Being Community Commons

It’s been more than a year now since the Kerikeri congregation experienced something unique in the life of a congregation.  Coming to church on Sunday morning meant coming to a place that was not only fresh and new and unlike any traditional building but fresh and new to everyone attending.  Those who had been part of the Sunday group as if forever and those who came along for the first time, plus everyone in between, we equally could make ourselves at home.

And for me, leading as much as I can through words and actions, I could feel an equal open relationship with everyone present.  I could sense the even greater variety and difference among us.

We weren’t all “church” people.  We knew we didn’t all have a common history.  We could each be present with our own histories and life experiences.

In theory we can acknowledge that we are each unique and there are differences among us.  But an established church congregation develops an inner culture, a sense of shared understanding, and a common voice that probably reflects more the strongest voices than the voices of all.  You’ll hear phrases like  “We all know that…”  “We remember when…”  “We believe…”

But what if you’re present and you don’t know that, or remember when, or believe the same?

That’s the feeling of being an outsider.  I’ve known it often over the years, particularly attending church services elsewhere, and have worked hard to express something different, something that gives room for everyone, including this odd-bod me.

So the Kerikeri congregation had a unique opportunity at the turn of the year 2016/2017 and we took it and I’ve been told it was working.  I felt it – here was church that I could want to be part of always (and would miss terribly when I left).

I have a feeling that we’re now settling in, settling down.  And we’re at risk of losing something very precious.  I’ve felt the pull towards familiarity, regular patterns, sameness.  I’m told others are feeling it.  Could be that we’re not as inclusive as before.

Being present on Sunday mornings – at Kaeo and at Kerikeri – does mean being part of something that has familiar elements and something of a regular routine.  New people have always been joining our groups, and they seem soon to find their way to belong.  Often they’ve come with experience of church elsewhere and that gives a link – being familiar with church culture.

The biggest barrier to growing participation, from beyond those already “churched”, is this church culture, this sense that we all know what’s going on, or if we don’t we’re not really part of it yet.

As church, our chosen mission (God’s mission for us) is to be “Community Commons” and that’s as a community of faith as much as through our buildings.  “Commons” by definition are places open to all, all equally belonging.  Traditionally they were places to bring live-stock to graze; here and now it’s for people coming for spiritual refreshment.

We will grow our congregations when we are this for any who come.  We simply need to remember that we are all different.   This is a “we all” statement we can safely make: we all come with our own unique stories.  We build connections, but we don’t lose our individuality, and we can never presume what I know or think or feel matches the other person alongside me.   We build community by listening to one another’s uniqueness, sharing our own stories, marvelling at the diversity, and enjoying the spiritual richness that results.

In this we experience a unifying spirit among us.  That surely is the Spirit of Christ, weaving continuing and growing threads of Christ-like people.

Rangimarie Peace Shalom, Robyn

March 2018

He Aituā

Millie Te Kaawa

Aituā is a powerful Māori word that can’t really be matched in English.  H.W. Williams dictionary speaks of “misfortune, trouble, disaster, accident”, and next to it is aitu meaning “calamity”.  It’s when death comes trampling, death of a person or other sorts of death – of dreams, or a relationship, of health, of prospects, of the future we thought we had.  Basically anything that bowls us over.

The only antidote to it is identified in these words of greeting I regularly use – I roto i te ringaringa kaha o aituā he iwi kotahi tātou.  Under the heavy hand of aituā we are one people.  The only recourse for finding our way through is to draw together, to share the struggle.

Not alone, but surrounded by fellow travellers – that’s what it is to be human, genuinely human.

The Whangaroa community experienced this when our good friend “Magoo” drowned at Cable Bay rescuing his daughter.  Wairongoa Clarence Renata has 1,332 friends on Facebook (me among them). We worked together on Whangaroa Armed Services Commemorations and that was enough to get a friend request from him.  His whole life was like that – meet him and you’re mates.   For a family and for community that, through the armed forces, stretches around the world, aituā indeed to lose such a top bloke.  And yet it happens.  And it’s what we do with it that counts: in particular, do the things and be the kind of person we admire in the one we have lost.

That’s the same with another person I have mourned at a distance recently. Millie Te Kaawa was a matriarch within the Presbyterian Church.  She was a mentor and a great support for me, never forgetting times years back when I had stood in General Assembly to speak up for the Māori Synod.  She lived the faith, and radiated the kindness and warmth of being motherly disciple of Christ.

But what’s really knocked me recently in a sudden discovery of illness, pancreatic cancer in fact, in our wider in-law family.  A previously fit and healthy man in his fifties so you’d never expect it. It hurts when people we care about are hurting. Even more so when it’s one’s children and in some ways the emotional hurt of others is harder to sit with than physical hurt.  But sitting with pain is always hard, unable to do anything to make it right again.

Hanging in there, being together when that’s possible, that’s what is best. Providing background support to family, or friends, that can help them cope with the fact that the future has changed.

The immediate family in this case is very much part of the Catholic Church.  Messages of prayer and love have been the key thing, and Parish Council has been brought into the prayer circle as well, knowing that our prayer support as a church will be meaningful.  Prayer is in fact an ideal way to offer a sense of being surrounded by love, without intrusion, without fuss. A way to share the journey of being human.

I pray for all these people and all those among us who mourn or who struggle.  I pray every time I think of you.

Rangimarie Peace Shalom, Robyn

January 2018

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

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

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

I'm OK Because We're OK

“I’m OK because you’re not OK.”

That’s what I reckon I’ve been hearing from certain big voices in the news.    Or in the less blunt form: “We’re OK because they are not OK.”

It’s being expressed in group terms, us versus them.   This collection of “I” individuals over against that lot out there, other than us, beyond the pale.  They are different kinds of people.  They belong somewhere else, not in our place.  They behave badly, against the principles of our who we are.  They are a threat to our security and our identity. 

Because of the group aspect, it can feel that we can’t be wrong.  If, as a group, we’re feeling the same we can’t be accused of being selfish surely.  The argument is that we’re being honest. Honest about how lots of people feel.  Therefore it must be right and we’re justified in being outspoken and absolute.

I’m thinking of the people who have listened and responded with a yes to Donald Trump and those who say Amen to Brian Tamaki, as well as the speakers themselves.

We don’t use the word “primitive” much nowadays, but this is one place where it fits and it helps us understand in a way that makes for better life. It’s deeply embedded in our human functioning to feel good about ourselves by contrasting us with others. It’s a short-cut to clear identity to see ourselves over and against something we don’t like or don’t approve of. It’s much easier to do that than to take the hard self-reflective road of working out who we are as unique human beings.

That needs soul-searching. That needs the hard honesty of being honest with ourselves, warts and all.

It’s a primitive reaction to find identity by defining who we and our group are and exclude others because they are different and therefore a threat.

What we are learning on the journey of the spirit is to find identity in who we are in ourselves and in relation to others – to other people and the whole world around us. Who I am sits alongside who you are and we’re no threat to each other. If we can get to that place, then there is no threat. There is no need for security, for walls of exclusion.

Some use the words of a text, definitely spirit-inspired in its wholeness and its insights, to decree what is right and wrong for two human beings loving each other. But if this text, the Bible, is God’s word, then we cannot use it to claim human certainty.  What’s good with God, only God knows.

I am OK because we are all OK. That’s the journey I’m on. I’ve discovered that my wellness, my security, is enhanced by that of others. I’m not put off by the fact that “others” includes a huge amount of people and things. Focus on what’s in front of you, and keep expanding the view as “we” thinking becomes more and more natural. It is always a work in progress, as long as there are some others, somewhere, who are not OK and something could be done to help.

Rangimārie Shalom Peace, Robyn

November 2016

Do you feel connected?

We've been talking a lot about making others welcome. It's at the heart of our mission as a parish and our vision for our new building.

What about this question: do we feel welcome?

I know what it is like to be in the midst of a group and feel a bit of an outsider. I get involved in groups that are not really my expertise but I'm keen to extend myself and contribute as much as I can. Often I have the question: do I belong here? Is anybody really interested that I'm here, or could they carry on fine without me? Do they care?

Even family can feel like this. Or church.

And then there's a word or a gesture that tells me I should stop fretting. And just get on with being who I am in the midst of these people. Make the people and the group the focus.

It's important to talk about this because, in relation to churches, I've found that most people feel this way, most if not all, sometimes at least. We all can feel outsiders and think everyone else is fine.

Community, I am beginning to understand, is made through a skill I have never learned or valued: the ability to pass time with people you do not and will not know well, talking about nothing in particular, with no end in mind, just to build trust, just to be sure of each other, just to be neighbourly. A community is not something that you have, like a camcorder or a breakfast nook. No, it is something you do. And you have to do it all the time.

Wendell Berry

There's something here that relates to the old saying that what you get out of things depends on what you put in. But it's not based so much on what we do, or what others do for us, but on being in the midst. Doing and active caring are important to a group – all the valuable things we can do, that some people are really good at, different people for different things. But they are not at the heart of belonging: being ourselves in relationship is; being, and valuing being with the others around us.

Hallelujah I/you belong! Stay well connected.

Rangimarie Peace Shalom, Robyn