Thursday, November 30, 2017

Religion and Peace



Talk about religions and conflict is sure to get a mention. The perception is that religion involves disagreement and often opposition. There’s something about being correct. For some reason faith seems to mean being right or having the right truths.
Religion in fact means what joins people into community together – the Latin word ligare means to bind.  Belief in having the right truths does bind people together, but does it make community?
My turn during October’s Inter-faith Week of Prayer for World Peace was the last night, with the theme of Truth.  The service sheet proposed we pray “for recognition of the fundamental importance of the quality of Truth”.  The quality of truth.
The quality is how rather than what.  It is not so much about being right as being in right relationship.  Relating one to another, we to you.  Relating through trusting and being trustworthy, being true to oneself and to the other.
I suspect this is at the heart of all religions: I can only speak for Christianity and I know that it’s the core of our faith.  What joins us together is, in the words of John’s gospel, “the way, the truth, the life”.    As church, as Christians, we are followers of the Way.  We are disciples (or apprentices) learning and re-learning the basic lessons of living, learners and mentors together on the journey.
It’s tempting to turn Jesus’ teaching into statements about truth and not truth, right and wrong, to read his teaching as nouns – naming words.  We’ll get the point much better (and not slide into conflict with people who see things differently, because of background, experience, personality, etc) if we read it as verbs – as doing words and being words.
How not what.  The quality of truth not the dogma of truth.
Karen Armstrong speaks of compassion as the heart and soul of all religions.  This is the quality that is emphasised by all the great religions and it is what binds their people together in true community.    Compassion is a noun but we can only find its meaning if we treat it as if it were a verb.  Being and doing is how compassion exists: never in the abstract, only in relationship one to another.  It is the key to bind people within religions and across religions, including those of no professed faith.
We all have life beliefs of some sort, whether articulated in terms of a religion or not.  We can all commit to the truth – the true practice – of compassion.  It is the only future for humanity and the planet.
Rangimarie Peace Shalom,
Robyn
November 2017

Monday, July 31, 2017

Our History Blankets Us


Grace and peace to you all in the name of Christ. To all who have lost loved ones over recent times, our love to you. Those who are part of our lives remain with us always, in memory, and in Christ. E ngā mate, moe mai, moe mai. Takoto rangimārie i roto i ngā ringaringa atawhai o tōu Kaihanga. Kia tau ki a koutou katoa te aroha noa, me te rangimārie, i runga i te ingoa o te Karaiti.

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The Closing Waitang Tribunal Hearings for Te Papa Rahi o te Raki (Northland) are taking place at Otangaroa Marae as this newsletter starts its circulation. Since 2010 I’ve listened in to Hearings Weeks as often as I could and learnt an enormous amount about local history. I’ve also learnt much, and been humbled much, by way of cultural perspective, attitude, and – I hope - understanding.

Maybe I see things more clearly now, more than just the view of my own people but also what was and is true for the iwi and hapū of the North. More than 200 years of European/Māori contact has had a huge impact. One very personal thing has been to contribute to blanket making – paraikete patipati. It began with the blankets being stitched during the 2014 Hearings Week (also at Otangaroa), with aspects of the Whangaroa Rohe (district) story (including the Mission at Kaeo) being represented in picture and design. Tribunal members and staff, along with all the lawyers present, were invited to add their bit to the stitching. If anyone didn’t know how to do blanket stitch, they did by week’s end.

I got asked to do an embroidered patch identifying the event and its date. Drawing on what my mother and Gran had taught me, I willingly got to work, and ended up being recruited for a patch for the Hearings Week in 2015 at Te Tapui, Matauri Bay. More has followed including a special one symbolising my hopes for Whangaroa.

Our history blankets us. It can weigh us down, especially if it is loaded with things that are not to our benefit. But it can also warm us, if it encompasses in a way that supports and empowers. Like what happens when we step out from under the blankets in the morning and feel ready to start a fresh new day. Those good days that begin with purpose and hope.

Rangimarie Peace Shalom, Robyn
July 2017

Friday, March 31, 2017

Activism in the Long View



A few weeks ago Mike Smith, a local to Whangaroa but more often heard about around Auckland, was at the Taiwhenua Hui of the Whangaroa hapū putting their stories to the Waitangi Tribunal held at the Kaeo Rugby Club.
(Taiwhenua Hui are meetings involving whanau, and supporters, working together to gather history and present it in a way that addresses concerns to make a better future for whanau and hapū.)
Mike Smith is probably known to you as a protester, including the infamous chopping down of the tree on One Tree Hill.
He spoke to us about the change in direction he has taken.  Here’s what he says in an on-line blog, which matches what I heard here in Kaeo:
Kia ora my name is Mike. I am a Maori member of the northern tribes of the far north territories of Aotearoa-New Zealand. I’ve been an indigenous rights activist for most of my adult life. During the 1980’s through to the 90’s together with many others, I was engaged in the struggle to correct historical and contemporary injustices affecting Maori people in Aotearoa – New Zealand…
Our activism during this time was centered on political and constitutional rights together with social and cultural programs.
However, the emerging global climate emergency caused us to re-evaluate our focus.
My first exposure to the issue was in 1992 when I was sent to Rio de Janeiro to attend the first global Earth Summit of world leaders…
By 2008, in my home village, we were beginning to see the emergence of the predicted effects of climate change including unusual flooding events, increasing droughts, and more powerful cyclonic storms and that’s when we really began to be alarmed.
My partner Hinekaa Mako and I then began to interview meteorologists and climate scientists here in Aotearoa – New Zealand and the more we began to find out about the issue the more concerned we became, so much so that we decided to suspend our social, political and cultural activism in order to work full time on climate issues.
Mike invited us to look not so much for immediate remedies and compensation as a result of negotiations for settlement of treaty claims, as for what is needed so that our tamariki mokopuna, our children, grand-children, and great-grandchildren will have homes and livelihoods as sea levels rise.
We need to look more to the hills, he said, to re-establishing kainga (villages) and means of livelihood on higher ground.  Don’t use up energy and opportunities seeking return land around the coast and at the beaches.  Look to the hills.
Mike’s interest is in arranging meetings with people at marae to talk about this in relation to their land and opportunities. I asked him if a church could be included in his rounds and he said, yes certainly.
I think Jesus would line up with this kind of activism – having long enough vision to live for a future beyond ourselves.  And to seek a future that is God’s future, with well-being and peace for all the generations to come.  Indeed Jesus, I am sure, is leading it.
Rangimarie Peace Shalom, Robyn
March 2017