Aotearoa

culture & faith

Feb 3, 2023

Today we mark 183 years since the first signatures were put to the Treaty of Waitangi on Thursday 6 February 1840. Here in Aotearoa we mark this day with a public holiday.

The history of Aotearoa-New Zealand as taught in the schools of our country did not feature the Treaty and its implications until the mid-twentieth century. Until this point, history was presented from the view-point of the confiscating colonials. This view generally considered that the European had been generous to the Maori in the terms of the Treaty.

It is also now accepted that Maori and European had significantly different understandings of what they were accepting and agreeing to in this document.

treaty & culture

Feb 6, 2016

Today we mark 176 years since the first signatures were put to the Treaty of Waitangi on Thursday 6 February 1840. Rightly this day is a public holiday in New Zealand,...

the teenagers

A few years ago I discovered the wonderful way that God uses my imagination in my prayer.
Such openness to imagination when seeking God does not take us away from reality into fantasy but instead brings me into what is most real and inescapably personal and intimate.

Annunciation

A couple of thousand years ago, a young Jewish woman was going about her normal morning routines, perhaps with a mixture of house and garden work, chatting with parents and neighbours, aware of the local drought, the sickness of a neighbour and annoyed by the neighbourhood’s lack of sleep caused by the Romans’ noisy party the night before, when God broke into her routine and entered her life in a new and powerful way.

the real centre

Over the last month I have had the opportunity to work with many people across Aotearoa and further afield. In every retreat and seminar I have been with committed and faith-filled people who often feel as though they are on the periphery of the Church

the adventure

It’s easy to make the mistake of seeing life as a treadmill, day after day ups and downs, a movement through time from youth to old age, then death and beyond.
Too often if feels as if we are helplessly captive carried along by the momentum of all that is expected of us and demanded from us, and we risk falling into an existence mode, a daily rhythm of survival, enduring, coping and so the treadmill rolls on.

the bigger picture

Over the years, and even in recent months, weeks and days, I’ve prayed many prayers which have not been answered as I had hoped.
You’ve probably had the same experience: praying and wondering if and when or how your prayer will be answered.