Last weekend was an interesting one. I went to the Progressive Christian conference held at St Andrew's on the Terrace. The Friday chimed with all of the work I've been doing on breaking stigma around mental illness at work, and preparing for Mental Health Awareness Week and the launch of all the resources we've been working on - but it was doing it from a different angle. I have only been in a church three times since the abortive St James' AGM in March and in that time my thinking has really shifted again, so I was a bit nervous about being with people that described themselves as Christians, as my experience of people who use that term are often anything but loving and compassionate.
However, I was pleasantly surprised - I met people that I could have genuine conversations with about issues that mean something to me: how we treat our Mother the Earth; how we treat other people that wear skin over their divinity; how we walk with kindness and gentleness in the world; how we find Godde, God, Goddess - the Greatness that is the Brightness of All - in the midst of all things and in everywhere.
The most interesting sessions were the one that Emily Colgan ran on reading the bible from the perspective of Earth, employing a hermeneutic of suspicion that I am familiar with from feminist theology. I found this helpful as I haven't touched the bible for months, preferring Matthew Fox's theology, the Gnostic Gospels, or Goddess writings. There may be a way back there for me, employing the hermeneutic of suspicion again.
The best session of all though was Sande Ramage's Jungian "releasing the Christian ties that bind" session. I cried - suddenly it seemed I had found someone else who has travelled the same route I am travelling, and is further along the road. When she talked about her experience of divinity as Goddess and swapped between he and she as naturally as breathing, it felt as though I had found what I had been trying for years to get into the church.
Not sure where this leaves me though. I will continue to read, to seek. Hubby and daughter gave me a singing bowl for my birthday, which now sits alongside the pottery version of the Venus of Willendorf that one of hubby's pottery friends made and we bought a few months ago. It is astonishing, the sense of divinity that comes when I ring the bowl and light a candle. Maybe that's all I do for a bit: small ritual actions, lighting candles, calling on her, singing bowls, breathing, walking on her breasts the earth. Smelling the jonquils in my garden. Sinking into the depths of the wonderful bathtub in our gorgeous new bathroom that hubby built. Being aware. Writing. Poems are beginning to bubble again....
Showing posts with label Places. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Places. Show all posts
15 September 2018
29 November 2015
And we're here...
The world is full of light: the lights of the valley below, the twinkly lights on the banister of our balcony that we put up for Advent. Stars. Sunsets. Huge moons that look like great gold pieces. Our new home seems to be illuminated in all sorts of ways, especially with the wonderful afternoon and evening light we get here.
Coming home from work is like coming on a retreat: the total privacy of this house wraps itself around me the moment I walk in the door. And yet, it's on quite a busy road (the main road in and out of our hillside suburb) and it's only 5 minutes to the centre of Lower Hutt and 25 minutes to Wellington (without traffic!). Our living room overlooks the valley and Wellington Harbour, and the view is spectacular. No two days are the same - not even two minutes - and it's always lovely. Even when the storms roll in, we can see the clouds coming in over the water, and we get wrapped in clouds up here. No window is overlooked by any other house: the only windows that look onto the street are the dining room, and they are shielded by native trees. Our bedroom looks out onto the deck, and it's shielded by trees from the street so it's totally private. This house is an introvert's paradise!
Returning to our parish church of St James has been like going home again: returning to liturgy, to good music, to good friends who welcome us back into the family. In some ways its as though we never left but in others, we've learnt new things we can offer St James, and the parish has created new traditions that we're becoming part of. One of them was a lovely surprise last week, on the solemnity of Christ the King, last day of the church's year. It was a solemn high mass, concelebrated by three priests, with millions of candles (more or less!), and incense! Lots and lots of incense! The music was the normal St James sung liturgy, although the priest leading it sang the entire prayer of consecration which we don't usually do. It was fabulous. The only slight drawback from my point of view was that I had laryngitis and literally couldn't make a noise at all - the humour of the hymn choice struck me when we sang "Let all mortal flesh keep silence" - I didn't have a choice! It was a relief to sing "rejoice" today on Advent Sunday!
St James has also always had a strong tradition of getting children involved in the liturgical life of the parish. We hadn't been back three minutes when I was asked to rejoin the choir (which I did with joy), and our daughter was asked to be a Herald. The Herald is a tradition peculiar to St James, where a child carries a taiaha behind the crucifer in all the processionals, and is responsible for reading the opening sentence of the liturgy, and leading the processional of the offertory up to the altar. They wear child-sized liturgical robes. It's a sort of junior server: the next step is serving the altar, and then being crucifer or liturgist. Our daughter very proudly did her first service as Herald a couple of weeks ago, and was very pleased that she got to be Herald on the First Sunday of Advent. Hubby has picked up his camera for the parish again, and has been mixing the sound and running the powerpoint (a new innovation for St James since we left). I've also been writing for the parish magazine again, which was pretty cool.
We've also found outlets for most of our other activities: we've found an archery club in Trentham - the only drawback is that they don't have an indoor range so if the weather's nasty, there's no shooting. However, they do have a clout and field range, which we didn't have in Rotorua. Daughter has Linked from Brownies to Girl Guides here, and has had a wonderful term with Guides here (sewing box came out again for yet more badges!). Hubby has returned to the camera club here, and is rediscovering pottery which he used to do years ago. I'm loving having my friends and professional networks back, and the challenge of what I'm doing at work is really interesting.
So, all in all, the move has worked well. It's good to be back!
Coming home from work is like coming on a retreat: the total privacy of this house wraps itself around me the moment I walk in the door. And yet, it's on quite a busy road (the main road in and out of our hillside suburb) and it's only 5 minutes to the centre of Lower Hutt and 25 minutes to Wellington (without traffic!). Our living room overlooks the valley and Wellington Harbour, and the view is spectacular. No two days are the same - not even two minutes - and it's always lovely. Even when the storms roll in, we can see the clouds coming in over the water, and we get wrapped in clouds up here. No window is overlooked by any other house: the only windows that look onto the street are the dining room, and they are shielded by native trees. Our bedroom looks out onto the deck, and it's shielded by trees from the street so it's totally private. This house is an introvert's paradise!
Returning to our parish church of St James has been like going home again: returning to liturgy, to good music, to good friends who welcome us back into the family. In some ways its as though we never left but in others, we've learnt new things we can offer St James, and the parish has created new traditions that we're becoming part of. One of them was a lovely surprise last week, on the solemnity of Christ the King, last day of the church's year. It was a solemn high mass, concelebrated by three priests, with millions of candles (more or less!), and incense! Lots and lots of incense! The music was the normal St James sung liturgy, although the priest leading it sang the entire prayer of consecration which we don't usually do. It was fabulous. The only slight drawback from my point of view was that I had laryngitis and literally couldn't make a noise at all - the humour of the hymn choice struck me when we sang "Let all mortal flesh keep silence" - I didn't have a choice! It was a relief to sing "rejoice" today on Advent Sunday!
St James has also always had a strong tradition of getting children involved in the liturgical life of the parish. We hadn't been back three minutes when I was asked to rejoin the choir (which I did with joy), and our daughter was asked to be a Herald. The Herald is a tradition peculiar to St James, where a child carries a taiaha behind the crucifer in all the processionals, and is responsible for reading the opening sentence of the liturgy, and leading the processional of the offertory up to the altar. They wear child-sized liturgical robes. It's a sort of junior server: the next step is serving the altar, and then being crucifer or liturgist. Our daughter very proudly did her first service as Herald a couple of weeks ago, and was very pleased that she got to be Herald on the First Sunday of Advent. Hubby has picked up his camera for the parish again, and has been mixing the sound and running the powerpoint (a new innovation for St James since we left). I've also been writing for the parish magazine again, which was pretty cool.
We've also found outlets for most of our other activities: we've found an archery club in Trentham - the only drawback is that they don't have an indoor range so if the weather's nasty, there's no shooting. However, they do have a clout and field range, which we didn't have in Rotorua. Daughter has Linked from Brownies to Girl Guides here, and has had a wonderful term with Guides here (sewing box came out again for yet more badges!). Hubby has returned to the camera club here, and is rediscovering pottery which he used to do years ago. I'm loving having my friends and professional networks back, and the challenge of what I'm doing at work is really interesting.
So, all in all, the move has worked well. It's good to be back!
16 September 2015
Camino di Compostella
The calendar tells me it's 16 September, over a month since I last posted. I can believe it. I thought today would be a day of craziness, but in the end the auction scheduled for today was cancelled because our house sold prior (thank God) and we have an offer on another house in Lower Hutt. The slight downside is that we don't get possession of said house until early November, but it is worth waiting for. It is exactly in the area we wanted to be, it has a stunning view over the harbour that will keep me plastered up against the living room window all the time I'm home, and it's been recently redecorated with a brand new kitchen. In fact, it's as close to perfect as a house can be, and we bless God for blessing us with it.
The house feels like a gift, but what is more important to us is how much we have been missed, and welcomed home. We went down to the Hutt to look for houses a couple of weekends ago, and we were very nearly mobbed by the congregation at our parish church of St James: everyone was really happy to see us and was ecstatic that we're moving home. It was almost overwhelming, especially when I found out that they have begun a journey into looking at the gendered language of God in liturgy and hymns, which has been a real issue for me for some time. We realised how much they had missed us, just as we have missed them terribly for the time we've been in Rotorua. We had lived into each others' journeys in the nearly 10 years we'd been worshipping at St James', and now it's time to resume the camino again.
So, at the Rotorua end of this move, I am making lists about my lists, crossing things off, adding lots more, and feeling as though my brain has too many tabs open! One major thing will be crossed off this Friday when I finish work as a consultant: I get a couple of weeks' break to move (originally also intended for moving in!) before I start my new job in October. However, things are slowly slipping into place: our new house is 700m from the local primary school so our daughter can walk to school (until we move into the house, hubby will commute her to school from where we're staying), we've found her a Guide company and an art class, hubby is looking forward to rejoining the local camera club and art society, and I'm happy that my professional networks and choir are now back on the horizon. Not to mention access again to art galleries, museums, the ballet, orchestras, and music! Lunchtime organ recitals, here I come....
However, there will be things we will miss: we're not looking forward to saying goodbye to friends, and we will miss the beautiful weather and the loveliness of this part of the island. Not to mention how close it is to everything: an hour to Tauranga/the Mount, 4 hours to the snow, 3.5 hours to Auckland, and I never did get back to Coromandel while I was here.
But, as before, we know we have been called. In fact, it's all part of the bigger camino, the journey, and the impetus for this one really began about this time last year when we did the Tarore pilgrimage, and then our pilgrimage in the UK really showed us our hearts. So it's time. Time to go home.
20 July 2015
Books: the breath of life
The last two weeks have been pretty busy and a bit stressful, so I have been finding a bit of peace and quiet in a couple of books: a favourite, and a new book by a favourite author. The old favourites are the Harry Pottter series from the beginning all over again. This time it's quite interesting re-reading them because of our trip to Leavesden Studios in the UK for the Harry Potter tour. It was one of our must-dos on our (extensive) list of places we went. Each of us came up with some things we wanted to see and then we whittled down the list - well, if I'm honest, we took a sword to my list to chop it down to something even faintly resembling a reasonable length! The Harry Potter tour was on our daughter's must-do list and we were all quite happy to oblige her!
But back to the books. It's slightly odd re-reading them this time because of having visited the sets. Sure, I had my own vision of what the places looked like from my imagination, that was then coloured by the movies, but actually seeing the sets myself and walking among them has made this re-reading an unusually interesting and rich experience.
The other book I've been pursuing, somewhat slower because it requires more concentration, is the wonderful Silence: a Christian history by the outstanding scholar and church historian Diarmaid MacCulloch. Professor MacCulloch has been one of my favourite historians for some time now, ever since my brother sent over recordings of his outstanding BBC documentaries on the history of the church that accompanied his brilliant (but extremely large!) book Christianity: the first three thousand years (yes, you did read that right). I got that book and read my way slowly through it (it's about two inches thick - it took me a while!), and have been planning to read the Silence book ever since I heard that he was writing on monasticism.
I finally got my hands on it and it is a really interesting take on church history: not only does it look at monastic silences, but the silences of shame, of politics, of collusion, of power and powerlessness, of "heretics" and women, black people and gays. It looks at the way silence is used to bring us closer to God, and to hide us away, to control and release us. He describes the Protestant Reformation as one of the noisiest periods of church history and the loss of personal silence before God (deeply distrusted by magisterial Reformers) as something that took centuries to come back. I am about half-way through and it is almost as much of a challenge, though in a different way, as the wonderful She Who Is (Elizabeth Johnston) that I read last year.
Professor MacCulloch writes his history "from below": he has a deep, inbuilt understanding of the hidden silences of the church from his own experience as a gay man, so he is particularly alert to the experiences of silence, power and powerlessness experienced by other groups. It chimes with another book I was reading recently called The War on Heresy, another intriguing take on history that suggests that the inquisition and the Albigensian Crusade weren't actually about belief at all, but about the use, establishment, and abuse of power, and there was no real "Cathar church", contrary to what the surviving medieval manuscripts say (to the victors, the spoils!).
But back to the books. It's slightly odd re-reading them this time because of having visited the sets. Sure, I had my own vision of what the places looked like from my imagination, that was then coloured by the movies, but actually seeing the sets myself and walking among them has made this re-reading an unusually interesting and rich experience.
The other book I've been pursuing, somewhat slower because it requires more concentration, is the wonderful Silence: a Christian history by the outstanding scholar and church historian Diarmaid MacCulloch. Professor MacCulloch has been one of my favourite historians for some time now, ever since my brother sent over recordings of his outstanding BBC documentaries on the history of the church that accompanied his brilliant (but extremely large!) book Christianity: the first three thousand years (yes, you did read that right). I got that book and read my way slowly through it (it's about two inches thick - it took me a while!), and have been planning to read the Silence book ever since I heard that he was writing on monasticism.
I finally got my hands on it and it is a really interesting take on church history: not only does it look at monastic silences, but the silences of shame, of politics, of collusion, of power and powerlessness, of "heretics" and women, black people and gays. It looks at the way silence is used to bring us closer to God, and to hide us away, to control and release us. He describes the Protestant Reformation as one of the noisiest periods of church history and the loss of personal silence before God (deeply distrusted by magisterial Reformers) as something that took centuries to come back. I am about half-way through and it is almost as much of a challenge, though in a different way, as the wonderful She Who Is (Elizabeth Johnston) that I read last year.
Professor MacCulloch writes his history "from below": he has a deep, inbuilt understanding of the hidden silences of the church from his own experience as a gay man, so he is particularly alert to the experiences of silence, power and powerlessness experienced by other groups. It chimes with another book I was reading recently called The War on Heresy, another intriguing take on history that suggests that the inquisition and the Albigensian Crusade weren't actually about belief at all, but about the use, establishment, and abuse of power, and there was no real "Cathar church", contrary to what the surviving medieval manuscripts say (to the victors, the spoils!).
12 July 2015
Booking
The last few nights have been rather fun. After our big trip to the UK in January, we decided we wanted to preserve the photos in a more permanent way than the usual photo album or digitally on hubby's computer. We kept our eye out and got a great deal on an A3 full-colour 52-page hardcover photo book. Hubby's been slowly editing our photos as he's had time around students and decorating - helped by a "yes, yes, no, yes, no, no, yes" session when we sat down together and identified the photos we wanted to include that he then edited for us.
The last three nights, we've been putting the photo book together: hubby finishing the editing then handing the photo files over to me for upload into the photo book software. It was surprisingly easy to use and had a number of layouts and other features we could use to make the book look the way we wanted. I decided to eschew the "other features" like frames and fake photo corners etc, and just let hubby's photos speak for themselves. In the end, I also left off text, which I had originally planned to include.
Tonight, we finished it. The awesome bit was that originally I had put most of the Hogwarts/Harry Potter tour photos on two pages, and the British Museum stuff on one page. When I got to the end of the album, I had two pages unused - so I was able to insert those pages into the centre of the book and give the museum and tour a lot more space.
There is no way I could capture the British Museum in a double-page spread, so I didn't try. We were only there for a morning (we could have stayed for weeks!) and we went with a specific agenda: the Elgin marbles, the Mildenhall Treasure, and the Egyptian exhibits. We also found a lot of other cool stuff, including the Viking chess pieces and lot of wonderful Greek and Etruscan statuary, and some beautiful Venetian glass when we were trying to find the treasure. I tried to show those key things on the spread, but I will always remember the Celtic torcs and the altarpieces.... The pages showing Canterbury Cathedral and York Minster really capture the way I felt about those places, and overall I'm really happy with it. And we've got Mallard and Rocket in there, one from the National Rail Museum in York, the other from the Science Museum in London.
There was so much more we could have put in, but it's only a place of memories, to trigger our own recollections of what we did and where we went. I fired it off for printing tonight, and it will be amazing when it comes to see those photos full size - the editing program meant each page was not much more than A5 on screen. It was a lot of fun too - but so hard, deciding which of hubby's wonderful photos went in, and which ones couldn't: he had about 3000 photos from the trip, which we cut down to 300 for the album, some of which didn't make it in.... The joys of going overseas with a photographer!
The last three nights, we've been putting the photo book together: hubby finishing the editing then handing the photo files over to me for upload into the photo book software. It was surprisingly easy to use and had a number of layouts and other features we could use to make the book look the way we wanted. I decided to eschew the "other features" like frames and fake photo corners etc, and just let hubby's photos speak for themselves. In the end, I also left off text, which I had originally planned to include.
Tonight, we finished it. The awesome bit was that originally I had put most of the Hogwarts/Harry Potter tour photos on two pages, and the British Museum stuff on one page. When I got to the end of the album, I had two pages unused - so I was able to insert those pages into the centre of the book and give the museum and tour a lot more space.
There is no way I could capture the British Museum in a double-page spread, so I didn't try. We were only there for a morning (we could have stayed for weeks!) and we went with a specific agenda: the Elgin marbles, the Mildenhall Treasure, and the Egyptian exhibits. We also found a lot of other cool stuff, including the Viking chess pieces and lot of wonderful Greek and Etruscan statuary, and some beautiful Venetian glass when we were trying to find the treasure. I tried to show those key things on the spread, but I will always remember the Celtic torcs and the altarpieces.... The pages showing Canterbury Cathedral and York Minster really capture the way I felt about those places, and overall I'm really happy with it. And we've got Mallard and Rocket in there, one from the National Rail Museum in York, the other from the Science Museum in London.
There was so much more we could have put in, but it's only a place of memories, to trigger our own recollections of what we did and where we went. I fired it off for printing tonight, and it will be amazing when it comes to see those photos full size - the editing program meant each page was not much more than A5 on screen. It was a lot of fun too - but so hard, deciding which of hubby's wonderful photos went in, and which ones couldn't: he had about 3000 photos from the trip, which we cut down to 300 for the album, some of which didn't make it in.... The joys of going overseas with a photographer!
6 June 2015
I have been there
One of my uni friends loaned me 84 Charing Cross Road many years ago when I was a student. I didn't know the author at all but immediately resonated with her love of all things literature and all things England. The sequel, The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, includes a description of Helene Hanff's passion for England - how she used to go to movies just to see English streets and buildings.
Last weekend, we watched Paddington for daughter's birthday - we missed this one at the theatre last year and had promised her we'd see it. It was quite well done and almost as much fun as the books, but what got all of us was the locations. "We've been there!" "That's the London Eye!" "That's Big Ben!" and "That's the Museum of Natural History!" Tonight, hubby had a movie on from TV and it was the same - location-spotting. The movie was dreadful but on the odd occasion when I glanced up from my book, the locations not the action caught my eye.
I've finally been there. I have walked those streets until I wanted to amputate my feet with a spoon and my knees were so crippled I was sure they would never straighten out again. I have ridden the Underground and a double-decker bus. I have been in the British Museum and seen the Mildenhall Treasure and the Elgin Marbles, and could have cheerfully stayed there for an entire week looking at stuff. I have scraped my jaw off the floor in the National Gallery. I have walked Westminster Abbey and the Tower of London, and found my ancestors' memorials and the place where one of them was executed (long story). I have fallen in love with Canterbury Cathedral and will never be the same again. I have celebrated Evensong by candlelight in York Minster and seen Mistress Quickly and Falstaff dodging around the Shambles. I have slithered around the Yorkshire Moors in the snow, and watched my family sledding at Chatsworth. I have walked in Chatsworth House and fallen in love with its gardens and library - and just fallen over in the snow! I have floated on Coniston Water and seen Peel/Wild Cat Island with my own eyes. I have walked through Hogsmeade and seen Hogwarts. I have eaten pheasant pie and enjoyed the warmth and friendliness of a 350-year-old British pub. I have touched the original Rocket and stood in the cab of Mallard. I have seen with my own eyes many-million-year-old dinosaur bones and stood inside a leaf at the Museum of Natural History.
I am blessed and very grateful.
I really must watch Pride and Prejudice again and revisit Chatsworth-as-Pemberley....
4 June 2015
Frosty
Last night I was re-reading some of my favourite poetry by Robert Frost, the American 20th century poet who is probably most famous for his poem 'The Road Less Travelled' - the one that ends 'Two roads diverged in a yellow wood | And I, I took the one less travelled by, | And that has made all the difference.'
I did re-read 'The Road Less Travelled' last night, along with some other favourites such as 'Mending Wall', 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening', and 'After Apple-picking'. But the one that particularly struck me last night was 'The Wood-pile'.
Out walking in the frozen swamp one gray day,
I paused and said, 'I will turn back from here.
No, I will go on farther—and we shall see.'
The hard snow held me, save where now and then
One foot went through. The view was all in lines
Straight up and down of tall slim trees
Too much alike to mark or name a place by
So as to say for certain I was here
Or somewhere else: I was just far from home.
A small bird flew before me. He was careful
To put a tree between us when he lighted,
And say no word to tell me who he was
Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.
He thought that I was after him for a feather—
The white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything said as personal to himself.
One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.
And then there was a pile of wood for which
I forgot him and let his little fear
Carry him off the way I might have gone,
Without so much as wishing him good-night.
He went behind it to make his last stand.
It was a cord of maple, cut and split
And piled—and measured, four by four by eight.
And not another like it could I see.
No runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it.
And it was older sure than this year's cutting,
Or even last year's or the year's before.
The wood was gray and the bark warping off it
And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis
Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle.
What held it though on one side was a tree
Still growing, and on one a stake and prop,
These latter about to fall. I thought that only
Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks
Could so forget his handiwork on which
He spent himself, the labor of his ax,
And leave it there far from a useful fireplace
To warm the frozen swamp as best it could
With the slow smokeless burning of decay.
I've always liked that poem, but like with most of Frost's work, I've usually focused on the image of the person he describes, the one who 'lived in turning to fresh tasks'. However, last night I found myself touched by the opening description of the walk in the woods: the hard snow, the lines of slim trees that all look the same. It took me back to Grace Dieu Priory, a ruined Augustinian priory near Shepshed in the UK. We went there on one very cold, snowy afternoon, walking through the woods in the late afternoon sun (at 2pm!), with all the slim trees everywhere the same, and the snap and squeak of snow underfoot, and you couldn't tell where you were or where you were going. However instead of finding an abandoned woodpile, we found a ruined monastery, sacred ground iced with snow and holding a breath of the holy in the cold.
I did re-read 'The Road Less Travelled' last night, along with some other favourites such as 'Mending Wall', 'Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening', and 'After Apple-picking'. But the one that particularly struck me last night was 'The Wood-pile'.
Out walking in the frozen swamp one gray day,
I paused and said, 'I will turn back from here.
No, I will go on farther—and we shall see.'
The hard snow held me, save where now and then
One foot went through. The view was all in lines
Straight up and down of tall slim trees
Too much alike to mark or name a place by
So as to say for certain I was here
Or somewhere else: I was just far from home.
A small bird flew before me. He was careful
To put a tree between us when he lighted,
And say no word to tell me who he was
Who was so foolish as to think what he thought.
He thought that I was after him for a feather—
The white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything said as personal to himself.
One flight out sideways would have undeceived him.
And then there was a pile of wood for which
I forgot him and let his little fear
Carry him off the way I might have gone,
Without so much as wishing him good-night.
He went behind it to make his last stand.
It was a cord of maple, cut and split
And piled—and measured, four by four by eight.
And not another like it could I see.
No runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it.
And it was older sure than this year's cutting,
Or even last year's or the year's before.
The wood was gray and the bark warping off it
And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis
Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle.
What held it though on one side was a tree
Still growing, and on one a stake and prop,
These latter about to fall. I thought that only
Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks
Could so forget his handiwork on which
He spent himself, the labor of his ax,
And leave it there far from a useful fireplace
To warm the frozen swamp as best it could
With the slow smokeless burning of decay.
I've always liked that poem, but like with most of Frost's work, I've usually focused on the image of the person he describes, the one who 'lived in turning to fresh tasks'. However, last night I found myself touched by the opening description of the walk in the woods: the hard snow, the lines of slim trees that all look the same. It took me back to Grace Dieu Priory, a ruined Augustinian priory near Shepshed in the UK. We went there on one very cold, snowy afternoon, walking through the woods in the late afternoon sun (at 2pm!), with all the slim trees everywhere the same, and the snap and squeak of snow underfoot, and you couldn't tell where you were or where you were going. However instead of finding an abandoned woodpile, we found a ruined monastery, sacred ground iced with snow and holding a breath of the holy in the cold.
15 May 2015
God of love
This prayer was on the Canterbury Cathedral website today. It spoke to me and I want to savour it.
God of love,
we pray you give us love:
Love in our thinking, love in our speaking,
love in our doing and love in the
hidden places of our souls;
love of our neighbours, near and far;
love of our friends old and new;
love of those with whom we find it hard to bear,
and love of those who find it hard to bear with us;
love of those with whom we work,
and love of those with whom we take our ease;
love in joy, love in sorrow, love in life and love in death,
so that at length we may dwell with you,
who are Eternal Love. Amen.
May God be your comfort and your strength,
your hope and your support,
today and everyday. Amen.
Missing liturgy
A while ago, I reflected on whether it was possible to be homesick for a place I have only been once. I concluded it was eminently possible: Canterbury Cathedral has so stamped itself on my heart that I know I will never truly be the same. It is the heart of our ancient faith in England (although not the oldest place of worship there), a place of worship and pilgrimage and seeking for more than 1500 years.
I knew when we came home that it would be difficult to come back from the visceral, whole-of-body, whole-spirit experience of cathedral worship in the UK: where the very stones seem to be painted with prayer and the whole place shimmers with the organ and the bells and the singing; incense, beeswax, body and blood. Immersive church, where everything is done excellently, reverently, and with holy purpose.
Sure, it's not perfect: they've only just figured out that women are called to the episcopate too (we're 25 years ahead of them there!) and the language is seriously patriarchal - but there is hope in the movements of inclusive church that that will change. What won't is the desire to do all things "decently and in order", with love and passion and skill.
What I have realised is that I need that liturgy done with love and passion and skill. I need the music and love and prayer and holy purpose. I need the Office, the daily round of prayer, painted on my heart like light through stained glass. I need this. Liturgy done poorly, bad music, trite lyrics - I cannot separate myself from it. It becomes like sandpaper on my soul, grinding me in all my most tender places.
Some people might say this is me being overly sensitive, too "high", not being "of the people" - snobbish, even. But for me, worship is not of the people. It is our gift to God, and should it not be the best of what we are capable? It should be the best music, the best singing, the best words, trusting that God, by some alchemy of her own, will make them worthy of her worthiness, for nothing we offer God will ever be enough. But it should be beautiful.
And when it is not, then it is time to listen to what my heart says, what my spirit knows. I cannot return to Canterbury, but our pilgrimage there has shown me my heart. I need to be honest to myself and I cannot hide any longer.
I knew when we came home that it would be difficult to come back from the visceral, whole-of-body, whole-spirit experience of cathedral worship in the UK: where the very stones seem to be painted with prayer and the whole place shimmers with the organ and the bells and the singing; incense, beeswax, body and blood. Immersive church, where everything is done excellently, reverently, and with holy purpose.
Sure, it's not perfect: they've only just figured out that women are called to the episcopate too (we're 25 years ahead of them there!) and the language is seriously patriarchal - but there is hope in the movements of inclusive church that that will change. What won't is the desire to do all things "decently and in order", with love and passion and skill.
What I have realised is that I need that liturgy done with love and passion and skill. I need the music and love and prayer and holy purpose. I need the Office, the daily round of prayer, painted on my heart like light through stained glass. I need this. Liturgy done poorly, bad music, trite lyrics - I cannot separate myself from it. It becomes like sandpaper on my soul, grinding me in all my most tender places.
Some people might say this is me being overly sensitive, too "high", not being "of the people" - snobbish, even. But for me, worship is not of the people. It is our gift to God, and should it not be the best of what we are capable? It should be the best music, the best singing, the best words, trusting that God, by some alchemy of her own, will make them worthy of her worthiness, for nothing we offer God will ever be enough. But it should be beautiful.
And when it is not, then it is time to listen to what my heart says, what my spirit knows. I cannot return to Canterbury, but our pilgrimage there has shown me my heart. I need to be honest to myself and I cannot hide any longer.
11 April 2015
Alarums and excursions
In my last post we were entering into the darkness of Good Friday, having finished the mandatum and stripping the church. I fully expected to reflect on Easter itself, but, to quote John Lennon, 'Life is what happens to you when you're busy making other plans.' I was part of the Good Friday liturgies, and after I got home, daughter and I did some gardening in the glorious late autumn sun. We got a call just after we came in to say that my mum's youngest brother had died very unexpectedly.
This whole week has been a blur in many ways. My loss cannot in any way compare to that of my aunt and cousins and their children, but I loved my uncle deeply and it was totally unexpected. I asked for leave for yesterday and today so we could go down to Palmerston North for his funeral, and it turned into a fairly eventful trip.
It was pouring with rain on the way down, and just north of Taihape we blew a tyre coming down off the Desert Road, and couldn't find the jack in hubby's car (my brother-in-law has since identified that the jack in a Toyota Yaris is kept under the left-hand front seat?!) so we waited ages for the AA, and were eventually saved by a knight in shining armour on his trusty steed, disguised as a local farmer in a raincoat and rain trousers driving a ute.... so we cancelled the call to the AA.
We finally arrived in Palmerston North, found our motel, had a very nice Mediterranean meal in a little restaurant underneath it, and went wearily to bed, to be woken at 3am by the fire alarm going off.... We wandered around the Square for most of an hour before they let us back in the building (fortunately the rain had stopped somewhere between going to bed and the alarm). And got woken around 8.30am by daughter screaming in pain.... so we scooted her off to ED to try and sort her out (fortunately it wasn't as serious as it originally presented). Finally got to the funeral about half an hour before it started....
The funeral itself was lovely, insofar as a funeral can be lovely. It perfectly reflected the character and passions of my uncle, who was an organist, a musician, a gardener, a passionate lover of God and people, a humble, funny, and brilliant man. He lived his life with gusto and humour, and his faith with courage and conviction. I don't know if he knew St Francis of Assisi, but he would have entirely approved of a quote attributed to him: "Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." That was my uncle to a T. His gospel was love and compassion, dealt out with a quirky cheerfulness, a song, and usually a few terrible puns. He was unfailingly warm and caring to everyone who knew him, but he was never stodgy or heavy - that sly sense of humour was never far away.
It is awfully hard to imagine the family without him.
This whole week has been a blur in many ways. My loss cannot in any way compare to that of my aunt and cousins and their children, but I loved my uncle deeply and it was totally unexpected. I asked for leave for yesterday and today so we could go down to Palmerston North for his funeral, and it turned into a fairly eventful trip.
It was pouring with rain on the way down, and just north of Taihape we blew a tyre coming down off the Desert Road, and couldn't find the jack in hubby's car (my brother-in-law has since identified that the jack in a Toyota Yaris is kept under the left-hand front seat?!) so we waited ages for the AA, and were eventually saved by a knight in shining armour on his trusty steed, disguised as a local farmer in a raincoat and rain trousers driving a ute.... so we cancelled the call to the AA.
We finally arrived in Palmerston North, found our motel, had a very nice Mediterranean meal in a little restaurant underneath it, and went wearily to bed, to be woken at 3am by the fire alarm going off.... We wandered around the Square for most of an hour before they let us back in the building (fortunately the rain had stopped somewhere between going to bed and the alarm). And got woken around 8.30am by daughter screaming in pain.... so we scooted her off to ED to try and sort her out (fortunately it wasn't as serious as it originally presented). Finally got to the funeral about half an hour before it started....
The funeral itself was lovely, insofar as a funeral can be lovely. It perfectly reflected the character and passions of my uncle, who was an organist, a musician, a gardener, a passionate lover of God and people, a humble, funny, and brilliant man. He lived his life with gusto and humour, and his faith with courage and conviction. I don't know if he knew St Francis of Assisi, but he would have entirely approved of a quote attributed to him: "Preach the gospel at all times. If necessary, use words." That was my uncle to a T. His gospel was love and compassion, dealt out with a quirky cheerfulness, a song, and usually a few terrible puns. He was unfailingly warm and caring to everyone who knew him, but he was never stodgy or heavy - that sly sense of humour was never far away.
It is awfully hard to imagine the family without him.
1 February 2015
Homesick for pilgrimage
I've often wondered whether it was possible to be truly homesick for a place that isn't really home. Last night, I got my answer: absolutely.
Part of our trip to the UK was a pilgrimage. We visited three cathedrals and several holy sites while we were over there. We started our pilgrimage on Christmas Day in NZ's northernmost Cathedral, Holy Trinity Auckland, which was pretty special as it was 200 years to the day since the preaching of the first Christian sermon in this land. We continued it with English cathedrals and holy places.
York Minister is jaw-droppingly beautiful. The feral GPS took us right into the centre of the old city within the walls - to the point that we nearly ran into the pedestrian-only zone through the Shambles (oops); but as a way to see the Cathedral, driving up Museum Street to the York Information Centre pretty much can't be beaten. The Minster just loomed up out of the frost, with the morning light behind it, shimmering on the golden stone, and the Heart of Yorkshire tracery in the Great Window catching the sun. Inside, it's even better. I literally had to scrape my jaw off the floor when we walked into the nave and looked up. I have never seen anything so lovely as those pillars of stone reaching for the sky, and the gilded bosses and ribbed ceiling. We did one of the guided tours, which was very interesting but quite long. I loved the crypt, with the tomb of St William of York (very simple, a single block of stone with a candle burning on it), and the ancient paintings. We went back later on that day for evensong in the quire. Candles, choir (a visiting choir - the Minster's one was on holiday but they were very good), and that thunderously gorgeous organ. Worship was a whole body experience: the feel of the organ, the smell of wax and candles, the music, the silence. Prayers offered for the prayer intentions left in the Minster. Very down to earth and grounded in reality, even in the midst of the glorious music.
Sheffield Cathedral on New Year's Day: very quiet and peaceful. Reminded me a lot of the feel of Wellington Cathedral of St Paul although it's much much older and looks nothing like Wellington's "big pink sarcophagus"! It's not one of the "famous" ones but it was very lovely. We liked the fact you could see the Norman, Gothic, and later additions very clearly, and it had a gorgeous chapel to the Holy Spirit that I particularly liked. It also had the coolest of all the nativities we saw: made of Sheffield steel, about 1.5m high, and somehow the makers had made that steel very winsome and gentle.
Grace Dieu Priory was not on our original itinerary: my sister-in-law suggested it as it was just up the road from their place near Loughborough. We got there by a very cold walk through English woods in the snow, which was interesting in itself: I was quite surprised by the lack of undergrowth, bushes etc - just trees, and they seemed fairly widely spaced. I don't think it was deliberately planted but it had a "managed" feel. The priory itself is a ruin, but it was beautiful. The stonework was all iced with thick snow, and the walls rose out of snowy fields. The late afternoon light was very kind to the stonework, and the whole place had a kind of breathless hush, almost as though it was waiting for something. It had the feel of a "thin place": it knew it had once been holy ground, and the sense of consecration was still there. It was very cold! Having the deep snow helped the sense of hush too. The pond beneath the priory was frozen solid (small daughter threw a good-sized rock just to make sure and it skidded for several metres!).
Most people wouldn't consider Stonehenge a holy place, but I do. Most modern scholarship seems to think that it, and the landscape around it, was holy to the prehistoric peoples, and that Stonehenge was a place of worship. I certainly sensed that when I was there: It is so old, so unbelievably old, and it was in use for over 1000 years for whatever the ancients did there. It has left a mark on both the physical landscape and the landscape of Spirit. I spent some time trying to listen to the place (rather difficult when it's swarming with tourists!). I got the sense that Stonehenge isn't quite sure what it is anymore, but that when it's quiet, after dark or at the turnings of the year, it would go back in time a long long way. It would be a place of awe, and to me, that's what worship is: finding the awe, the marks of our recognition of the numinous, in places, times, music, art, and people - the places where God has touched us and we have touched God.
I suspect the National Gallery isn't on a list of holy places for many people either, but there were so many wonderful works of art, many of them altarpieces or great artist's explorations of religious themes that it was definitely part of our pilgrimage. So many artists, so many places to go in the world through the art, so many themes of love and beauty, power and betrayal, peace and war and everything in between. Highlights too numerous to mention, but seeing Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael in the same building was pretty amazing, not to mention Holbein, Constable, Turner, Degas, and a whole lot more.
Westminster Abbey was a different kind of holy: the holiness of the ordinary, the holiness that we find through living our lives and contributing to society. It also turned into a very personal moment, when I found a shrine to one of my ancestors, and the tomb of another (a Dean of Westminster). Did not expect that at all! Partly because of the number of people there, it was hard to get a sense of the Abbey as a working church, except at the prayers on the hour (when one of the Canons requested everyone to be still for a few moments while they offered prayer). We didn't go to the prayers at St Edward the Confessor's tomb, although I did spend a few moments reflecting there. I found it hard to get a sense of the architecture too, because there were so many monuments and grave markers - I found some old friends, like CV Stanford, Howells, Dryden, Keats, Shakespeare, and rather endearingly, CS Lewis (no Tolkien though). Also Queens Elizabeth and Mary (in a shared grave, rather beautifully). Henry V, and Henry IV.
The jewel in the crown, and the finale of our pilgrimage, was Canterbury Cathedral itself. We were staying in the beautiful, peaceful Cathedral Lodge within the precincts of the Cathedral - it was tasteful, comfortable, and luxuriously beautiful in a very understated way. What was amazing was how the noise of the city just disappeared when you went through the walls into the precinct. The old city walls are stone and incredibly thick: the grounds are almost silent. The Cathedral opened on us like a revelation as we came through the gates from Quenensgate. After a very late lunch we went in. The sense of prayer and Presence hits you the moment you walk through the doors - there is a holy hush in the building not of any person's making. It just is. We were blessed enough to arrive about 15mins after Saturday evensong had begun (we got there about 3.30pm), so there was a tide of glorious music and resonant organ everywhere. We went to explore the crypt, beginning with praying at the Martyrdom of St Thomas Becket, and then visiting the various chapels in the crypt - all with evensong washing over us, even through the thick stone of the ancient Norman crypt. There are some very ancient wall paintings in one of the chapels that gave us a tiny sense of the riot of colour the Cathedral would have once been, but it was the atmosphere of the place that kept stilling us. The place where St Thomas' body lay, in the Chapel of St Mary of the Undercroft; the place where his tomb was before they built the shrine (that Henry VIII pulled down). The single candle that burns where the shrine once was. And of course the tomb of Edward the Black Prince. Over 1500 years of continuous prayer has marked this place. The very stones pray and praise.
The next day we went to choral eucharist there, in the quire, with the light blue and gold and red through the stained glass. Incense. Singing. Organ. Psalms sung to chant like I've never heard them before. Processions of readers, the Gospels, holy gifts. Receiving communion at the High Altar of Canterbury Cathedral. The taste of port on my lips, the holy body and blood. More singing, and hearing the purity of those boys' voices soaring in the Anthem.... Prayers, very down to earth, for ordinary blessings, ordinary pains, ordinary joys. Being encouraged to pray the Lord's Prayer in our own language - I started in Maori but got lost amongst all the English! Blessing the water for the holy water font. Finishing with Psalm 150 for the Recessional, soaking the stones in praise and prayer yet again.
And at the end of the service, gathering with Canon Nick in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Undercroft for our pilgrim blessing, giving thanks for the journey we had made and the one we were to make home. Holding Canterbury specially in my heart, trying not to cry as we left. None of us wanted to leave. Trying to carry Canterbury with me, St Thomas, the Martyrdom, the crypt, and the praise soaked into the stones.
Can I be homesick for a place I don't belong to? Yes, I can. I'm homesick for Canterbury. I am homesick for the Presence of that place, for the stillness, the silence, the beauty of the worship, the smell of incense, the thunder of the organ and boys' voices soaring in praise. Beautiful stone and light and glass. The warmth and kindness of the welcome we received from everyone. The place of martyrdom, destination of millions of pilgrims like us through the centuries. The place marked by God's presence and our recognition of God's presence.
Now I need to find those places here, find a way to bring it home to smalltown New Zealand, land of sheep, green fields and bright sunshine. It's going to be a long job.
Part of our trip to the UK was a pilgrimage. We visited three cathedrals and several holy sites while we were over there. We started our pilgrimage on Christmas Day in NZ's northernmost Cathedral, Holy Trinity Auckland, which was pretty special as it was 200 years to the day since the preaching of the first Christian sermon in this land. We continued it with English cathedrals and holy places.
York Minister is jaw-droppingly beautiful. The feral GPS took us right into the centre of the old city within the walls - to the point that we nearly ran into the pedestrian-only zone through the Shambles (oops); but as a way to see the Cathedral, driving up Museum Street to the York Information Centre pretty much can't be beaten. The Minster just loomed up out of the frost, with the morning light behind it, shimmering on the golden stone, and the Heart of Yorkshire tracery in the Great Window catching the sun. Inside, it's even better. I literally had to scrape my jaw off the floor when we walked into the nave and looked up. I have never seen anything so lovely as those pillars of stone reaching for the sky, and the gilded bosses and ribbed ceiling. We did one of the guided tours, which was very interesting but quite long. I loved the crypt, with the tomb of St William of York (very simple, a single block of stone with a candle burning on it), and the ancient paintings. We went back later on that day for evensong in the quire. Candles, choir (a visiting choir - the Minster's one was on holiday but they were very good), and that thunderously gorgeous organ. Worship was a whole body experience: the feel of the organ, the smell of wax and candles, the music, the silence. Prayers offered for the prayer intentions left in the Minster. Very down to earth and grounded in reality, even in the midst of the glorious music.
Sheffield Cathedral on New Year's Day: very quiet and peaceful. Reminded me a lot of the feel of Wellington Cathedral of St Paul although it's much much older and looks nothing like Wellington's "big pink sarcophagus"! It's not one of the "famous" ones but it was very lovely. We liked the fact you could see the Norman, Gothic, and later additions very clearly, and it had a gorgeous chapel to the Holy Spirit that I particularly liked. It also had the coolest of all the nativities we saw: made of Sheffield steel, about 1.5m high, and somehow the makers had made that steel very winsome and gentle.
Grace Dieu Priory was not on our original itinerary: my sister-in-law suggested it as it was just up the road from their place near Loughborough. We got there by a very cold walk through English woods in the snow, which was interesting in itself: I was quite surprised by the lack of undergrowth, bushes etc - just trees, and they seemed fairly widely spaced. I don't think it was deliberately planted but it had a "managed" feel. The priory itself is a ruin, but it was beautiful. The stonework was all iced with thick snow, and the walls rose out of snowy fields. The late afternoon light was very kind to the stonework, and the whole place had a kind of breathless hush, almost as though it was waiting for something. It had the feel of a "thin place": it knew it had once been holy ground, and the sense of consecration was still there. It was very cold! Having the deep snow helped the sense of hush too. The pond beneath the priory was frozen solid (small daughter threw a good-sized rock just to make sure and it skidded for several metres!).
Most people wouldn't consider Stonehenge a holy place, but I do. Most modern scholarship seems to think that it, and the landscape around it, was holy to the prehistoric peoples, and that Stonehenge was a place of worship. I certainly sensed that when I was there: It is so old, so unbelievably old, and it was in use for over 1000 years for whatever the ancients did there. It has left a mark on both the physical landscape and the landscape of Spirit. I spent some time trying to listen to the place (rather difficult when it's swarming with tourists!). I got the sense that Stonehenge isn't quite sure what it is anymore, but that when it's quiet, after dark or at the turnings of the year, it would go back in time a long long way. It would be a place of awe, and to me, that's what worship is: finding the awe, the marks of our recognition of the numinous, in places, times, music, art, and people - the places where God has touched us and we have touched God.
I suspect the National Gallery isn't on a list of holy places for many people either, but there were so many wonderful works of art, many of them altarpieces or great artist's explorations of religious themes that it was definitely part of our pilgrimage. So many artists, so many places to go in the world through the art, so many themes of love and beauty, power and betrayal, peace and war and everything in between. Highlights too numerous to mention, but seeing Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael in the same building was pretty amazing, not to mention Holbein, Constable, Turner, Degas, and a whole lot more.
Westminster Abbey was a different kind of holy: the holiness of the ordinary, the holiness that we find through living our lives and contributing to society. It also turned into a very personal moment, when I found a shrine to one of my ancestors, and the tomb of another (a Dean of Westminster). Did not expect that at all! Partly because of the number of people there, it was hard to get a sense of the Abbey as a working church, except at the prayers on the hour (when one of the Canons requested everyone to be still for a few moments while they offered prayer). We didn't go to the prayers at St Edward the Confessor's tomb, although I did spend a few moments reflecting there. I found it hard to get a sense of the architecture too, because there were so many monuments and grave markers - I found some old friends, like CV Stanford, Howells, Dryden, Keats, Shakespeare, and rather endearingly, CS Lewis (no Tolkien though). Also Queens Elizabeth and Mary (in a shared grave, rather beautifully). Henry V, and Henry IV.
The jewel in the crown, and the finale of our pilgrimage, was Canterbury Cathedral itself. We were staying in the beautiful, peaceful Cathedral Lodge within the precincts of the Cathedral - it was tasteful, comfortable, and luxuriously beautiful in a very understated way. What was amazing was how the noise of the city just disappeared when you went through the walls into the precinct. The old city walls are stone and incredibly thick: the grounds are almost silent. The Cathedral opened on us like a revelation as we came through the gates from Quenensgate. After a very late lunch we went in. The sense of prayer and Presence hits you the moment you walk through the doors - there is a holy hush in the building not of any person's making. It just is. We were blessed enough to arrive about 15mins after Saturday evensong had begun (we got there about 3.30pm), so there was a tide of glorious music and resonant organ everywhere. We went to explore the crypt, beginning with praying at the Martyrdom of St Thomas Becket, and then visiting the various chapels in the crypt - all with evensong washing over us, even through the thick stone of the ancient Norman crypt. There are some very ancient wall paintings in one of the chapels that gave us a tiny sense of the riot of colour the Cathedral would have once been, but it was the atmosphere of the place that kept stilling us. The place where St Thomas' body lay, in the Chapel of St Mary of the Undercroft; the place where his tomb was before they built the shrine (that Henry VIII pulled down). The single candle that burns where the shrine once was. And of course the tomb of Edward the Black Prince. Over 1500 years of continuous prayer has marked this place. The very stones pray and praise.
And at the end of the service, gathering with Canon Nick in the Chapel of Our Lady of the Undercroft for our pilgrim blessing, giving thanks for the journey we had made and the one we were to make home. Holding Canterbury specially in my heart, trying not to cry as we left. None of us wanted to leave. Trying to carry Canterbury with me, St Thomas, the Martyrdom, the crypt, and the praise soaked into the stones.
Can I be homesick for a place I don't belong to? Yes, I can. I'm homesick for Canterbury. I am homesick for the Presence of that place, for the stillness, the silence, the beauty of the worship, the smell of incense, the thunder of the organ and boys' voices soaring in praise. Beautiful stone and light and glass. The warmth and kindness of the welcome we received from everyone. The place of martyrdom, destination of millions of pilgrims like us through the centuries. The place marked by God's presence and our recognition of God's presence.
Now I need to find those places here, find a way to bring it home to smalltown New Zealand, land of sheep, green fields and bright sunshine. It's going to be a long job.
19 January 2015
And the truth comes out
Okay, there's a reason that the blog was a bit sparse leading into December and so far this year. We were planning, and executing, a major family holiday to the UK, and didn't want to splash it around digital media that we were away. I had no mental space for anything but finishing up work before Christmas and finalising arrangements for us being away: packing, booking stuff, sorting out keys for house-sitters etc, so the blog suffered a little!
We left Rotorua on Christmas Eve, driving up to Auckland, where we stayed with hubby's parents in the place they were house-sitting. We had a family Christmas with his family and my sister-in-law's family, which was very chilled out - barbeque and salad for Christmas is pretty much perfect here. Hubby, daughter and I went to Holy Trinity Cathedral for the Christmas Day sung eucharist, which was very special as it was the 200th anniversary, to the day, of the arrival of Christianity to New Zealand, when Samuel Marsden accepted an invitation from the Bay of Islands chiefs to preach to them in Oihi Bay. And for the cynics amongst us, Marsden spoke fairly good Maori and was good friends with a couple of chiefs who already spoke good English, so yes the message would have got across! It was special being in our northenmost cathedral for that day - had we not been going to the UK we would have gone up to Oihi Bay to be part of the celebrations. It was also very special to spend Christmas at Holy Trinity, as one of my old friends is the Dean there and it was lovely to see her and to launch our pilgrimage there.
We flew out on Boxing Day in blazing summer sunshine, travelling via Sydney, Abu Dhabi, and finally into Manchester. The journey was long, with very minimal breaks between flights, and I had to keep track of three passports, 9 boarding passes (3 each), four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a pukeko in a ponga tree.... We figured it out that we spent 27 hours in the air and about 36 hours in transit gate to gate, and somehow we landed on the day after we left. Don't anyone try to explain that to me - as far as I am concerned it's all witchcraft!
However, the "day after we left" was somewhat different to the day we left. It was about 27degC when we left Auckland; Manchester was about -1degC with around 12-15cm of snow on the ground. Yes, snow. And 2-3cm of compacted ice on the roads, most of which hadn't been swept because the snow had only just stopped falling. Once we had collected our rental car (a Peugeot 208 - very nice to drive!), we discovered that the feral GPS wanted to take us to Sheffield over the Peak District, and the road was closed. So we had to find an alternative and the GPS wouldn't co-operate - we navigated nearly blind in the snow and took the long route from Manchester, up towards Leeds on the M67, and then down the M1 (once we found it) - the M1 was a little startling as the usual 3 lanes were reduced to around two-ish (because they'd only swept and salted some of it).
It was a slow trip to Sheffield, and when we got there, Feral GPS took us up a steepish lane that had not been swept and had about 5cm of compacted ice on it - by the time we discovered how steep it was, we couldn't turn around. The traction control on the Peugeot was working overtime, and we needed a push up some of it... And then we had to dig out hubby's grandma's driveway of about 20-25cm of fresh snow so we could park the car.
So a bit of an eventful start to the trip. Gosh it was cold!! And it was dark when we landed at just after 7am - the sun didn't rise until 8ish, and it was dark by 4pm. It felt weird that the sun at 9am in New Zealand is higher in the sky than at any time during any of the English days!
More to come on the trip later....
We left Rotorua on Christmas Eve, driving up to Auckland, where we stayed with hubby's parents in the place they were house-sitting. We had a family Christmas with his family and my sister-in-law's family, which was very chilled out - barbeque and salad for Christmas is pretty much perfect here. Hubby, daughter and I went to Holy Trinity Cathedral for the Christmas Day sung eucharist, which was very special as it was the 200th anniversary, to the day, of the arrival of Christianity to New Zealand, when Samuel Marsden accepted an invitation from the Bay of Islands chiefs to preach to them in Oihi Bay. And for the cynics amongst us, Marsden spoke fairly good Maori and was good friends with a couple of chiefs who already spoke good English, so yes the message would have got across! It was special being in our northenmost cathedral for that day - had we not been going to the UK we would have gone up to Oihi Bay to be part of the celebrations. It was also very special to spend Christmas at Holy Trinity, as one of my old friends is the Dean there and it was lovely to see her and to launch our pilgrimage there.
We flew out on Boxing Day in blazing summer sunshine, travelling via Sydney, Abu Dhabi, and finally into Manchester. The journey was long, with very minimal breaks between flights, and I had to keep track of three passports, 9 boarding passes (3 each), four calling birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a pukeko in a ponga tree.... We figured it out that we spent 27 hours in the air and about 36 hours in transit gate to gate, and somehow we landed on the day after we left. Don't anyone try to explain that to me - as far as I am concerned it's all witchcraft!
However, the "day after we left" was somewhat different to the day we left. It was about 27degC when we left Auckland; Manchester was about -1degC with around 12-15cm of snow on the ground. Yes, snow. And 2-3cm of compacted ice on the roads, most of which hadn't been swept because the snow had only just stopped falling. Once we had collected our rental car (a Peugeot 208 - very nice to drive!), we discovered that the feral GPS wanted to take us to Sheffield over the Peak District, and the road was closed. So we had to find an alternative and the GPS wouldn't co-operate - we navigated nearly blind in the snow and took the long route from Manchester, up towards Leeds on the M67, and then down the M1 (once we found it) - the M1 was a little startling as the usual 3 lanes were reduced to around two-ish (because they'd only swept and salted some of it).
It was a slow trip to Sheffield, and when we got there, Feral GPS took us up a steepish lane that had not been swept and had about 5cm of compacted ice on it - by the time we discovered how steep it was, we couldn't turn around. The traction control on the Peugeot was working overtime, and we needed a push up some of it... And then we had to dig out hubby's grandma's driveway of about 20-25cm of fresh snow so we could park the car.
So a bit of an eventful start to the trip. Gosh it was cold!! And it was dark when we landed at just after 7am - the sun didn't rise until 8ish, and it was dark by 4pm. It felt weird that the sun at 9am in New Zealand is higher in the sky than at any time during any of the English days!
More to come on the trip later....
16 November 2014
Contemplation and finding ghosts
Today was an interesting day.
This morning's 8am service (which we finally made! Yay!) was an oasis of peace, focused liturgy, and a wonderfully challenging sermon on the necessity for being open to change and challenge, and finding the flexibility to allow that to happen even if it isn't that comfortable. It was a real affirmation for me that I am on the right path in seeking Sophia, because it isn't comfortable. It feels awkward, difficult, strange, but at the same time, it is a large spacious place that I am invited into. I know it's right for me to be open to her and to follow her, but I also know it's awkward for other people sometimes...
From that, we went straight to the range. One of the things I'm loving about archery is that it is not something you can do while thinking about other things. It requires total focus, total presence to the body, the bow, and the arrow. It is very contemplative in some ways. I was shooting recurve again today, which I haven't done for a couple of weeks, and it felt very different. I was just beginning to get the feel of a compound, and switching back was a bit of a challenge, but a good challenge. I was focusing on body form: on how my body moves and stabilises and balances through and after the draw. It felt good, but what I was truly surprised by was that I didn't feel at all sore after it, and the recurve was really easy to draw after the compound I've been using.
And this afternoon, I flew down to Wellington: I am delivering a course here over the next couple of days (standing in for a colleague who is sick). It feels a little odd to be back here - I am staying in Plimmerton to be closer to the venue, so not back in the Hutt, but it was strange driving through Wellington from the airport. There are new roads and even a new tunnel that I didn't recognise - and we've only been gone not quite three years. So here I am: in a motel room in Plimmerton, hearing fireworks going off directly across the road, and thinking how odd it is to be back, to be here but not here, to see these places I grew up in, but not belong. It feels like a ghost of my former life in some ways.
I hope they finish up with those fireworks soon: I think I need to go to bed.Com I need to remember to account for traffic here....!
This morning's 8am service (which we finally made! Yay!) was an oasis of peace, focused liturgy, and a wonderfully challenging sermon on the necessity for being open to change and challenge, and finding the flexibility to allow that to happen even if it isn't that comfortable. It was a real affirmation for me that I am on the right path in seeking Sophia, because it isn't comfortable. It feels awkward, difficult, strange, but at the same time, it is a large spacious place that I am invited into. I know it's right for me to be open to her and to follow her, but I also know it's awkward for other people sometimes...
From that, we went straight to the range. One of the things I'm loving about archery is that it is not something you can do while thinking about other things. It requires total focus, total presence to the body, the bow, and the arrow. It is very contemplative in some ways. I was shooting recurve again today, which I haven't done for a couple of weeks, and it felt very different. I was just beginning to get the feel of a compound, and switching back was a bit of a challenge, but a good challenge. I was focusing on body form: on how my body moves and stabilises and balances through and after the draw. It felt good, but what I was truly surprised by was that I didn't feel at all sore after it, and the recurve was really easy to draw after the compound I've been using.
And this afternoon, I flew down to Wellington: I am delivering a course here over the next couple of days (standing in for a colleague who is sick). It feels a little odd to be back here - I am staying in Plimmerton to be closer to the venue, so not back in the Hutt, but it was strange driving through Wellington from the airport. There are new roads and even a new tunnel that I didn't recognise - and we've only been gone not quite three years. So here I am: in a motel room in Plimmerton, hearing fireworks going off directly across the road, and thinking how odd it is to be back, to be here but not here, to see these places I grew up in, but not belong. It feels like a ghost of my former life in some ways.
I hope they finish up with those fireworks soon: I think I need to go to bed.Com I need to remember to account for traffic here....!
4 November 2014
A modern day pilgrim
Pilgrimage.
The word sounds a bit old-fashioned, a bit musty, a bit redolent of old schoolrooms and tattered copies of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales—those wonderfully funny (and sometimes slightly naughty!) stories told by a group of pilgrims in the Middle Ages, travelling together on the famous Winchester-Canterbury pilgrimage route to the shrine of St Thomas à Becket, the murdered Archbishop of Canterbury. How could this possibly be relevant in New Zealand in the 21st century, so far from all the famous pilgrimage routes of Europe (and the theology that said that pilgrims earned merit in God’s eyes by visiting holy places)?
We decided to find out. We joined a pilgrimage organised by Whakatane Parish to the sites associated with Wiremu Tamihana and Tārore: one of the first converts to Christianity in the 1830s, the peacemaker during the Waikato Land Wars; and the little girl who was murdered at Wairere Falls, and whose copy of a Māori translation of the Gospel of Luke was stolen and touched the hearts of her murderer, her father, and the great chief Te Rauparaha with the message of holy peace.
I began to better understand those pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales: travelling together on a bus wasn’t quite the same as riding on horseback, but the same sense of camaraderie and enjoyment, the same urge to tell stories, to learn about each other, seemed to be as present in these modern-day pilgrims as in the ones in Chaucer’s time. Partly it was a way to pass the time between sites, but it was also a chance to find out how we came to be there, to get to know each other, and to share our joy in God’s love.
Praying at the very simple little grave of Tārore, standing next to that little white cross and picket fence out in the glorious spring sunshine of the Waikato is probably a different experience from praying in the chapel of St Thomas, but nevertheless, it was a “still place”, with all the wildflowers blowing in the breeze and the sun soft on our faces, and the sense of this small girl’s love for God and message of gentleness and forgiveness close all around us. We could see the Wairere Falls directly across from her grave, some 10-12km away, and had a sense of the sad journey her father had to bring her body home and his own struggle not to seek revenge for her murder, but to be faithful to the way of peace he had chosen.
The stained glass windows in All Saints’ Matamata commemorate both Wiremu Tamihana and Tārore in a stunning, modern style. There she sits, at the base of the Falls under the kowhāi, with tui and piwakawaka (fantails) fluttering about her, reading her Gospel. Another window nearby shows St Francis preaching to the birds of New Zealand that same message of compassionate love and peaceful courage.
St Thomas à Becket has had pilgrims coming to his grave for nearly a thousand years, after he was murdered by a greedy king for standing up for the faith and the church of his time. Tārore died in 1836, on her way to the mission school in Tauranga, after it was moved from the location near her home, and her grave has been a place of prayer ever since.
Both Thomas’ and Tārore’s stories inspire us to journey with them in the way of God, the way of compassion and love, the struggle to forgive and find peace even in the midst of bitter pain and loss. They tell us that listening to and learning from the saints who have gone before us is important—not to put them on pedestals, but to hear their human voices, their frustrations and their triumphs, and inspiring us with their steadfast courage in the face of loss and risk as they travelled with God in their own day, and as we travel with God in ours and find our own courage and hope with them.
Pilgrimage in 2014? Oh, I think so.
This article first appeared in the St Luke's Parish (Rotorua) magazine Reaching Out, St Luke's Day/Advent edition 2014
22 September 2014
Family doings
Our "care of creation" efforts in the autumn appear to have paid off, with a lovely display of daffodils and tulips in our garden this spring. We planted mixed bulbs and so every flower has been a surprise, with different varieties of both. The ghost of the previous owner has also appeared with some jonquils and Canterbury bells popping up that we know we didn't plant! Not that we mind at all - in fact, it just made us more determined to plant more bulbs next autumn.
However, I am not confident in the longevity of my flowers: we have a significant storm over most of the country and some of the first "real wind" I remember in Rotorua. It's also freezing cold - it snowed on the Desert Road today and I smelt more snow in the wind when I went outside to get firewood tonight. We had thought we had nearly finished with the fire for the year - apparently not. It was windy enough to dislodge the top part of our metal chimney: we heard a huge bang this afternoon and then saw it bouncing around in the front yard. I'm fairly certain it isn't supposed to be doing that!
Rotorua has its tulip festival next weekend (there are over 42,000 tulips planted around the city in public spaces) but I wonder how many of them will survive for the festival? The city does look beautiful in spring, especially as all the cherries and plums come into flower, but I saw an awful lot of kowhai and other flowers spread all over the roads today.
The last few weeks have been filled with family doings. Daughter had a trampolining competition in Hamilton a few weeks ago, and we were very proud to see her win gold in the double mini for her age group (her second medal since she began competing). Last week she also won a ribbon in her interschool competition in an apparatus she had never used before (single mini tramp, which is not a standard apparatus - she trains on the trampoline and double mini which are both competition-standard).
We went up to Auckland to the Mythbusters Live event at Vector Arena for a treat for my birthday and Fathers' Day combined. It was a really fabulous day and the Mythbusters were really fun. It was very cool to see them live too - I think they're almost funnier in real life than on tv. Daughter tried desperately to get herself picked for one of the on-stage demonstrations but there were a lot of people there....
I've been doing a bit of moving around for work recently, with trips to Auckland, Nelson, Whangarei, Tauranga, and Taupo recently. Most of those have been one-dayers, fortunately. For my sins, I am speaking at the national conference of one of my clients this weekend, which will be interesting. I have been told to start with shock tactics! The good thing is that I get a day in lieu on Monday, which is the first proper day of the school holidays, so I'll get some time to hang out with the family. Hopefully the weather will behave: daughter is learning to ride a new bike and I'm loving mine, so it would be good to go play outside on our bikes!
However, I am not confident in the longevity of my flowers: we have a significant storm over most of the country and some of the first "real wind" I remember in Rotorua. It's also freezing cold - it snowed on the Desert Road today and I smelt more snow in the wind when I went outside to get firewood tonight. We had thought we had nearly finished with the fire for the year - apparently not. It was windy enough to dislodge the top part of our metal chimney: we heard a huge bang this afternoon and then saw it bouncing around in the front yard. I'm fairly certain it isn't supposed to be doing that!
Rotorua has its tulip festival next weekend (there are over 42,000 tulips planted around the city in public spaces) but I wonder how many of them will survive for the festival? The city does look beautiful in spring, especially as all the cherries and plums come into flower, but I saw an awful lot of kowhai and other flowers spread all over the roads today.
The last few weeks have been filled with family doings. Daughter had a trampolining competition in Hamilton a few weeks ago, and we were very proud to see her win gold in the double mini for her age group (her second medal since she began competing). Last week she also won a ribbon in her interschool competition in an apparatus she had never used before (single mini tramp, which is not a standard apparatus - she trains on the trampoline and double mini which are both competition-standard).
We went up to Auckland to the Mythbusters Live event at Vector Arena for a treat for my birthday and Fathers' Day combined. It was a really fabulous day and the Mythbusters were really fun. It was very cool to see them live too - I think they're almost funnier in real life than on tv. Daughter tried desperately to get herself picked for one of the on-stage demonstrations but there were a lot of people there....
I've been doing a bit of moving around for work recently, with trips to Auckland, Nelson, Whangarei, Tauranga, and Taupo recently. Most of those have been one-dayers, fortunately. For my sins, I am speaking at the national conference of one of my clients this weekend, which will be interesting. I have been told to start with shock tactics! The good thing is that I get a day in lieu on Monday, which is the first proper day of the school holidays, so I'll get some time to hang out with the family. Hopefully the weather will behave: daughter is learning to ride a new bike and I'm loving mine, so it would be good to go play outside on our bikes!
13 June 2014
Niggles
One of the more interesting things about living in Rotorua is the geothermal activity we have here. Most of the time it's pretty wonderful: boiling mud, geysers, and perpetual hot water. But there is a slightly darker side too. We live on one of the most geologically active areas of the country and there are over 45 known major fault lines running under and around the city.
So tonight we had an earthquake swarm. Lots of little shakes, all literally right under our feet - so close that there was no sound before they hit. But fortunately all rather small - but it is rather unnerving. I feel for our Christchurch friends - one night of small quakes is enough to freak me out, let alone years of them....!
On other fronts, I am having a few small niggles in other ways too. I had a bit of an epiphany in church the other day - a fairly good place to have one, you might say! - but this one was a bit different. I was paying close attention to the liturgy and it suddenly occurred to me that although Christians claim that God is beyond gender, we never use feminine imagery for God. We don't hear God referred to as She. Where is the God-language that includes female experiences? Yes I know that Jesus was a man, born in a specific time and place, but why should we refer to the other Persons of the Godhead as he? I am currently reading She who Is: the mystery of God in feminist theological discourse (Sr Elizabeth Johnson), which is both an extremely well-reasoned book and beautifully written.
I have also been researching options around inclusive- and expansive-language liturgy and Divine Office. I found that once I had awoken to this problem, the versions of the Office I have been using for years were really grating. I kept having to translate or substitute and it got in the way of praying. I discovered the Sisters of St Helena also had the same issue and they re-translated their breviary and psalms, and then tested their versions through years of monastic daily prayer. And bless them, they have made the breviary available to the public! There is a monastic version (now only available in pdf format) and a personal version which comes in a book. I've ordered the monastic version and am excited about the fact that the sisters have included their chant tunes! Before I went ahead and got it, I checked with the rest of the Community to see if anyone else had used it. Lots of them had, and almost all of them liked it. One of the brothers also found a sneaky link to the interior of the personal edition so I could have a look, and it's beautiful.
I am really looking forward to praying with symbols for God that embrace feminine experience and language!
So tonight we had an earthquake swarm. Lots of little shakes, all literally right under our feet - so close that there was no sound before they hit. But fortunately all rather small - but it is rather unnerving. I feel for our Christchurch friends - one night of small quakes is enough to freak me out, let alone years of them....!
On other fronts, I am having a few small niggles in other ways too. I had a bit of an epiphany in church the other day - a fairly good place to have one, you might say! - but this one was a bit different. I was paying close attention to the liturgy and it suddenly occurred to me that although Christians claim that God is beyond gender, we never use feminine imagery for God. We don't hear God referred to as She. Where is the God-language that includes female experiences? Yes I know that Jesus was a man, born in a specific time and place, but why should we refer to the other Persons of the Godhead as he? I am currently reading She who Is: the mystery of God in feminist theological discourse (Sr Elizabeth Johnson), which is both an extremely well-reasoned book and beautifully written.
I have also been researching options around inclusive- and expansive-language liturgy and Divine Office. I found that once I had awoken to this problem, the versions of the Office I have been using for years were really grating. I kept having to translate or substitute and it got in the way of praying. I discovered the Sisters of St Helena also had the same issue and they re-translated their breviary and psalms, and then tested their versions through years of monastic daily prayer. And bless them, they have made the breviary available to the public! There is a monastic version (now only available in pdf format) and a personal version which comes in a book. I've ordered the monastic version and am excited about the fact that the sisters have included their chant tunes! Before I went ahead and got it, I checked with the rest of the Community to see if anyone else had used it. Lots of them had, and almost all of them liked it. One of the brothers also found a sneaky link to the interior of the personal edition so I could have a look, and it's beautiful.
I am really looking forward to praying with symbols for God that embrace feminine experience and language!
23 April 2014
Ordinary doings
I'm getting slightly disturbed. Today is the third day in a row that daughter and I have been out in the garden! Yesterday was a weeding day, clearing another area for more herbs and beginning the big marathon clearing of weeds in the garden in front of the house. Today we planted the herbs (we needed to get some compost this morning first), finished the weeding of the part of the garden in front of the house we were working on, and barked it. So there's now a goodly part of the garden in bark. There's a lot more to do but I get the feeling we're on a bit of a roll.... Daughter is happy to help, and we're having a lot of fun working together so I think I'll leave the cleaning of the kitchen cupboards I was planning until we get a rainy day, and take advantage of the sunshine while we still have it.
After lunch, we headed over to sunny Mt Maunganui for a bit of a wander around, and a swim in their hot salt water pools. Not that we don't have hot pools here (we've got lots!) but we had a couple of other things to do, including a bit of a wander in Bayfair mall - with birthdays on the horizon, we had a bit of planning to do! The Mount is only 45mins from Rotorua and it's so lovely. We finished our day with fish'n'chips on the beach, watching the sunset. Daughter was a little bit upset we didn't manage a walk on the beach, but by the time we finished tea we had only the afterglow left and it would have been completely dark within a few minutes.
And now, I'm sitting listening to The Seekers on spotify and enjoying the feeling of the warmth from the fire, and trying not to fall asleep - all that good outside air and exercise is making me tired!
After lunch, we headed over to sunny Mt Maunganui for a bit of a wander around, and a swim in their hot salt water pools. Not that we don't have hot pools here (we've got lots!) but we had a couple of other things to do, including a bit of a wander in Bayfair mall - with birthdays on the horizon, we had a bit of planning to do! The Mount is only 45mins from Rotorua and it's so lovely. We finished our day with fish'n'chips on the beach, watching the sunset. Daughter was a little bit upset we didn't manage a walk on the beach, but by the time we finished tea we had only the afterglow left and it would have been completely dark within a few minutes.
And now, I'm sitting listening to The Seekers on spotify and enjoying the feeling of the warmth from the fire, and trying not to fall asleep - all that good outside air and exercise is making me tired!
12 April 2014
Fifth mark: care of creation
It was a day full of determination today. All the rain of the last few days had cleared away, leaving everything beautifully fresh. I woke up keen to get the washing out; in the end it didn't go out until nearly lunchtime, because we decided to attack some of the garden. Now don't all die of shock....
We've got this awesome tree trimming tool that speeds up the shrub haircuts enormously, and while hubby was playing with the power tool, daughter and I were moving all of the cut-offs out the back (hence why the washing didn't go out: we would have dragged all the dirty bush offcuts through the clean washing to get to the compost heap!). We also got quite a bit of weeding done in the front garden along the front of the house.
Part of my keenness to get the garden under control is that I want to plant some flowers. Being autumn, it's the right time to put bulbs in for next spring, and hubby wants to plant some herbs. So as an incentive to sorting out some of the back garden bits along the back of the house and near the washing line, we wandered off to Bunnings today and got some plant seeds: a whole lot of different herbs for mass planting to keep hubby's cooking habits supplied, and two packs of pansy seeds for me - I like pansies and I especially like that they self-seed once they are established! Bulbs will be coming once I've got somewhere cleared with lots of sun to put them.
Cutting back the ponga tree today kept making me think about Palm Sunday tomorrow, wishing we could take those huge fern fronds down to the church! They are so beautiful. The cool thing is that it doesn't seem to matter how serious a haircut you give a ponga, it will regenerate: in fact, I've seen old dry ponga fencing start growing fronds again. Pretty cool: a fence of ferns.
And I've come up with a new way to keep up some momentum in the garden (those of you who are regular readers here know that I am not a gardener by any understanding of that term!): if we do it by the clock, setting an alarm for a short fixed time and then cleaning up we won't get so tired we get cranky and cross with it. And who knows? Maybe the sight of pansies I planted coming up and making it pretty will make me want to do some more!
11 April 2014
Baching in the rain
Listening to the rain coming down all yesterday, all last night, and all of today felt a bit like a gift. It's the first real rain we've had in a couple of months, and it was as though all of the built up dust and stress and difficulty were being washed away by the rain; helped along this morning in my office by a gorgeous recording of Bach's solo cello concertos. Rain on the roof (a proper Bay of Plenty downpour coming straight down) and Bach. It doesn't get much more peaceful.
This afternoon was more of a rain adventure, with a visit to a potential new client here in Rotorua who has both some interesting hazards and some real challenges. It's also an organisation that would be a privilege to work alongside, and I am very excited about this opportunity.
A senior staff member took me on a tiki-tour around their operations and it was really interesting. It's a big site and most of it is uncovered... fortunately they had little golf carts with roofs to help in getting around and I had grabbed my big waterproof work raincoat before going over: it got a real workout today though and by the time I got back to the office nearly 3 hours later it was soaked nearly through and I was decidedly soggy (although not as soggy as my guide, whose coat didn't have a hood!). One hot chocolate and a change of clothes later and all was fine. That's one distinct advantage to having my office in my house: if I get wet, too hot, or too cold, I can skip across the hall to my room and change!
This afternoon was more of a rain adventure, with a visit to a potential new client here in Rotorua who has both some interesting hazards and some real challenges. It's also an organisation that would be a privilege to work alongside, and I am very excited about this opportunity.
A senior staff member took me on a tiki-tour around their operations and it was really interesting. It's a big site and most of it is uncovered... fortunately they had little golf carts with roofs to help in getting around and I had grabbed my big waterproof work raincoat before going over: it got a real workout today though and by the time I got back to the office nearly 3 hours later it was soaked nearly through and I was decidedly soggy (although not as soggy as my guide, whose coat didn't have a hood!). One hot chocolate and a change of clothes later and all was fine. That's one distinct advantage to having my office in my house: if I get wet, too hot, or too cold, I can skip across the hall to my room and change!
5 April 2014
Glass and fish
Today was another one of those gorgeous days in the Bay. Although the leaves are starting to change and autumn is definitely here - colder nights and mornings! - the days have been stunning. We had a few bits and pieces to do today: the usual Saturday morning chores, made much more fun by us all working together to get everything done. Daughter and I cleaned the fish tank, which was getting a bit grubby: from the tragedy of earlier, we have now acquired a third fish to replace the two that died (one ate the other and then departed...). The third fish is a blackmoor, which daughter promptly christened Sirius (as in Sirius Black, from Harry Potter) - our tank is a literary one, with the original four fish being Thing 1 and Thing 2 (two goldfish, from The Cat in the Hat), The Lorax (from The Lorax - we were having a Dr Seuss phase when we got the fish originally), and Rainbow Fish (from the child's picture book of the same name). We now have Thing 1, The Lorax, and Sirius.
After all the morning ablutions were finished, we headed down to Taupo to Lava Glass, one of our favourite glassblowing studios in NZ. Lynden Over is the main glass artist there and we love his work. I had dropped by on my way to Napier for work earlier in the week and discovered that they had just opened a glass sculpture garden, and I suggested to the family that they might like to go and see it. We did and it was wonderful. Really pushing the boundaries of what glass art can achieve with each piece. He also has some new work I was keen to see as well. After that, we had sushi at the park to celebrate daughter being the "star of the day" in her trampoline training session, daughter had a play at the playground, and we came home.
And we have to remember to put the clocks back for the end of daylight savings tonight. At least that means we get a sleep in tomorrow!
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