sight became illumination of our own experiences of death and life with the light of Christ seen during his trial, condemnation, insight crucifixion, death and burial – to these, risen. ■ God (via the angel) sends the women. In contrast to the male disciples, the women Like the angel, Jesus urges the women epitomise courage in discipleship and to proclaim his living presence to the Mary Betz is Catholic chaplain at the faithfulness in friendship. They are signs missing disciples, more specifically, University of Palmerston North. She is a Graduate in Theology with a special of God’s own fidelity and presence to his brothers. In Galilee, the women’s interest in Sacred Scripture one they love. apostleship will bear its first fruits:

26 Tui Motu InterIslands young people

Intruders in the Home: the small screen

Priest-psychotherapist, Paul Andrews, calls on parents to be selective in moderating their children’s TV watching

ost thoughtful parents have at An English speech therapist has shown of delights at the press of a button. They Msome stage considered throwing the link between speech problems and relate more feelingly to TV characters out their TV set, as the only way to cure unselective watching of TV in young than to their own family and friends; children’s addiction. What bothers them children. The years from two to six and they gradually lose the capacity to is not just the programmes, but what it are so rich in possibilities. The mind express themselves. does to the family to have the set always is developing and learning faster than If this happens in a family, then as a competitor to conversation. Is there at any other time of our life, moving communication between parents and anything to be said for it? from silence to the capacity for speech, children drops sharply. Children lose which gives us access to reading and the capacity to entertain themselves, The way you use TV is every bit as im- all other human learning. You cannot and the ability to express ideas logically. portant as the school you choose. The read until you can understand speech, What about the emotions? There is question is not “What does TV do to and you learn to understand and use much sentiment in TV drama but the us?” but “What do we do with TV?” speech through conversation, above all effect is a stereotyping of emotions. Can anything be said for TV? In some with parents. families it is like asking “Can anything Children live through the predictable be said for food?” It is the staple way of They can make sense of the first utter- and shallowly-drawn feelings of the filling the idle hours, it is on day and ance of the toddler, and gradually build familiar characters on the screen, and night, and life would be unthinkable up their vocabulary and confidence in lose touch with the range of feelings without it. talking. Why cannot TV do this? After they experience themselves – delight, all it is a talking medium. But it is not loneliness, anger and tender love. In one way it is like bed. When people a listening medium. Little Mary cannot Unselective viewing is paid for by are depressed and their life is empty, they answer, she just sits dumb, and if she damage to communication, to thinking often retreat to bed. I notice the same were to mutter back there is no sign that and feeling. Pupils’ schoolwork can about television with both children she is heard, which is the only incentive suffer if their viewing is unplanned and adults. If they are bored with life, to go on talking. and unselective, so that they become or depressed, or in a down phase, then hile those who play computer passively dependent on spoon-fed, they will slump in front of the set almost games are active and involved, over-simplified mush, and lose the uncaring about what is on, but anxious W children who view TV are passive. If ability to think, write, create or feel for to keep control of the programme but- they turn on the set without questions themselves. tons. If they are interested in the people or curiosity, view unselectively and Some parents feel helpless against TV, around them, and in living, then they switch programmes frequently, they may pick out the odd TV programme and they are helpless until they decide remember practically nothing, any more to use it instead of being used by it. The they want to watch, but otherwise they than they remember the individual have too many active things to occupy key to using it lies in being selective, drops after standing under a shower. choosing programmes in advance, pick- them, and they cannot afford the time Children are often hosed with TV in spent in front of the box. ing programmes that can be watched an unselective, passive way that leaves by parents and family, showing one Like bed it is addictive. Even in the them soused, unthinking, but heavily generation how the other thinks and middle of sparkling company or lovely dependent. feels. When that happens, children scenery, eyes can be drawn to the The children at risk are easy to recog- have been found to view TV through flickering screen, no matter what is on nise: they watch more than ten hours a the filter of their parents’ values. With it, in the hope of titillation. If we allow week, go straight to the set when they father or mother beside them, they can it, it does things to us. It startlingly come home, demand from parents the cope with stories that might otherwise reduces conversation between children sort of instant gratification that they bewilder or upset them. The box is no and parents. experience in channel-control, a variety more powerful than you allow it to be. ■

Tui Motu InterIslands 27 books r

only Trevor put the spotlight on them A superb observer of human character and not on his chosen main characters. o it is that in Death in Summer we Death in Summer However potentially sensational the meet the live-in servants, Maidment by William Trevor story, William Trevor’s writing is never S and Mrs Maidment, who have a Viking, 1998 sensational. Rather he quietly infiltrates propensity for listening at doors, reading Price: $49.95 hb the world of his characters, observing, the odd bit of mail not meant for their Review: Kathleen Doherty never judgemental, until one has the eyes, quietly assessing the action, and feeling of being right in the middle of we meet the wonderfully blowsy widow n an interview in The New Yorker a events as they unfurl. The characters Mrs Ferry, an embarrassing secret from few years ago, William Trevor voiced grow quietly and steadily until they I Thaddeus’s past, appearing all the more the belief which is at the heart of his become part of a world in which the incongruous when set in his tasteful and writing: “The thing I hate most of all past and the present are delicately woven well-ordered present. These three play is the pigeonholing of people... I don’t together and which is as well-known little part in the development of the believe in the black-and-white; I believe as ones own. It may be because of this story, yet they round out the world so in the gray shadows, the murkiness, the that the atmosphere of a William Trevor skilfully created in which life-changing not-quite knowing...”. novel can become all-pervading and events happen to ordinary people, and affecting long after the reading is over. His latest novel Death in Summer is the world is never the same again. a superb example of the murkiness in his master It is Albert, refugee with Pettie from the lives of two sets of people who, but Tof language the children’s home, who brings some for tragic circumstances, would never is, as has been sort of resolution and reconciliation in have met, and whose meeting leads o b s e r v e d b y this tragedy. Albert, with his fascination to even more tragedy. It is William more than one with aircraft spotting and Salvation Trevor at his most observant, writing critic, incapable Army bands, his garrulous need to with a compassion that leaves one with of writing a less explain all, and his all-encompassing a glimmer of hope in this bleakest of than graceful artless love of humanity, breaks through stories of the collision of two disparate sentence... Parts the stoicism which isolates Thaddeus worlds. of Death in Summer are written in and his mother-in-law from each other the present tense, which adds to the and from the world. Pity, even under- In one world are Thaddeus and his feeling of immediacy but which presents standing, for a girl who knew neither mother-in-law, restrained, respectable, technical difficulties which only a while she lived, defeats the barriers. This pale beige; in the other Pettie and master craftsman can handle. present time will soon become a past Albert, runaways from the Morning with influence on a new present. There Star children’s home, formed by neglect It comes as no surprise that William is hope in the darkness. ■ and abuse. Trevor handles it supremely well. At 70, the Irish-born author, who now The meeting is the result of the death lives in England, has an impressive body of gentle, contented Letitia, wife of work to his credit: some 13 novels We will find those books of Thaddeus, mother of Georgina, which have picked up major literary for you! knocked from her bicycle on a country prizes, several novellas, stage, radio and lane while bringing home a boxful of television plays, and – perhaps most Books mentioned in this paper, pullets. It is a situation lodged firmly precious – a collection of short stories or any other books you can’t find, in a genteel rural setting, which is far equal to the best ever written. His short can be ordered from: from the experience of Pettie, just into stories still appear regularly in The New her twenties, love-starved and street- Yorker and the best, to 1992, have been O C Books wise who comes to be interviewed for collected in an edition that makes one the post of nanny to the baby. She sees long for a deep chair, a good light, and Thaddeus, the widowed middle-aged no visitors for a month. Tollfree 0800 886 226 husband, as the answer to her dreams In William Trevor’s world no-one is 39 Princes St, Dunedin of security and respectability, and when irrelevant, no-one’s life can be dismissed Ph/Fax (03) 477 9919 she is rejected for the job of nanny as of little value. Everyone brings to the email: [email protected] her warped judgement and obsession, present situation a lifetime of experience which Albert is powerless to deflect, and experiences, and one gets the feeling Visit our website lead to a terrible revenge and a tragedy that even the minor characters in a novel http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~mcrowl which is chillingly inevitable. would have a splendid story to tell if

28 Tui Motu InterIslands r

A readable book with an explosive message

Beyond Violence – In the Spirit of the Non-Violent Christ within families and communities who do not know how to by Gerard A. Vanderhaar act otherwise. He deals with the sin of usury which keeps the Twenty-Third Publications, Mystic, CT.1998, 162pp world poor and the crass materialism which creates violence Price: $27.50 approx. through maldistribution, among other things. Review: Jim Consedine He presents the non-violent face of Christ as a power for his is one of those beautiful little books through which transformation of individuals and society. He draws on the TI wish every Christian would just take a quiet and richness of the non-violent Catholic tradition of the early meditative stroll. Church and the experiences and teachings of modern Catholic leaders – the Berrigan brothers, Eileen Egan and Pax Christi, Gerard A. Vanderhaar is a name unknown in New Zealand. Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker, the ‘ploughshares’ He is Professor Emeritus of Religion and Peace Studies at movement. He reflects on the message and life of Ghandi Christian Brothers University in Memphis, Tennessee, where and wonders why so few espouse his teachings today. He he taught for 28 years. I mention these things because it reveals writes of non-violent time (stress free), non-violent money his age and disposes one to understand the wisdom he has in (exploitation free), of pro-life meaning all life, of non-violence matters related to Catholicism and the central truths relating as a basis for true justice in our local communities and world to justice and peace issues. wide. He writes of the devastation caused by the structural violence And he writes simply. He doesn’t overstate the case nor wow of unrestrained capitalism, of the war machine that so us with a million statistics. He presents a very readable book, dominates the American economy and thereby the economies with questions for discussion at the end of each chapter. It is a of half the world, of the violence of poverty caused by human- good book, nicely presented, with an explosive transforming instituted structures and maintained by them, of the violence message. If only we Christians took it seriously! ■

Often however, the preacher has to battle the temptation of having found My dear people, I still recall... a good story, and then almost at all costs, of working it into his sermon. A World of Stories for Preachers and Teachers instructive, inspirational and interesting, This can work well enough, but there is by William J Bausch all within the self-imposed boundary of a temptation to squeeze the needs of the Twenty-Third Publications seven minutes. The old adage about sermon in order to fit the story. Without Price: approx. $75 preaching says, “If you don’t strike oil in any rancour I would describe the book Review: John Stone the first few minutes then stop boring!” as one to please readers of the Readers While I enjoyed the stories, and the Digest. Not everyone is into that. illiam J Bausch is well known for unique power stories have to illustrate Nevertheless there is an astonishing Whis books on parish life, and the human situation, I did not feel that amount of detail and a good variety recently for his The Church of the Next they would set me going along a line of stories. It’s more like an anthology, Millennium. Although he writes about that would help me on a weekly basis. in the sense that you dip into it rather the American Church, much of what The good preacher, so they say, should than read it progressively from cover to he says is relevant and perhaps ahead be prayerful and reflective, but also a cover. A friend of mine who was a great of what is happening in New Zealand. wide reader, so that he constructs a store hoarder used to remark disparagingly But this book is quite different. It is no of memories and attitudes that are on that such and such an article could more than a collection of stories, some tap, so to speak. prove very handy ‘if you had a need for!’ of them very old and therefore very fundamental to human experience. There is no doubt that when you have All in all it will appeal to certain people, the weekly imperative to produce a but it is not, I believe, God’s gift to The reason I was asked to review the sermon – and that year after year – you preachers. ■ book is because I am still active in do develop an eye for setting aside preaching, and faced weekly with stories and incidents which you know the need to say something timely, may well convert to a good illustration, making your words come alive.

Tui Motu InterIslands 29 comment

Looking behind the ‘good, keen man’

he recent television documentary bring him love. He was, in turn, incapa- Ton the life of Barry Crump held ble of giving love to his family because up a mirror to the New Zealand which he had not experienced it as a child. responded so enthusiastically to A Good Keen Man and to the books which fol- And it is here, at the heart of this lowed on the same theme. The public documentary, we were reminded of the most important basic fact in bringing image of Crump was that he represented unfortunate enough to be his family. up a family, in educating children and a disappearing breed – the hard drink- He behaved to his son as if he consid- in administering society. Crump dam- ing, hard living bushman; the tough ered him to be sub-human. It is not aged those around him because he felt guy who could bring a wild pig out on surprising that no-one got close to Barry worthless and in spite of his literary his back, defying all the logistics of dis- Crump and why he went through life successes, had no respect for himself and tance, terrain and human vulnerability. without emotional commitment to any therefore none for humanity or for the That was the image and that is what sold of his wives, partners or children. His world around him. His sense of worth- the books in record numbers. emotional life as a child had been suffo- lessness developed into a moral cancer cated, battered and bruised to the extent The first book appeared when New Zea- which eroded and finally destroyed his that he was fearful of showing emotion land was still searching for its post-war quality of life. to anyone close to him. His public life identity. The cities were growing fast of shooting, hunting and braggadocio and fewer and fewer New Zealanders was a cover for a deep inadequacy, a had the opportunity of getting into “..and throw away the key” spiritual vacuum which he had never the bush and living off the land by t is difficult to escape the excesses of been able to fill. hunting and shooting. To want to ful- Ielection year and one of the recurring fil a primitive urge to be a hunter and In this sad account of a one-time New promises from all sides of the political food-gatherer is a basic desire firmly Zealand icon, we were left with the im- spectrum is that we need more prisons, embedded in the male psyche, an urge age of a man who drove himself hard to harsher prison sentences and tougher which is closer to the surface in this conceal the non-existence of the good penalties for crimes of violence. The country because of the nearness of our keen man. Publicity photographs, tel- ‘home invasions’ which have become a colonial past. All the physical qualities evision appearances, interviews and his feature of our society have produced this of the hunter and gatherer were needed famous Toyota commercials projected official response in an attempt to per- in those early days of settlement, in ad- his chosen image, filling his days so that suade a nervous public that something dition to inventiveness, resourcefulness he need not face himself and try to come is actually going to be done about it. It and a strong sense of one’s own worth. to terms with his past. The account of is difficult to understand the politicians’ stance. As the male role changed, eroded by Crump’s image depression and two world wars, the The Prime Minister speaks in capital Kiwi stereotype looked back on those covered up a terrible letters, pledging a crack-down on crime earlier frontier days with a kind of wist- childhood... denigrated with all the authority of a great battle- ful nostalgia. But he was looking back ship ploughing through heavy seas. But on an image of the time just as Crump as a no-hoper many of her listeners may well have a projected an image of himself as the good his childhood which was brought to strong suspicion that there is nothing keen man. This image of himself covered viewers in the documentary presented left in the magazine to fire at the enemy. up a terrible childhood, years of beating a classic example of the person who is Phil Goff keeps up a steady fusillade of and ill treatment, denigration as a ‘no- starved of love, starved of praise and fire at the government but continues to hoper’ and being labelled as a dummy. who is denied affection, encouragement be strangely lacking in specific policy and attention. details should Labour become the gov- For, according to the evidence presented ernment. in the documentary, Barry Crump’s It was possible to see the effects of his father was the other side of the coin in upbringing in Crump’s desperate search Cynical New Zealanders may well the image of the good keen man. He for love. As with most of such cases, he wonder if the government is capable of was cruel, mean, sadistic and intoler- confused sex with love and spent his life assessing the cost of its policies. It has ant, instilling fear in those who were looking for a relationship which would steadily eroded the support bases for

30 Tui Motu InterIslands the long term unemployed, the badly housed, the mentally ill and the socially needy. It has allowed an under-class to Cutting parliament down to size develop of people who feel worthless because they are unemployed, unedu- argaret Robertson, organiser None of this appears to disturb her. cated and often illiterate. We have a Mof the petition to reduce the In effect she has said: “Don’t worry raft of people in society whose self- number of MPs, reminds me of about the careful recommendations respect has drained away and in whom that ancient and disreputable Greek of the Commission which devised ambition, curiosity and pride in oneself bandit, Procrustes. His only claim to MMP, and don’t give the system time have faded. Schools continue to fail the fame is that he had the habit of meas- to settle down. Apply the scalpel and children born to people who have lost uring his victims against a certain the hacksaw right now!” Save us everything but the ability to reproduce. bed. If they were too tall he would from such quack surgery! lop off part of their legs, and if too They need much greater resources to That word encourage the reluctant learner, to short, he would stretch them to fit. No one doubts the ‘success’ of the persuade the truant that school has When he was finally caught he was Toyota commercial on television. It something to offer and to help the given the same treatment, but that raised a laugh and became a talking inadequate parent to improve his or wasn’t much comfort for his victims. point throughout the country. No her parenting skills. The Children and Mrs Robertson has managed to doubt it also sold a number of Utes. Young Persons’ Service has to deal with convince herself and a good many the most extreme cases where more staff, others that the present number of I wouldn’t want to start a moral better resources and a more progressive MPs is too many, and arbitrarily crusade, but amidst the national attitude stop them returning children to suggests Parliament should contain guffaws, one might note that this abusive parents or caregivers. only 99. The remedy? Lop 21 off the particular commercial legitimised The “Strengthening Families Project” is total by cutting down the number and promoted one of the most un- an excellent concept but it has not been of list members. That such a crude pleasant words in the language and implemented throughout the country, amputation would inevitably skew got away with it. From now on, every often failing because of community the proportionality of parties, and school kid can incorporate “bugger” jealousies or local body in-fighting. A reduce the number of women, Maori into his conversation with the sanc- politician with vision would explore and other groups doesn’t seem to tion and encouragement of that wise, schemes which would halt the social move her at all. all-knowing authority and example, erosion at its source and divert the Television, behind him. I suppose money intended for prisons into some- Her proposal would also rob Parlia- that should earn warm applause for ment of some of its most useful mem- thing more productive. ■ some bright ideas man in the adver- bers, while leaving various drones tising agency. and non-performers snugly in place. Selwyn Dawson

TUI MOTU-INTERISLANDS

If you know a friend who might SUBSCRIPTION enjoy reading Tui Motu – and NAME:...... perhaps become a subscriber – ADDRESS:...... then fill in the name below and send it to: ...... Area Code...... $20 for FIVE ISSUES P O Box 6404 $40 for ONE YEAR’S Subscription (11 issues) Dunedin North 9030 Overseas: $50 Australia and South Pacific: $60 elsewhere – and we will send them a free copy. I enclose a cheque for $______(Payable to: Tui Motu-InterIslands) Name:...... or please debit my credit card (Visa/Mastercard) ...... Card No:______Expiry date______Address:...... Signature______...... Mail to P O Box 6404 DUNEDIN NORTH 9030

Tui Motu InterIslands 31 postscript

sleeping disciples, which render this moment in the life of Christ as almost The Dying God beyond hope. We will all suffer death – we need to be he approach of the new mill- quest for transcendence. He insists redeemed. The risen Christ, the triumph Tennium year 2000 gives added that human beings can only be seen of Easter, is the promise of redemption. relevance to the meaning of Easter – a against a framework which is larger than The Lenten period, the reminder not dying and a new beginning endlessly themselves. The theme of the poem is to get trapped in the life of the flesh, repeating itself. The mythical narratives the Grail legend in which the sick king gives way to one of joy and hope. In the and fertility rites of many peoples have can only be cured through the passion human spirit, hope dispels all notions of as their base the search for something and death of the greatest of the sacrificial despair and doom, for with hope there to cure what is missing in society. kings – Christ. is meaning to life. It makes the risen Christianity is an updating of the Christ a reality, and it is the fulfilment ancient myths, the master narratives n the Garden of Gethsemane Christ, suffering the loneliness of the mythic of the promise made to humankind which seek transcendence of the human I from the Cross. spirit. To be redeemed from death, you sacrificial victim, offers his human life need a sacrificial victim. for the redemption of humankind. For This Easter at the close of the old the minds and hearts of humans not millennium has a special poignancy, The implications of the death and to be moved by this supreme gesture but the same age-old story of a God resurrection of Christ are deep in the of love must point to an indifference dying for love of his people in order psyche of humankind. The need to beyond belief. Yet belief and faith are that they may live is echoed by Eliot understand this sacrifice, place it in what is necessary, indeed essential. who hoped for “the peace which passes a spiritual context and acknowledge The Agony in the Garden is one of the under-standing”. Salvation can only the need of redemption, is reflected saddest moments in the whole of the come through sacrifice. The sacrificial in some of the greatest poetry in the New Testament. It is the knowledge of death of Christ is life-giving, which is English language. T.S. Eliot’s The the coming betrayal and crucifixion, the overall paradox of Easter. ■ Waste Land engages the reader in the together with the abandonment by his John Honoré

new from Henri Nouwen! Sabbatical Journey The Diary of his final year Henri Nouwen

Renowned academic and best-selling author of The Return of the Prodigal Son, The Inner Voice of Love and Bread for the Journey, Henri Nouwe, took a year’s sabbatical from l’Arche Daybreak community in Toronto where he shared his life with people with mental disabilities. Sabbatical Journey outlines his thoughts and activities on this final lap of his journey home – his final entry in the journal made only three weeks before he died. His beliefs about the journey and the home are scattered throughout, witnessing to his life-long desire and struggle to live his vocation by his ever-growing, ever-changing faith in God. This testimony alone renders it a precious record. Pbk 226 pp RRP $45.00 (freight $2.50)

Mail orders our speciality C ALL MAJOR CREDIT CARDS ACCEPTED CATHOLIC SUPPLIES (NZ) LTD, 80 Adelaide Rd, P O Box 16 110, Wellington Phone: 04 384 3665 * Fax 04 384 3663 * Freephone 0800 882 284 or 0800-Cath-Sup email: [email protected]

32 Tui Motu InterIslands