Tui motu 2005 august

Tui Motu InterIslands

August 2005 Price $5

Hiroshima 2005 Tui Motu InterIslands 1

editorial

Hiroshima 2005

Contents 2-3 editorial 3-4 letters 5 Zimbabwe: to tour or not to tour

James Smyth responses on child poverty 6-7

Pete Hodgson, Judith

Collins, Sue Bradford 8-9 interview with Colin Durning

Mike Riddell 10 Religious fanaticism...

Bernard Sabella 11 Destroying the soul of a nation

Christopher Carey 12-13 The paperclips of Hiroshima

Anne Powell 14-15 Down to the last nail

Roger Dowling 16-17 7/7 London diary

Michael Hill 18-19 The body beautiful

Jacquie Lambert 20-21 Discovering ‘that of God’ in

every person (interview)

Kathleen Doherty 22-23 Sleeping rough

Glynn Cardy 24 Hawk Express

Wendy Ward 25 Spirituality at women’s convention

Trish McBride 26 Loving and grieving over our kids

Paul Andrews 27 The rich man and the needle’s eye

Susan Smith 28-29 Review

Tom Cloher 29 In Memoriam: Cardinal Jaime Sin

Jim Neilan 30 Crosscurrents

John Honoré 31 Harkening to Bob Geldof

Humphrey O’Leary 32 Postscript

Michael Hill

ISSN 1174-8931

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ifty six people died as a result of the London terrorist bombs on July 7. Thirty four Iraqi civilians have died on average each day since the Anglo-American invasion in 2003.

This helps keep the London casualty figures in perspective. Nevertheless, the London killings are a horrifying and unnecessary loss of innocent life, and each victim is somebody’s son or daughter or loved one.

This month we commemorate 60 years since the end of World War II – and 60 years since the Hiroshima bomb.

The mushroom cloud hangs over our civilisation as an ever-present threat, but also as a symbol of callous and unprincipled violence wrought by one people over another.

If we were to sum up the history of Western civilisation as a balance sheet, then on the credit side we could list items such as the abolition of slavery, the discovery of penicillin and a myriad of pain-relieving drugs, parliamentary democracy and the devel­opment of modern media which help establish a global unity. On the debit side we can list the development of destructive weapons: the longbow, the breech-loading gun, poison gas, the machine gun, the tank, the aerial bomber, nuclear devices – and the latest horror, the suicide terrorist.

There is nothing new in weapons of mass destruction.

In this issue we have deliberately linked the London bombings with the Hiroshima anniversary. They are both manifestations of the mass slaughter

of innocent people. Each pleads a warped justification: to strike back at a perceived evil regime, to revenge atrocities, perhaps even to change the mindset of an opponent and end an unjust conflict.

There is already an ominous link between the two sets of events. An article in the Los Angeles Times by Pervez Hoodboy, a Pakistani nuclear physicist, points out that it is only a matter of time before Muslim extremists obtain nuclear weapons.

The Iranian vice-President stated in 1992: “Since Israel continues to possess nuclear weapons, we Muslims must co-operate to produce an atomic bomb, regardless of UN efforts to prevent proliferation”. El Qaeda has already threatened a ‘Hiroshima’ against the United States.

The articles by various observers (including the Editor who was in London for 7/7) inevitably lead us to ask WHY? What is it that drives people to wilfully kill the innocent?

What is it about human nature which makes us the most destructive species on earth? Is there a political answer?

Or a religious one? What, if anything, can we do about it?

Some thoughts

• Nuclear disarmament and an absolute ban on the possession and development of nuclear weapons has to be an absolute priority of every civilised country. New Zealand is well placed to play a leading role in this, since we have a proven track record in repudiating nuclear weaponry.

Tui Motu-InterIslands is an independent, Catholic, monthly magazine. It invites its readers to question, challenge and contribute to its discussion of spiritual and social issues in the light of gospel values, and in the interests of a more just and peaceful society. Inter-church and inter-faith dialogue is welcomed. The name Tui Motu was given by Pa Henare Tate. It literally means “stitching the islands together...”, bringing the different races and peoples and faiths together to create one Pacific people of God. Divergence of opinion is expected and will normally be published, although that does not necessarily imply editorial commitment to the viewpoint expressed.

Independent Catholic Magazine Ltd, P O Box 6404, Dunedin North, 9030 Phone: 03 477 1449: Fax: 03 477 8149: email: tuimotu@earthlight.co.nz: website: www.tuimotu.org Editor: Michael Hill IC; Assistant Editor: Frances Skelton; Illustrator: Don Moorhead Directors: Rita Cahill RSJ, Tom Cloher (chair), Margaret Darroch, Dermot English, Robin Kearns, Chris Loughnan OP, Elizabeth Mackie OP, Judith McGinley OP, Katie O’Connor, Kathleen Rushton RSM

• There is a reason why Islamic groups generate terrorist movements in spite of the fact that the holy traditions of Islam utterly repudiate such violent extremism. Leading British Muslims have united in condemning the bombings and effectively excom­ municating those who are guilty.

However, a friend married to a Muslim from Pakistan, told me her husband’s opinion was that such extremism flourishes because of a lack of an Islamic hierarchy. Imams who preach fanaticism and inflame the minds of impressionable young men appear to be answerable to nobody. They are loose cannons – and now they have gone off! They have to be muzzled.

• Tony Blair along with other political leaders stated that the bombings had nothing to do with the invasion of Iraq.

This is dangerous nonsense. It is no coincidence that the Islamic terrorists struck first at the United States, then (in Bali) at Australia, then in Madrid, now in London. The bombers see their actions as part of a holy war against those who assail Islam.

• Religious fundamentalist extremism is not a Muslim monopoly. Remember the youngsters who were mesmerised into various cult activities in the ’60s and ’70s. These young people are idealistic and impressionable. What they need is a balancing philosophy of life. To offer such a foundation is the most powerful weapon we as Christians have.

• Read Kathleen Doherty’s interview with a Quaker woman (pp 20-21).

Here we have the ultimate answer.

All human beings have within them ‘that of God’, the divine spark waiting to be kindled into a conflagration of forgiveness and love. And, most relevant, our whole Western society desperately needs a counterbalance to the secular humanism which rots our social fabric and so appals our Muslim brothers and sisters. A spiritual revolution needs to happen – urgently, now.

We have the answer. The Gospel provided it 20 centuries ago. Let us find the courage to live it.

M.H.

letters to the editor Was Jesus Married?

Examining volume 1 of Jesus, a Marginal Jew, I find John Meier’s clear and balanced conclusion on p.345: “We cannot be absolutely sure whether or not Jesus was married. But… both the NT and Judaism make the position that Jesus remained celibate on religious grounds the more probable hypothesis.”

While I respect the validity of many of the points made by Glynn Cardy (TM May) and Norman Maclean (June), my concern is for the credibility of sound Catholic Biblical scholarship which is too often maligned and stated as saying something it has not said.

Kieran Fenn FMS, Lower Hutt.

Brian Keogh’s response (TM July) to my letter regarding the possibility of Jesus being married is understandable...

I should perhaps have pointed out that

he gives a fair analysis of the Gospel evidence. It is true that he – most understandably given his position – comes down in favour of the traditional view of a celibate Lord.

But as Meier makes very plain, “we cannot be absolutely sure”, because the facts in this instance are so thin on the ground.

The life of Jesus as given in the Gospels amounts to about 35 days of at least 33 years... Can we be blamed for attempting to read between the lines?

With so little to go on we are compelled to make assumptions, and many worthy scholars have made such assumptions quite at variance with Meier’s view. I would maintain that their arguments are as valid as Meier’s and often more so.

Norman Maclean, Gisborne This correspondence is now closed

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Global warming

nder the heading ‘Now global warming is a mortal sin’ the Sydney Morning Herald reports that a key international body of the Anglican Church has declared the wilful destruction of the environment to be a sin. A core group of Australian religious leaders (including Catholic bishops) placed their political weight behind a campaign to fight global warming.

Maybe our bishops will follow the Aust­ ralian example. But it is sad that the churches now have to invoke the burden of sin because they have failed to follow up Pope John Paul’s urgent plea of 1990.

True love of God’s gifts needs to elicit from us a loving response. It would need to go beyond beautiful words, to taking an interest in the richness and beauty of our ecosystem and exploring ways of living in harmony with it, avoiding damage through pollution, wastefulness and ruthless exploitation.

When love becomes the motivating force for our conduct Jesus draws us closer to himself; whereas acting by the rules to avoid sin does no more than distance us from the devil temporarily.

“The Creator has spoken his own image into multiple forms in the universe, has landscaped himself into the earth.”(Harry Morrissey) Frank Hoffmann, Drury

Evangelisation first priority

A lifelong practising Catholic in the UK, I recently was given a copy of Tui Motu (April 2005). From H O’Leary’s article Flying priests not the Answer, I observe that Europe is not the only continent with the church in decline.

I have spent 20 years in prayer-backed research into the continuing decline.

My findings surprised me and convinced me that they hold the answer to reversing the decline and launching a dynamic revival.

My vision involves restructuring to make evangelising the church’s first priority instead of worship and the sacramental ‘package’, in line with the structure of the early Church and reflecting the vision of Pope John XXIII for Vatican II. Please see website: homepage.ntlworld. com/ray.knight/cathrev.htm Ray Knight, United Kingdom

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letters Priests from overseas

In the Auckland North Shore deanery we have 9 parishes with 12 priests. Two of the priests were born in New Zealand.

I was saddened to read that Humphrey O’Leary (TM June) should say “I have no optimism that he will readily change his ways”, referring to overseas priests coming into this country.

I have two Indian priests working with me. True, when they first started they found it difficult as did some of the parishioners. Naturally their ways were quite different from what we are used to.

But I have been very impressed, one, by the patience and tolerance of the parishioners and, two, the great effort these excellent men have made to become more Kiwified.

We need priests now, so there doesn’t seem to be much value in dreaming about married priests and women priests at this time.

John Bland IC, Glenfield

Catholic church and celibacy

I agree with the comments of Fr O’Leary (TM July) supporting change to the Church’s rule on clerical celibacy. The humanitarian aspects and pastoral merits of a change are obvious. In any event I believe this is not a central church doctrine, just an accident of history and a convenient rule of discipline, which is not at all infallible.

For me, a crucial factor confirming this view is that if a married Anglican clergyman converts to Catholicism and wants to continue as a pastor, then he can operate as a Catholic priest even though he is married. If the celibacy rule is immutable doctrine of the church (or of the Good Lord himself ), then logically there should be no exceptions, even for our Anglican brethren.

Surely the rule has outlived its usefulness and its implied view of womankind and offspring as being just a source of distraction. The ‘no fish on Friday’ rule was taught and promoted in past years as being in ‘mortal sin’ territory, but was dropped by the church without undue fuss.

Stephen Thwaite, Huntly

Women in the church

Eighty-six percent of women do the work in the church unnoticed. Yet a church

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that professes equality has no process for women or, in fact, any lay person, to allow them to address issues of conflict that may arise when responding to their baptismal call to minister and the ministry of the ordained. In my experience, if differences of opinion occur then the ordained minister can, by a means of the freezing out process, exclude and make extremely difficult the non-ordained’s ability to respond to their baptismal call to ministry.

If the church had a process for addressing such differences, then the ordained would become aware that priesthood does not come with a gift of infallibility, and that they, too must act justly and treat the laity with the respect that comes from a different but shared and equal ministry. Commitment to develop such processes within the church for all the baptised, laity and ordained, would change the church. It would become a church that acted collaboratively and was committed to right relationship.

letters to the editor

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We welcome comment, discussion, argument, debate. But please keep letters under 200 words. The editor reserves the right to abridge, while not altering meaning.

Response articles (up to a page) are also welcome, but need to be by negotiation

While the church professes community, its structures are patriarchal and the two are not compatible. The church has nothing to lose that is not worth losing by changing its structures to become a just society of God’s people. I suspect the question of priesthood is not a gender issue but runs deeper than that; it is a fundamental question of philosophy.

(abridged) Teresa Homan, Upper Hutt

The plight of children

Congratulations on beginning to raise awareness of the plight of children in New Zealand. Sadly, political parties and the wider New Zealand community have not recognised the vital role of children in creating a safer, more prosperous New Zealand.

Every Child Counts is a campaign aimed at encouraging all political parties to put children at the centre of their poli-

cies and is intended to stimulate public debate about the importance of children to New Zealand’s social and economic development. It is apolitical, working with all of the political parties equally.

The message of Every Child Counts is simple: children and families must be central to policy development and implementation if New Zealand is to thrive socially and economically.

Children who suffer abuse and neglect, who live in poverty, or who are not nurtured appropriately in their early years will not reach their full potential. They are more likely to fail at school, have poor health, and to engage in antisocial behaviours such as violent crime.

Interested individuals and organisations can sign up at: <everychildcounts.org. nz/register.php> or write to: Every Child Counts, PO Box 6434, Wellington.

Veronica Casey, Dunedin

Rethinking the Noah story

I really appreciated Glynn Cardy’s reflections on Noah (TM July) – and his unquestioning construction of an ark to save the righteous while the ‘evil’ perish.

The Noah story is one of many in the Old Testament which reflects a God who seems to bear very little relation to Jesus.

As a university student, suddenly realising that the Noah story seemed improbable and featuring a God I wouldn’t choose to follow, I set out on a faith journey which is still going – leaving behind childhood views of Scripture as inerrant.

In this respect I am grateful to the Noah story – I have learned more of God, justice and peace through this journey.

It is high time that we get brave enough to express our doubts and questions about parts of the Old Testament. The tribal authors portray God as their own, on their side. Much of modern day Christianity is the same – we tame God into a domestic pet who supports our side of wars and our values of prosperity/ greed/trade rules that advantage us.

While on the subject – what should we do with the Paschal reading of God winning glory for himself by throwing all the Egyptians, with their horses and chariots into the Sea? Every Easter vigil it makes me cringe!

Kaaren Mathias, Christchurch

world affairs

Zimbabwe: to tour or not to tour

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he Black Caps cricket tour of Zimbabwe was always a moral issue. If we have learnt one lesson from the years of opposition to the apartheid regime in South Africa, surely it is that all dimensions of public life – trade, political, sporting – have moral undertones. There are times when the decision not to support a regime by trade or sporting links becomes a moral imperative, rather than a political or economic one.

While most New Zealanders have a gut reaction against playing sport with Zimbabwe at this time, there are important moral principles under­ pinning that reaction. They relate to our understanding of the Christian teaching on the common good and how to achieve it. It is in this ancient church doctrine that we find the moral case against giving succour in any way to the Mugabe regime.

To achieve the common good, three important principles need to be fulfilled. Collectively they combine to produce social justice: • first, solidarity. If we recognise that each Zimbabwean is a brother or sister because of their human dignity, that each is a child of God, then we must stand firm in supporting their right to a peaceful and respected life, free of violence and coercion.

• secondly, the human rights of every Zimbabwean must be upheld and respected.

• and thirdly, the poor must be protected from the rich and powerful.

They must not be discriminated against simply because they are poor or powerless. They must be shown respect.

Each of these three fundamental principles is being violated by the government in Zimbabwe. State violence is endemic. The poor are being systematically discriminated against, human rights violations are the norm, and there is no recognition that the victims of these outrages are being respected as our brothers and sisters in the human family. The common good of the people is not being met.

Everyone is aware that with the advent of the global economy and the domination of professional sport by international media cartels and other global sponsors, decisions to ‘work’ or otherwise are not always the prerogative of the local player or his association.

Now it has been put that the real reason why the Black Caps are going to tour is that there would be huge financial loss should they not go. Finance is certainly an important consideration.

But the tour is still basically a moral issue, not one of economics. Earlier, it was the players who were given the option to tour or not, in the shadows of the bulldozers. Sadly not one of these highly paid sportsmen had the moral fortitude to say that they wouldn’t play.

Sports tours as business

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n an era of global sport dominated by economics and profit making, maybe there is another issue that has not yet been canvassed? One has to ask the question as to whether these types of tours are really sports tours in the traditional sense of the word? Or are they trade in a new guise? Do not the players trade their skills as cricketers to fill the coffers of the cricket associations in the various countries in which they tour, which in return pay the wages of those who do the work?

Are test cricketers really simply highly paid workers in an industry called professional sport? Are not reciprocal professional sporting tours simply trading in entertainment revenues using the skills of the participants as the vehicle? In this context, are they any different from musicians?

If not, then should they not come under Foreign Affairs trade regulations, which from time to time make a moral choice about trading with certain despotic regimes? For example, the New Zealand govern­ ment banned trade with Fiji and Chile after the coups. These were measures forced on reluctant trading groups on moral grounds because the common good of the people in those countries was threatened.

For our cricketers to play cricket in the shadow of current atrocities is to dance on the grave of human dignity and freedom in Zimbabwe. It is to say that the common good of humanity is not their concern. It is to say that these people are not their brothers and sisters. It is to say that the basic human rights to life, shelter, education, medicine and freedom from violence matter less than playing cricket.

As a nation we need constantly to remind ourselves of the moral issues that prevail in our international relations. The principles of the common good – solidarity with the poor and oppressed, the need to uphold human rights and recognition of human solidarity – are the principles that should guide our actions. The Black Caps tour of Zimbabwe ignores all three. NZ Cricket should bite the financial bullet and cancel the tour. n

James Smyth

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response

Child Poverty and the 2005 Budget the parties respond

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The Labour Party

hank you for the opportunity to respond to Professor Asher’s article on Budget 2005 as it affects children.

In many respects Professor Asher wrote about the wrong Budget speech. The central feature of the Budget speech in 2004 was the ‘Working for Families’ package, which tackles head on the theme of the Professor’s article, child poverty.

The Budget speech in 2005, from which Professor Asher’s article was written, did not repeat the announcement. But in the body of the Budget itself the funding for it is writ large.

The ‘Working for Families’ package is being rolled out from 1 October 2004 to 1 April 2007, with the biggest changes for most families occurring in April 2005 and April 2006. It is too large a package to introduce all at once (it would overheat the economy), and when complete will be easily the largest redistribution towards families with children since the late 1930s. I am sad that Professor Asher devoted one line to it, describing it as a modest measure.

Let me quote three case studies from the booklet jointly produced by Inland Revenue and Work and Income.

• Sue and Nick have two children, live in rural Canterbury, between them work 60 hours per week and earn $37,440 before tax. Each week they pay $120 in rent and $69 in childcare costs. Since Budget 2004 they are $82 per week better off; by April 2007 they will be $163 per week better off.

• Sale and Barbara have three children (5, 9, 12) and live in Onehunga. Sale works full time and earns $52,000 before tax.

Their mortgage is $385 per week and they get an accommodation supplement.

Since Budget 2004 they are better off by $99 per week; by April 2007 they will be $169 per week better off.

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• Jane has a four-year-old child and lives in West Auckland. She gets the DPB and works 30 hours besides at $11 an hour. Her rent is $225 each week and she pays $115.50 each week in childcare costs. By October 2005 she will be $101 a week better off.

There are almost 300,000 families who will be receiving lesser or greater increases than the three I have quoted.

The programme is a mixture of increased grants for family support, accommodation supplement and, importantly, childcare subsidy along with what are effectively closely targeted tax cuts.

The remainder of this programme will come under direct threat if the country elects a Government committed to across-the-board tax cuts. For example I receive nothing from the ‘Working for Families’ package, but I will inevitably, and significantly, benefit from any of the tax cut proposals currently being proposed by other political parties.

Professor Asher is one of an increasing number of New Zealanders who are demanding that politicians do more than pay lip service to our children, and to child poverty. That advocacy is both important and correct: poverty in New Zealand is distressingly linked to children. That is precisely why the ‘Working for Families’ package matters. I urge readers of this magazine to familiarise themselves with its detail, in order that any criticism of its design and size can be informed.

Finally, I have a quote of my own, from the Leader of the Opposition, Dr Brash. When asked if National intends to match the reduction in child poverty that Labour would finish delivering in the ‘Working for Families’ package, Dr Brash said that child poverty was a

Cover photo: Tui Motu July 2005

cyclical phenomenon that rose and fell with the state of the economy.

I disagree. I think child poverty is a scourge, and that targeted redistribution along the lines of ‘Working for Families’ is a morally compelling must-do.

Hon Pete Hodgson MP for Dunedin North

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he Green Party believes that every child born deserves the best possible start in life. We have a wide range of detailed policies relating to children as we head into the 2005 election, but key priorities for us include: • Work towards eliminating child poverty by 2010, ideally through means of a cross-party accord in Parliament.

• Introduce a Universal Child Benefit (like the old Family Benefit) of at least $15 a week for the first child and $10 a week for subsequent children, payable to the primary caregiver regardless of source or type of parents’ income. This could also potentially be capitalised towards a deposit on a first home.

• Work to end discrimination against the children of beneficiaries, including in the ‘Working for Families’ package; reform the benefit system on lines of simplicity and sufficiency. The Special Benefit should not be abolished until main benefits are enough for people to live on.

The National Party Received from the Hon Judith Collins MP, National Party Spokeswoman for Welfare, Families and Pacific Island Affairs

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ational will address low incomes and problems associated with child poverty, both by lifting the living standards of all New Zealanders, and by helping those currently in poverty. Although our health and taxation policies have not yet been released, I will discuss some of the social welfare issues raised in Dr Asher’s address and your editorial comment: The plight of children – a national disgrace.

The editorial comment refers to an interview with Nobby Clark, also printed in Tui Motu, saying, “having a stable, worthwhile job gives anyone, parents especially, a healthy self-esteem.” We agree, and believe this is a very important statement about dealing with economic and social problems in New Zealand. The most effective and long-sighted method of addressing children’s poverty is through the income of their parents.

percent of the working age population – we will take practical steps to help them secure employment.

These steps include providing literacy and numeracy assessments for beneficiaries and arranging help for those who need it. They also include worthwhile community work or approved training for people who have been out of work for some time. This can provide dignity, selfesteem and skills for those who have limited skills and real trouble finding stable, regular employment.

The National Party believes some people are entitled to indefinite taxpayer support, and we will always provide that. We also know that many people in our community, at different times in their lives, will need taxpayer support, and we stand ready to provide that support. More importantly, we will focus on helping people back onto their feet.

National believes part of the solution lies in growing wealth and incomes so that all New Zealanders can enjoy higher living standards. But in addition, for those people who are out of the workforce – currently more than 14

The Green Party • Increase the minimum wage to $12 an hour, including 16- and 17-year-olds.

• Repeal Section 59 of the Crimes Act so that parents may no longer use the defence of ‘reasonable force’ when they beat their children, for example with canes, horse whips or pieces of wood.

• Reduce the amount of violence children are exposed to through TV and computer games.

• Improve resourcing and funding stability for church and community groups which work to support parents and children.

• Encourage a far more child-friendly workplace culture, including flexible working hours, breastfeeding facilities, access to childcare.

• At the same time, encourage respect and support for parents who choose to stay at home with their babies and

National will also provide help for the most vulnerable children, those whose parents are in poverty, not in the workforce or both. An example is Family Start, which is also mentioned in your editorial comment. National initiated this programme and we continue to support it. It is the kind of policy we believe is vital to help children rather than engage in the vulnerable New Zealand families. paid workforce.

This programme addresses potential • Defend the DPB. problems before they occur and helps • Make the first $5000 of income families to gain the skills to move tax free for everyone. into a position where they can help themselves. It is also directed at the • Increase the rate of provision of state most vulnerable children, right at the housing, and improve resourcing beginning of their lives. for third sector community based housing options – poor and transient Another example relates specifically housing is one of the main causes of to those children whose parents are poor outcomes for children. receiving a benefit. We will require that parents who are receiving a he Green Party also believes benefit present their pre-school child­ that children deserve to have ren for all appropriate medical and their voices heard when laws are dental health checks, and, unless made; they deserve a safe, adequate there is conscientious objection, for and nutritious diet; safe parks, vac­ci­nations. In addition, schoolstreams and beaches; affordable, age children will be required to be accessible health and dental care; presented to school. free education at their local school.

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For more details, email: <Sue.Bradford@parliament.govt. nz>; or phone 04 470 6721.

Sue Bradford MP

National is committed to providing help for New Zealand’s most vulnerable children, both directly and through their families, and higher living standards for all New Zealanders. n

Tui Motu InterIslands 7

people

The world is alive with the glory of God Priest, professor, man of faith, Colin Durning talks to Mike Riddell about his life journey, his beliefs – and especially about his friend, the poet James K Baxter

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olin Durning’s life and theology is summed up in three profound words: Grace is everywhere. He’s marvelling at the beauty of the Otago hills, seen through the window of his Port Chalmers home as the afternoon fog lifts its skirts to reveal them. The natural world seems to be full of the same quality as the life he’s lived – grace. “My path,” he reflects, “ has been marked by a series of fortuitous events. Even meeting Baxter, that was quite by accident in some ways.”

Durning and Baxter

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e is speaking of James K. Baxter, his friend and confidante during some of the most interesting years of Baxter’s life. The exquisite Jerusalem Sonnets arrived in Colin’s letterbox one by one, with the explanation that the poems “spring from my sense of the

spiritual cable between us”. Baxter added, perhaps a little disingenuously, that “some day they may be of use to other people, if only as a curiosity”.

By the time Durning and Baxter met, Colin was Professor of Prosthetic Dentistry at the University of Otago, and Jim was Burns Fellow. As Catholics sharing a keen interest in both theology and drama, the two men struck up a friendship. Colin recalls that the first time Baxter brought him home after a meeting, his wife Jacquie assumed that he was one of Jim’s alcoholic friends in need of comfort.

Colin and Jim were both involved in The Globe theatre under the reign of Patric and Rosalie Carey, with Colin taking small parts in some of Baxter’s plays.

Later, Baxter would leave Dunedin and head north to establish a community at

Poem for Colin (37) Colin; you can tell my words are crippled now; The bright coat of art He has taken away from me And like the snail I crushed at the church door My song is my stupidity; The words of a homely man I cannot speak, Home and bed He has taken away from me; Like an old horse turned to grass I lift my head Biting at the blossoms of the thorn tree; Prayer of priest or nun I cannot use, The songs of His house He has taken away from me; As blind men meet and touch each other’s faces So He is kind to my infirmity; As the cross is lifted and the day goes dark Rule over myself He has taken away from me.

James K Baxter: Jerusalem Sonnets

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Jerusalem. Not long after this, Professor Durning tendered his resignation to the university. His decision to leave a secure academic tenure to take up a position in an Invercargill pre-release borstal shocked many.

James K. Baxter wrote to him somewhat wryly: “God help me Colin, people will be saying you’ve been overly influenced by that madman Baxter”. Both at the time and looking back now some 35 years later, Colin is hesitant to accept that explanation. He concedes that he was shaped to a certain degree by his friend – but not in terms of following the poet. “Baxter gave me a courage to actually move on what I’d been doing and thinking anyway”, he explains.

Early life

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arlier in life Durning had spent six years at the University of Chicago on a Fullbright Fellowship, before teaching at both Puerto Rico Medical School and University of Detroit. When he stepped aside from the academic life in 1970, he was questioned by the student magazine Critic regarding his motivation. Describing his decision as a ‘spiritual matter’, Colin noted: “I am a Roman Catholic and I’m quite strongly influenced by my beliefs on the nature of man, his existence as an incarnate spirit, however vague that might sound.”

Nowadays he considers his communal and humanitarian impulses were already well-formed through his family background. Colin speaks with fondness of his maternal grandmother, an Irish Catholic immigrant who lived in Waipipi on the Manakau Harbour.

“It was depression times. But even there, I can still remember the crowds

that would come visiting – from the old people’s home, the priest would come – everyone, from the local intellectually handicapped, the drunks, everyone. Often we’d waken up and find someone who’d arrived during the night was staying. And the bishop would come – it made no difference to her. The house was wide open.”

While some more rigid sections of the family had difficulty coping with people’s problems – “they tended to abandon them to God” – Colin delights in the response of his grandmother.

“She was not the slightest bit interested in reforming them. She just said, ‘There we are’, and that was the human predicament.” It was an expression of that quality of manuhiritanga which both Baxter and Durning would discover to be an essential element of Maori culture.

When Colin broke with the University in 1970, he had already begun his journey of learning among Maori. He’d grown up in a predominantly Pakeha Timaru, without much encounter at all with Maoridom. But the long years overseas had awoken his interest. When he expressed this to Jacquie Baxter (Taranaki), she encouraged him to sit in with a local Maori group, and wait until someone offered him a job to do. Over many years he became fluent in te reo.

So, while Baxter and Durning had great affinity and to a certain extent followed parallel paths, Colin’s downward mobility was his own choice – marked by a commitment to human values espoused by his faith, but not especially represented by his former career. It was a choice which would lead late in life to his entry into the priesthood and a significant ministry in the great ethnic mix of Porirua.

Baxter’s great gift, says Colin, was in giving people freedom and courage to follow their heart. “He had a tremendous sensitivity to where a person was at a particular moment.

He would often bluntly admit, even if it wasn’t true, to having a similar

problem himself. That was one of his themes, that he would do this. Then once the barriers were down, people would open up to him.” Baxter was a humanist, Colin explains. “He used to say that pagans struggled with Christ’s divinity, while Catholics struggled with Christ’s humanity.”

“I was very much influenced by Cardinal Yves Congar – he believed in tradition, but real tradition, not the sort we add on. He said that there is no sacrament of priesthood except baptism. There’s the sacrament of Holy Orders, but the task of Holy Orders is to support the priesthood of the laity.

Christian humanism

“I’ve got to be careful what I say,” Colin chuckles. “I saw in the newspaper: ‘Pope approves family and love’ – and I thought: gee, he’s playing safe with that.”

C

olin Durning is a humanist himself, in the best Catholic tradition. He welcomes the fact that Vatican II did so much to make the church inclusive; although he bemoans that “the implementation of the Council has unfortunately been going in a typical bell curve – it’s now tailing off somewhat”.

He’s unworried that young people are by and large not being attracted by the church, noting the great variety of ways the Spirit is at work in the world.

“The uniqueness of people is the great richness of diversity,” he enthuses.

“I said to someone the other day at a priests’ gathering, ‘Is it possible to say that it’s a wonderful gift of the Holy Spirit that we are so short of priests?’ There it is – let’s all see where we go from here.

We share a cup of tea and swap stories.

It’s in such ordinary human encounters that Colin finds the mystery of grace ever present. He smiles as he thinks back on the twists and turns of his own life, and how rich it has all been.

“Yes,” he reiterates, “Grace is everywhere.

And wherever we find grace, salvation is not far from us.” Driving back along the harbour side, the road snakes alongside the sea. The fog is just starting to clear the hills, which are bathed in a glorious evening light.

After my chat with Colin I find the world brighter in all sorts of ways. n Dunedin author and theologian, Mike Riddell, also has a passionate interest in James K Baxter

Poem for Colin (39) In Auckland it was the twelve days’ garland, Feast with friends and shouting in the streets; Now it is the apex and the clean flint knife Colin, if you meet him, give my love To Patric Carey, and if you have the time Once or twice go out to Brighton To visit my parents - easy to hang Imperatives on a good friend from a distance, But I say, ‘If’ - one thing, how can the image come At all to the centre where the mind is silent Without being false? I had hoped for fifty sonnets, But here are thirty-nine, my gift to you, Colin, From Hiruharama, From Hemi te tutua.

James K Baxter: Jerusalem Sonnets

Tui Motu InterIslands 9

peace & violence The 20th Century was the most violent era in human history – and the scale of violence continues undiminished. Now, the suicide bomber penetrates inside buildings and under cities.

Human life becomes increasingly expendable. The 60th anniversary of Hiroshima reminds us that humanity is facing the ultimate crisis of faith: to seek peace as the supreme human value – or face self-destruction

Religious fanaticism and the One God Dr Bernard Sabella, an Arabic Christian leader, comments on the way religious extremism, affecting all monotheistic faiths, is threatening world peace

T

he London bombings clearly illustrate that a war is going on. This war is fuelled on the one side by religious fanatics who use – or rather, abuse – religion for their own misled conception of a world divided between the righteous and those outside the bounds of righteousness. Political and other differences with the nonrighteous justify, in the eyes of these fanatics, mounting massive attacks to specifically drive the point home to their adversaries that there is no geographic or time limit in the ongoing war.

But the fanaticism of these religious zealots on the Moslem side is met with fanaticism on other religious sides. Thus the portrayal by some Christian groups, particularly in the United States, of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the War on Terror, as also driven or motivated by the sort of Onward Christian Soldiers hymn does contribute to the perception of these wars as primarily religious.

In the Arab-Israeli conflict there are influential forces on all sides that reduce the conflict to religion, oblivious to national, political, economic, strategic and other considerations. Some Christian Zionist and other Christian Right groups would pray and actively hope for Armageddon, the Biblical end of days heralded by the second coming of Christ, irrespective of the human, environmental and other costs to Christian, Moslem and Jew. In their zealous support for Israel, these Christian fundamentalist groups are willing to sacrifice everything and everybody for the fulfillment of the Biblical prophecy of Armageddon.

On the Jewish side, religious funda­mentalists, particularly settler groups, have their own wars motivated by religion and its prescriptions. The Jewish populating of the ‘Promised Land’ makes all other rights irrelevant. That the land is populated by Arab Palestinians is beside the point; the important thing is that Yahweh’s will be done, irrespective of the damage inflicted on neighbours and their rights.

10 Tui Motu InterIslands

Islam, Christianity and Judaism have a serious problem as they have allowed fringe and not so fringe groups among them to set the agenda. The world today, particularly in its religious ‘monotheistic’ component is in deep crisis. The London bombings are unfortunately one tragic example; the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan another and the situation in Palestine a third. Other examples of horror and terror could be added irrespective of the monotheistic religious background of the perpetrators.

The argument often propounded that the common Abrahamic roots of these three religions would supposedly help us overcome our differences, may in fact be a fallacy.

The solutions to our various complex problems and issues definitely lie in political, economic and strategic venues.

Believers of monotheistic religions have not done enough to distance their religions from the use of violence and terror in their names.

Monotheistic religions are in need of a grand strategy of education and socialisation aimed at mutual understanding away from violence and terror. Religious establishments may not be willing to cooperate on the development of such a strategy. Believers who are out there in the public, civil, secular, business and other spheres are invited to challenge their religious establishments towards contemplating work on this grand strategy. Wars and military intervention would not secure peace, democracy and reconciliation among adherents of the monotheistic religions: terror attacks would only add to the polarization and stereotyping already out there. We, who still believe in the moral, religious, ethical power of our respective religions, should move to stop the cycle of senseless violence and war. n Dr Bernard Sabella is Executive Director, Department of Service to Palestinian Refugees, Middle East Council of Churches and Associate Professor of Sociology Bethlehem University, Jerusalem

Destroying the soul of a nation “So far as I can see, the atomic bomb has deadened the finest feeling that has sustained mankind for ages. There used to be the so-called laws of war that made it tolerable. Now we know the naked truth.

War knows no law except that of might.

M

onday 6 August 1945 is the day etched into the history books as the day the world changed forever. Sixty years ago at 8.15 am on that fateful morning, an American warplane dropped an atomic bomb, euphemistically named ‘Little Boy’, over the Japanese city of Hiroshima.

More than 200,000 people died as a direct result.

Three days later more than 100,000 died as a second bomb, ‘Fatman’, was detonated over the city of Nagasaki.

The bombing signalled the end of one war and the beginning of another. World War II was ended, but the Cold War was to officially last until 1990, when the Soviet Union collapsed into 15 independent countries.

The human psyche changed that day.

The terror unleashed by the bomb has remained and will remain with the human family forever. There is no putting the genie back into the bottle. It is out – and it remains a constant threat to world stability and peace.

That day the nuclear age was launched.

Since that fateful Monday the whole world has lived in the shadow of the nuclear bomb. It is as real for us today as it has ever been. There are nuclear weapons in more countries than ever before.

While the West has tried to keep the nuclear club small and composed exclusively of its own members plus Russia, now it is widening and needs to include such diverse countries as India, Pakistan, South Africa, Israel. The legacy of Hiroshima is more potent than ever.

The atom bomb brought an empty victory to the allied armies, but it resulted for the time being in destroying the soul of Japan. What has happened to the soul of the destroying nation it is yet too early to see.”

Mohandas Gandhi, 1945

It is a sin of huge consequence that President Truman and US Secretary of State Byrnes both knew beforehand that from July 1945 the Japanese had been negotiating to end the war through the Soviet leadership. The Americans knew this because they were able to intercept and read Japanese coded messages.

But a lesson needed to be taught to the Soviets and the Japanese alike as to who would be the masters of the world post war.

There was only room for one empire.

the terror unleashed by the bomb has remained and will remain with the human family forever The dream of the ‘peaceable kingdom’ laid out in the Scriptures was torn asunder by the violence of the bomb.

The dream in Isaiah of the lion lying down with the lamb, the wolf playing with the kid, the child putting his hand unharmed into the viper’s nest (Is.11, 1-9), and the beating of weapons of war into ploughs for peaceful purposes was shattered to smithereens in an instance.

This Biblical vision, which signals the reign of God in the midst of the people, was evaporated along with the hundreds of thousands who died, nearly all of them innocent civilians.

To people of faith it is surely no coincidence that the bombing of Hiroshima occurred on the Feast of the Transfiguration. That day the church

celebrates the mystical experience shared by Jesus and the three leading apostles, an experience which gave them a taste of the Kingdom of heaven.

They felt joy, delight, peace, fulfilment, a oneness with the holy. It was the ultimate experience for them.

That transformation is the antithesis of what the bomb unleashed – a taste of hell. Thousands were vaporised immed­ iately, cities demolished, radiation sickness and death left for generations, the land and air poisoned. Hiroshima became a living hell. And a sign forever of what nuclear war was like.

Gandhi’s insightful comment in 1945 that he wasn’t sure “what has happened to the soul of the destroying nation” is better answered now 60 years on. Gandhi knew that violence breeds more violence. It is a power. It is a poison. The soul of the United States is being destroyed by the same violence, ambition and arrogance that drove President Truman and his generals to bomb all those years ago.

This terrible legacy continues to rip the traditionally generous heart out of this once great nation, reducing it to the status of a hated pariah in many parts of the world. The damaged soul of America stares at us from Panama, Nicaragua and Haiti across to Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, and back to Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq. Japan continues to recover, but the destructive legacy of Hiroshima lives on in “the soul of the destroying nation”. n

Christopher Carey

Tui Motu InterIslands 11

peace & violence

Akiko grew up in Kure, 20 kms from Hiroshima. The day the bomb was dropped, Akiko was 15 years old.

She will not forget that day... Now in her 70s, she remembers and continues to live out her personal journey in a way remarkable for its spirit of peace and reconciliation, and the active desire for partnership and bridge-building between Japan and Aotearoa-New Zealand. In conversation with Anne Powell, she shares a glimpse into her own experience of 6 August 1945.

The paperclips of Hiroshima

T

oday I am going to meet Akiko.

To honour her, I decide to buy an orchid. I choose a stem with five blooms of shy lime shades, speckled with splashes of dark red wine. Against the Wellington wind, the stem bends and braces itself. It is a survivor.

Meeting Akiko for the first time, I offer her the orchid.

Smiling and small, she bends to the open flower and to me.

Do you mind if I write some notes while we talk, I ask.

It is fine.

I don’t feel brave enough to start our conversation by asking her about the war. Instead, I invite her to tell me of something beautiful she remembers from her childhood in Kure, a town 20 kms from Hiroshima. She is right back there as she begins to talk. “I liked sea and sky. As long as I’m close to sea, I’m happy. When I was a child, if I feel unhappy or cold, I look up at sky or down at sea.

I would hate to live in Palmerston North, far from sea.

These things do not divide us from other people. I belong to star. To sea. I like feeling of wind. I am sorry my hair is not good today for meeting you. It is the Wellington wind.”

I ask a few more questions. Akiko continues. “At first, I didn’t hate Americans. I just hate war. There is no school because of the war. I am 15.

I work in a factory making paper clips. This is called helping the war effort.”

I write this down:

happy sea sky not divided unhappy cold hate war paperclips

12 Tui Motu InterIslands

When we talk about the war, Akiko says, “My father was in the Japanese Navy. He died during the war in Okinawa.”

I swallowed. “That must have been very hard for you, and for your mother when she was sick so much.”

“It was nothing special when he died” said Akiko.

Everyone’s father died.”

My pen stops writing. I close my notebook.

Her tears fall. “I don’t usually cry when I talk about this,” Akiko says.

This is what I remember:

sky sea undivided unhappy cold paper clips the rage of colours when a bomb breaks up the sky people are on fire

In Wellington, I sit with Akiko. Her room breathes stillness. The lime orchid is such a thing of beauty. It rests on the desk top beside us.

It is Wednesday.

N

ow it is Saturday.

I collect the mail from our letterbox. There’s a long envelope in an unfamiliar slanting hand.

“What a lovely, lovely surprise to receiving beautiful orchid on Respect for Aged Day. This morning, I have made few pages of newspaper clippings and hope it will help you for your writing.”

Six pages are folded into the envelope. It’s an ordinary Saturday in Wellington. From my window, I can see the scarlet camellias and white azaleas. I unfold the first page.

It is a photo of a very large cave with archways in the

stone. The caption reads: Japanese Navy Underground Headquarters. A navy without a sea.

The second photo shows a tall white monument surrounded by trees. There is a wooden bridge-like structure leading up to the monument and an anchor with a wreath of flowers attached to it.

The third and fourth photos accompany articles about Akiko herself. She is going to Japan to receive an award from Emperor Akihito. This is for her work in strengthening ties between New Zealand and Japan. When she immigrated here in 1953, there was not one sushi bar and no tourists. The award she received from the Emperor is known as the Order of the Sacred Treasure.

From the fifth photo, a small, compact man looks out at me.

He wears ceremonial military dress, two rows of medals on his chest, a sword in his left hand. A military hat with a soft tassel sits above his dark, crescent moon eyebrows. I notice the gleam of his black shoes. He wears white gloves.

I unfold the newsclip. This is what I read: Most precious to Akiko is the memory of the last time she saw her father, Vice Admiral Ota of the Japanese Navy. That was in February 1945, just before he took command of the naval base on Okinawa.

A small story Her long plait is a rope down her back.

She makes paper clips in a factory to save Japan.

There’s a war going on and on.

When she is cold or unhappy she lifts her face skywards or to the sea.

There is not enough soothing in water.

The sky is a scalded rainbow.

People are burning crying dropping down dead right outside her house.

It is morning and it is night.

This is Akiko.

Her paper clips hold broken pieces of heart.

Anne Powell

Wearing his immaculate dress uniform, medals and white gloves, he saluted each of his eleven children. Akiko did not know it at the time, but it was the farewell of the man who knew the war was effectively over for Japan.

There is another photo of the Japanese Navy Underground Headquarters.

There are nine lines beneath this photo.

My heart grows beating wings in my chest.

This is what I read.

Akiko’s father, Vice Admiral Ota, was Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese Navy.

This Underground Headquarters of the Japanese Navy is where Vice Admiral Ota and the remnant of his 4,000 strong unit, committed suicide on 13 June 1945, rather than surrender.

A poem is carved on a wall of this cave. It is a farewell poem, written by Akiko’s father. If only I could read Japanese. Up out of the cave into the fullness of daylight, the script would be like tiny strands of seaweed or the quiet stretches of peaceful people doing Tai Chi.

Anne Powell

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You will have accumulated a solid background of experience in financial management and administration along with appropriate tertiary qualifications. You will possess a high level of commercial acumen along with good skills in developing and evaluating financial policies and procedures.

To apply please send your CV to David Leach, preferably by email.

Contact details: Email david.leach@spencerscott.co.nz

Spencer Scott Resourcing Group Ltd, P O Box 82278, Auckland

Tui Motu InterIslands 13

spirituality This article has been resting in the editorial basket for some time waiting its opportunity.

In the context of stark human evil, exemplified by the nuclear bomb or by the suicide bomber, Br Roger offers a message of hope.

Down to the last nail

S

What is the essence of the gospel of Jesus, what response does it give to the human predicament?

Roger Dowling suggests it is ‘to give to the last nail’

ome time back our daily papers showed a picture of a sculpture of Jesus Christ, which was going to be placed (unfortunately not permanently) on top of a plinth in London. It is the depiction of Jesus as a ‘loser’ that caught my interest – he has a crown of thorns, a very short wrap-around toga, a hairless head and a hairless chin. His pose is of a man beaten; he carries no emblems of authority or power of influence: he looks dejected, baffled – a loser.

And I think the true attraction of Jesus is just that – by the world’s standards he was a loser: put to death by his own people, his best friends took to their heels, his tomb was borrowed, he had nothing to leave to his followers by the way of this world’s riches. He did not aspire to honour or be given honour, but he kept on putting other people first. He talked to a group of women on his way to Calvary, talked to another of the criminals dying alongside him, mixed with riff-raff like prostitutes, recommended humility, honesty, love of God and love of others.

Deep down, we are not taken in by glitz or froth. We know that celebrities are created; we know someone grooms our parliamentarians; we know that the surface grooming of John Kennedy junior and his beautiful wife Carolyn Besette meant nothing at the point their aircraft slammed into the water.

Daily tragedies reported from overseas do not surprise us, because death in all

14 Tui Motu InterIslands

its forms is our constant diet. Every man knows he is a fraud. We would like to be able to stand ‘naked’ before the world, knowing inside ourselves that we are someone of immense and timeless truth. But it’s not true.

I remember my delight in coming across C.S.Lewis – not the man who wrote so precisely and with such confidence in his understandings.

The Lewis I encountered had been ‘Surprised by Joy’, his cosy bachelor shell cracked open by the incomprehensible power of femininity. Bewilderment and amazement! I find these ideas very attractive; I am repelled by people – especially men – who seem to have it all worked out. I have seen the film Shadowlands more than once and been moved to tears, yet at the same time grasping just a little of the fuller meaning of life that Lewis’s love for Joy Gresham declared to him. He became vulnerable as Jesus was vulnerable.

It was something of this imponderable mystery that the makers of the television series The Lakes portrayed so starkly: in one of the opening segments the Catholic priest is called on to be the priest to the intensely grieving people whose daughters have been drowned.

The priest says words of comfort, but in essence he stands outside their sorrow. He has an affair with a local woman; everything comes unstuck. He is forced to leave the parish, but before he goes he tells them he wanted to experience something of the intensity

and anguish that he had seen them experience. He wanted to know what it meant to bleed for someone: not to be a spectator on the deepest feelings open to men/women.

Jesus did not live as a spectator. He entered into our lives to the full. We can never say that in any way he held back, ‘even to the Cross’. The cost to Jesus was “not less than everything” – down to the last nail.

W

hen I was teaching King Lear, it helped me to see all this from another angle.

Lear thought he could command obedience and love, that he could command virtue, order the chaos out of nature. Only when “his wits have turned” does he come to see himself as a “foolish fond old man”, and realises that all people are but “poor bareforked animals”. He learns the wisdom of allowing others to care for us, of allowing others to love us, of allowing others to touch us.

He is fully redeemed and all looks well... butterflies and daffodils and whistling birds... but the forces of evil still have the final word. His peerless, blameless daughter is hanged by the foulest soldier of the garrison, and Lear cries out in absolute anguish that she will not come again... “never, never, never, never, never.”

Yet the truth is – goodness so much outshines evil. Fr Maximilian Kolbe shines a light over all the horrors and

the depraved faces in the death camp.

Good lives on, while evil goes with its doer to the grave. When my life seems in disarray and the work we do pointless and without focus, I can continue to believe in the triumph of good – year after year after year.

I

n my years as a secondary school Principal I have been part of some piteous requiems and funerals. But three stand out: one with Fr Joe Stack at Ohinewai where the mother stood rigid with grief looking down into the earth where her 16-year-old son lay. Another at Pakuranga: the best of husbands, the best of fathers, the best of friends struck down by asbestosis in his early 50s. I can still feel the stiffness in my throat.

And then, a 30-year-old Marist Brother, lionised for his talent but killed by cancer. In all these cases the loved ones struck by these losses were strong believers. They grieved, they expressed anger and bewilderment – but none of them pointed at God and said: “you don’t understand”, because the Jesus they knew, himself suffered hideously. I think this is the power of Jesus. This is the underpinning of the Catholic instinctive trust in the Mass: we re-enact, we re-focus daily on the

intensity and the mystery of suffering, deeply personified in Jesus.

Down to the last nail.

And we look to this Jesus to provide a final answer in his Resurrection. When there was chaos in Dili in East Timor, ordinary New Zealand men and women, military peacekeepers, were offered evacuation. To a man/woman they were willing to stay there at risk of their lives. And millions of ordinary people responded, not just to the heroism, but to the intensity of love and spirit which had again been given flesh.

Padovano’s dictum is that I am ‘responsible’ not only for myself but for the world I am making with others.

Being human – or being Christian, or being Catholic – is so often put to us in terms of responsibility or burden. Yet we don’t talk to a young woman entering into her marriage in terms of burden or responsibility, but in terms of love.

She is thinking of an expanding life.

Why cannot we think of the religious response as an expanding life?

Some years ago I read a book called The Dancing God. One chapter especially appealed to me. Under the title The Vibrant Present the author speaks of investments of energy in awareness:

living in the presence of people, things and events – which means making the most of calls for a decentralisation of the ego. Jesus talked about this again and again. He never mentioned ‘original sin’, but he did underline the basic Jewish ideal of love of God and love of neighbour. That is an invitation to decentralise my ego in a big way.

In today’s world Jesus is telling us: if you come across someone whose car has broken down on the side of the road, stop and help; if you’ve got more money than you need, give some away; if you go to a party, don’t think you are main guest by going to the top of the table. It all sounds like decentralising my ego. But we do this not because we have a sense of responsibility or because we have taken on this obligation by becoming a Christian – but because it works.

Christianity does work. It is possible to build and to experience the Kingdom of God based on the ideals and principles of Jesus; but it is a learnt mindset, an experienced mindset, and it is far more than just stopping your car to help someone on the side of the road. It is about confronting evil with good. To me that is the heart of the Jesus message. n

Marist Brother Roger Dowling taught throughout New Zealand, and was Principal of Sacred Heart College, Auckland

“O

A song for Nagasaki

n the morning of August 9 a meeting of the Supreme Council of War was in session at Imperial headquarters, Tokyo, to decide whether Japan would surrender or continue to wage war. At that moment the world stood at the parting of the ways. A decision had to made – peace or further cruel bloodshed and carnage.

“At 11.02 am an atom bomb exploded over our suburb.

In an instant 8,000 Christians were called to God and in a few hours flames turned to ash this holy place. At midnight that night our Cathedral suddenly burst into flames and was consumed. At exactly the same time in the Imperial Palace, His Majesty the Emperor made known his decision to end the war...

“Is there not a profound relationship between the annihilation of Nagasaki and the end of the war? Was not Nagasaki the chosen victim, the lamb without blemish, slain as a whole burnt offering on an altar of sacrifice, atoning for the sins of all the nations during World War 2?

“We are inheritors of Adam’s sin, of Cain’s sin. He killed his brother. Yes, we have forgotten that we are God’s children. Hating one another, killing one another, joyfully killing one another. At last the evil and horrific conflict came to an end, but mere repentance was not enough for peace: we had to offer a stupendous sacrifice. Only this hansai (holocaust) in Nagasaki sufficed and at that moment God inspired the Emperor to issue the sacred proclamation that ended the war.”

This testimony was part of the address of Takashi Nagai, the holy man of Nagasaki, given at a Requiem Mass held for the dead of Nagasaki in the shattered remains of the Cathedral of the Assumption, 23 November 1945. Nagai had served in the Japanese Army and had come to understand the evil of war. His wife was annihilated in the nuclear explosion, which also destroyed the Catholic Cathedral.

Dr Nagai was a survivor but died of radiation sickness in April 1950. The quotation is taken from the life of Dr Nagai, A Song for Nagasaki, by Paul Glynn.

Tui Motu InterIslands 15

peace & violence

7

Thursday 7th

T

racking down the M40 motorway which connects Oxford to London. I stop at a Services for coffee. While waiting to pay, the couple behind me in the queue draw attention to a TV screen across the hall which reads starkly “London blasted”. There are no details or changes while I watch.

The man beside me says: “Perhaps it’s an old notice”. Perhaps, I thought, it refers to a global hangover from the celebrations for London winning the 2012 Olympics (yesterday).

I drive on south. Suddenly the screens by the side of the motorway which usually warn you of fog or trouble or road works ahead, start flashing: “London closed. Switch on your radio”. Panic, Panic! I switch on. The music programme is interrupted by travel warnings: ‘all underground and bus services suspended. Many mainline stations not functioning. Roads closed.’ There are mysterious references to an ‘incident’. It sounds like a terrorist attack.

But where? Euston road is blocked for much of its length.

Euston road is a main east-west artery. Three of the great London termini open onto it: Euston, King’s Cross and St Pancras. Which station? At any rate it seems to be the north of the city, not the south.

At 11 o’clock there is a news bulletin giving more details: there were several bombs – in underground trains; one on a bus. As details emerge, I muse that the trains bombed are on the Inner Circle, the oldest of the capital’s underground lines and close to the surface. Once upon a time I used that line every day. In fact my surmise was incorrect. Only the Aldgate bomb was on that line.

The editor was in Lond His diary takes the pulse of the One headline reports that the roar of London’s traffic had been strangely replaced by the patter of a million feet. All the city gents and dames with their furled umbrellas walking unaccustomed miles across the city to find a train or bus to get home.

I am due to travel up to London.

My host urges me not to change my plans. So I get the train to Waterloo, on the south bank and away from the bombsites. Since much of the underground system is still shut down I decide to walk along the Thames bank to my destination close to St Paul’s Cathedral (see right).

The TV news shows the Queen visiting the maimed in hospital. She makes a strong speech to the cameras. Her voice is resolute and encouraging. The death toll has risen to 49. But there are many missing, and photographs are beginning to appear of people whom relatives fear are among the dead. “Have you seen this person?” And a smiling face belies a terrible tragedy.

Friday 8th

he papers are full of the bombings. 37 confirmed dead – a figure sure to get bigger. Tony Blair, the Queen, the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury: all have their say.

Red Ken Livingstone, the Lord Mayor, still in Singapore after the Olympics decision, emphasises that London is a truly cosmopolitan city. It welcomes all races to come and settle here and become Londoners.

These attacks harm the whole racial mix of the city’s population indiscriminately.

16 Tui Motu InterIslands

St Pancras church next to where the No 30 bus was blown up: the shrine for those who died

St Paul’s Cathedral in the

The city is strangely quiet for of London, viewed looking up a Friday. There are few tourists about. Buses are running again.

River traffic is as normal. The sun shines. But a strange hush seems to hang over the place. Many city businesses have given their staff the day off. Only the pigeons and gulls swirl around the traffic as if nothing has happened.

The clear message to travellers like me is: keep out of London. Don’t complicate things for the emergency services. There is another bomb scare, in Brighton on the south coast. People are warned again to keep away (that one turned out to be a false alarm). The atmosphere is jittery.

T

London

My host, Fr Kit, a London PP, learns that one of the seriously injured is a young woman, Gillian, due to be married in his church in a few months time. Will she recover? The impact of the bombing comes home to roost. Each victim is somebody’s loved one.

Saturday 9th

I

am due to visit a friend, who comes from Christchurch. In the inner suburbs life goes on as usual. We go to his son’s school fair. The people are enjoying themselves. The local MP has opened the fair: it is the actress, Glenda Jackson, mixing happily with the school parents who are every race and colour. It could be just another summer’s day.

n Diary 7

Monday 11th

I

have an appointment with the Tablet the other side of the city. I travel by tube, and even at 9.30 in the morning the trains are filled with commuters: standing room only, jam packed together. I reflect how easy it would be for the bombers to put their rucksacks down at their feet as they rubbed shoulders with thousands of other Londoners preoccupied with getting to work – never imagining that they would never arrive.

don last month for 7/7. great city in its time of trauma I resolve to return home via the British Museum. To get there I have to skirt Tavistock Square where the bus blew up. Several streets are still cordoned off.

There is a strong police presence. I note the police are invariably polite and non-threatening.

It takes more than a few bombs to upset a London bobby!

Indeed their presence is reassuring: everyone knows now it could happen again.

Sunday 10th

U

p early to travel out into the suburbs to my home parish church when I was a youth. The church is full. The congregation e middle is the same mix of young and p Ludgate Hill old as I recall from years ago.

I am reminded of the war. In my homily I speak of standing on the railway bridge near my home and watching London burning during the Blitz.

Somehow the terrorist bombs have evoked similar emotions: tension, some fear, a lot of sympathy for the victims, frustration at the futility of human violence.

At the end of Mass the parish priest makes a strong appeal to his people to extend a hand during the week to Muslim neighbours or confreres at work. Since there are over half a million Muslims in London, they won’t be hard to find.

On my way back the tube train stops at King’s Cross, the station where it all started three days ago. Travelling by tube is quite eery. I am conscious of carrying a shoulder bag big enough to carry a bomb. I open it and get out something to read. You feel the need to reassure other passengers! Fr Kit has heard again from the Gillian’s fiancée: she has had both legs amputated. But she is making progress. He tells me she is Australian. Suddenly it seems very close to home.

That evening there is a wonderful flypast of ancient planes to commemorate 60 years since the end of World War 2. It is a beautiful, warm day. Huge crowds line the Mall. The Queen and Prince Philip throw caution to the winds and drive through the crowds standing in an open Landrover.

Once again she speaks with strength and faith. A Lancaster bomber, flanked by two Spitfires, showers the crowds with a million poppies. Somehow this tribute includes those who have died in the latest outrages.

London traffic is very busy again. I note the number of cyclists, more than I remember previously. Are they dodging the underground trains? I see a No 30 bus – the same route as the one bombed on Thursday. There are plenty of people aboard: clearly they aren’t superstitious! I visit St Pancras church on the Euston Road (below left), the shrine for the dead. There are hundreds of wreaths on the steps. I stay a while and pray for the victims.

Tuesday 12th he sun still shines. It is time for me to leave. Fr Kit visits Gillian in intensive care and gives her a blessing. Her injuries are terrible. She lost a huge amount of blood. She had heart failure. Yet the trauma teams pulled her through.

Someone said that if it hadn’t happened in London where the best trauma facilities were instantly available, many more would have died. Gillian declares she is determined to walk down the aisle in December. She is the true Aussie Battler!

Such is the indomitable human spirit.

T

On the evening news we hear that the bombers have been traced and identified. They are young men of Pakistani origin, brought up in Yorkshire. It seems certain they all died with their victims. They are Britons.

In one of the Sunday papers I read what the mystic Simone Weil wrote about Londoners during the Blitz:

I tenderly love this city with its wounds. What strikes me most about these people, in their present situation, is a good humour which is neither spontaneous nor artificial but that comes from a feeling of fraternal and tender comradeship in a common ordeal.

It’s just as true today. I too love this city and its people. I pray that its wounds are healed. I pray there will be no revenge.

I pray too that we will identify the deep hurt within those young men which brought them to act so terribly – that we identify it and bring it to healing. n

Tui Motu InterIslands 17

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The body beautiful Nothing is more central to the life of faith than the relationship between body and spirit. Jacquie Lambert discovers a whole pantheon of idols – and suggests how we might get rid of them

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What makes something an idol is the priority you give it in your thinking and life. What makes it a false idol is the belief, conscious or otherwise, that it possesses the power to save or damn you in some way when, in fact, it doesn’t. A false idol becomes such through undeserved deification but also through undeserved demonising. Both paths afford it undue power.

ur relationship with our body is complex and confusing, which is hardly surprising considering its significance in our lives. The notion of ‘body’ as idolatrous in today’s thinking – whether it be regarding sexuality, addictions, sports worship, gluttony, perfectionism or any number of other issues – is also not surprising and not without precedent.

In fact, I wonder whether the body has ever been anything but an ‘idol’ in one form or another. The vehicle that brings to each of us life, joy, pain, ecstasy and death could hardly escape being loaded with conjecture, hope and suspicion.

It is our most intimate relationship and perhaps our most neglected and misunderstood.

Pick up a magazine, visit a gym, turn on the television, watch an international sports event or just walk down the street: the body as idol is everywhere.

There is a phenomenal wealth of diet programmes, gyms, exercise gurus, cosmetic surgery, eating disorders, promiscuity, drug, food and other addictions. We are all familiar with the secular problem – but what about the role of the church?

The church and the body

Indeed has the church been complicit in the creation of this contemporary cult of the body it so vocally condemns?

Has it focused so much on body ‘dos’ and ‘don’ts’ over the centuries that it has helped objectify the body and

18 Tui Motu InterIslands

Touched by the hand of God

accord it the power it possesses today?

Society has reacted against this, and in society we are recognising the body as powerful and wonderful, not as the demon we were once led to believe.

But without the steadying hand of the Spirit alongside this awareness, we face the very real danger of body addictions; seeking wholeness and salvation in increasingly destructive and essentially empty pursuits.

Body idolatry is not limited to the individual or the secular. What is a dominant issue for personhood will inevitably be a dominant issue for religion as well. The relationship between the church and our body is therefore equally complex and reveals a mixed and rocky history.

In a world where people feel they have little control over many aspects of their lives, manipulating their bodies for pleasure or power offers a tantalising means of escape. Yet hasn’t it always been so? It is a seductive trap and one we have fallen into for centuries. This is because within the falseness of body idolatry lurks a mysterious grain of truth.

Our bodies are the vehicle for all our emotions including how we experience love, even the love of God. Through our bodies we can be opened up to God’s touch. How many have felt a visceral reaction to music that has brought them to their knees? Or have seen God in their newborn’s eyes? Or found conversion through illness and suffering? And what of the profound spiritual experiences of the mystics so often described in the language of sexual ecstasy?

Through our bodies we can ‘meet’ with God and partner the divine in our

false gods journey on earth. Little surprise then that we can lapse into idolatry, seeing the body as either salvation or demon in itself. Although secular body idolatry seeks false ecstasy and escape through the body, it is only led that way by the very real possibility that exists in alignment with the spirit. And not even the church has always got it right.

Idolatry puts the object of desire/fear in the centre of our daily concerns.

Historical emphasis on the pitfalls of the flesh has fuelled the very idolatry the church sought to condemn.

Extreme manipulation of the body through fasting, strenuous pilgrimages, flagellation, chastity, martyrdom and torture existed within the church just as their opposite equivalents exist in secular society.

I am placing no judgment on this, merely illustrating that we cannot separate our bodies from our life and faith journeys. The more we try to do so, either as a society or religion, by objectifying them for worship or singling them out for defamation and abuse; the more power we afford them. But held within the safety of a compassionate spiritual container, the body can be received and valued as mystery and gift rather than trivialised or demonised.

The body within the context of faith But as a faith, have we Christians shot ourselves in the foot on this one? We are an incarnational religion, which I believe means that our most formative experiences of God may be found in our own flesh. Yet we have always struggled to accept that Jesus was ‘fully human’ in that uncomfortable sense of the word, as if it contaminated him somehow. Fully human means fully alive, fully feeling, fully passionate, eating, drinking, sleeping, farting – the whole kit and caboodle. It’s messy, risky and real. That’s life and don’t we know it. And that is the mystery.

God in flesh. Not perfect flesh (or he wouldn’t have been fully human) – but this flesh, our flesh.

However, unlike Jesus, we are not God in flesh. We are human and distinctly limited in any other dimension. Our bodies are not the enemy our lack of love and fear of uncertainty are.

Because our bodies are the seat of such intense emotion, we desperately want to get it right; the church wants to get it right. Fear of the body and its passions has fed a proliferation of debates and doctrinal legalisms attempting to categorise bodily sin.

We would like everything to do with our bodies to be clear cut and simple.

It’s not – so let’s get over it. We are allowed to make mistakes, in fact we are expected to. But the truth is, we have as little access to ‘absolute truth’ in this arena as we do in all others.

What do our bodies tell us about God?

Our bodies didn’t come with instruct­ion manuals, nor did the Scriptures provide a coherent equivalent, and I for one am not keen on accepting one created by committee. I’d rather try and work it out with the manufacturer Herself and stand accountable at the end.

Our Christian mandate is not rigid legalism, but is to best witness God’s inclusive love and compassion in this world. That is an ‘idol’ worthy of reverence. Focus on getting our love ‘right’ and all other decisions including those on the body will tag along for the ride. So perhaps rather than asking what God says about our body, we should be asking what our bodies say about God. Instead of legalising on individual body choices, we should be focusing on the relational love that informs those decisions. Nurturing unconditional and compassionate relational love is, I believe, far more pertinent than moralising on the body details. God is in the details, not us.

But unfortunately the public face of the Catholic Church has too often been dominated by its debates, treatises and pronouncements on body issues: sexuality, contraception, fertility, chastity, women and so on. In fact

the debate on women in priesthood may exemplify an idolatry that places body form above all other spiritual considerations even a personal calling.

It is a public face I am not terribly comfortable with. Where are the issues of justice, poverty, oppression, hunger and war that we should be better remembered for? I’m not saying there hasn’t been study and comment on these issues, only that they seem to have carried less impact in defining us as a church. Even Pope John Paul’s writings toward a Theology of the Body too often seems to be little more than a soft regurgitation of old dogmatisms.

But there is hope, even from our history. Origen, a third century theologian not exactly renowned for his liberal thoughts on the body, still saw each human spirit as being allotted a particular physical constitution chosen by God as sparring partner.

He believed that each body adjusted to the particular needs of the soul so that each person’s relationship with their body had its own particular faith story and was vital to the working out of their relationship with God. In this framework, our bodies are seen as integral to our spiritual development, collected lovingly back into the fold.

There is wisdom here if we listen carefully, and it could lead us to be a light to the secular instead of a reflection of it.

The ‘Word became flesh and dwelt among us’ and is still becoming flesh to this day. We need to heal the spirit/body split that as a church we have conspired to create, and once again discover God in the very mix; rediscovering compassion above dualism, prejudice and fear; our body resacralised as a daily bridge rather than a distant temple; God not as objective indifference but passionate intimacy. Until we can do that, idolatry of the body will remain an obstacle to growth both in secular consciousness and Christian understanding, with the church as much a part of the problem as we are today. n

Tui Motu InterIslands 19

Discovering ‘that of God’ in every person Kathleen Doherty talks to Linda Wilson, a Quaker woman who took time off from her career in order to rediscover God in her life

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their own spiritual and religious understanding, so that they could go back to their meetings for worship having developed another deeper layer of ministry. The wooded 9.2-hectare campus at Pendle Hill is dotted with accommodation blocks, communal meeting and dining rooms, and houses for the resident staff. It takes up to 35 participants for the residential programme, which runs over the three terms of the US academic year from September to June. In addition it provides week-long and weekend courses, and is host to ‘sojourners’ who come for a few days to several weeks for a variety of reasons – spiritual renewal, a time of retreat or discernment.

and the training manuals. He had developed resources so that Quakers around the US would have the informat­ion ready to counsel people who might want to claim the staus of conscientious objector if they were called up.”

“I like the words of our founder, George Fox, who said that there is within everybody ‘that of God’ and when you are clear about yourself you can ‘walk cheerfully over the earth answering that of God in everyone’.”

“So I investigated it, negotiated leave without pay from work, cashed in a retirement fund to pay the fees, and sent off my application – all within one week. I use the term deliberately when I say that it all went ‘divinely’ smoothly.”

During her nine months there one young man came, as Linda says using a Quaker term, ‘under a concern’, “meaning that there is a calling to explore or do some particular thing.

He was there initially doing some work about what Quakers should do for conscientious objectors getting ready in case President Bush re-introduced the draft. He spent a quiet retreat time at Pendle Hill thinking and praying and talking to people about the Quaker peace testimony. He had a group with him, what Quakers call a ‘clearness committee’ who walked with him to help him become clear about what he would do with his concern.

Pendle Hill was established 75 years ago by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) as a study and retreat centre to provide a place for people to develop

“He was there for about three weeks wrestling with this calling; he came back later with his committee to look at the documentation he had prepared,

inda Wilson had thought for years that when she retired, she would spend time at Pendle Hill, the Quaker community 19km south of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania.

It would be a good thing to do. She liked the idea of the residential course, the chance to live in community with other Quakers and the opportunity for prayer and reflection. But early last year, after 15 years at Otago Polytechnic’s School of Occupational Therapy as Head of School and the concurrent work associated with doing a PhD, 50something Linda felt the urgent need for time out.

“I was tired and grumpy and burnt out,” she says, “almost at the end of my tether – and then within 48 hours I had what some people would describe as a ‘calling’. I was procrastinating on the final edit of my PhD thesis by tidying a bookcase and came upon a brochure for Pendle Hill; two days later, at meeting for worship, I spoke to a friend about how tired I was, and she said ‘why don’t you go to Pendle Hill’!

20 Tui Motu InterIslands

Everyone on campus was welcome at the daily meeting for worship which preceded classes and was the hub of the community’s life. There was silent worship too before meals and incorporated into classes. Originally from a Presbyterian background, Linda had been attracted by the silence of Quaker worship and the lack of hierarchy and set ritual, when she became a Quaker in her 30s.

Linda reports that the resident programme for which she enrolled attracted “one of the most diverse groups you could imagine. Most, but not all, were Quakers. We had a Catholic Sister from up-state New York join us for the second term, a Mennonite man in his 70s who was coming to grips with growing old, a Lutheran missionary who had been working in Niger and was on home leave – she had first come to Pendle Hill as a child because her parents, who were also missionaries, used to go there when they were on home leave.

people “And within the Quakers enrolled there were people like me from a very unprogrammed meeting who are probably fairly liberal and sometimes not even comfortable calling themselves Christian, through to very Christcentred Quakers and evangelical Quakers who have much in common with some fairly orthodox and even fundamentalist Protestants.

“Each resident had a consultant, a member of staff somewhere between a mentor and a spiritual director, and met with the consultant weekly for an hour and a half. An intense relationship could develop with the consultant as you were dealing with things at a very deep level.”

D

uring the first term Linda took a prayer class, which introduced the participants to a number of prayer techniques which they could incorporate into their spiritual routines.

“The really important thing for me about the prayer class”, Linda emphasises, “was the teacher’s assumption that you should work on the hypothesis that God is there if you are open to God – so I had to think about what I was praying to.

That started a whole raft of discussions with my consultant about my concept of the nature of God: I finally buried any notion of a hierarchical, superior, single-entity God. Instead I have reached a notion of God being ‘within and between and among’, the potential that connects us all.

“Stemming from the prayer class were the ‘spiritual friendships’ established

among the students, in which groups of three met every week for a time of creative listening. First one and then the other would speak while the listeners attended carefully and lovingly and in a spirit of worship.” It is an aspect of worship which Linda hopes to be able to establish in her local meeting in Dunedin.

While Quakers have a number of testimonies – simplicity, integrity, community, equality – it is the peace testimony which most identifies them.

“It is clearly linked to the Quaker belief that there is ‘that of God’ in every person. If there is ‘that of God’ in you, then who am I to kill you? That is the very simple and coherent way of looking at things.”

For a number of the young people spending time at Pendle Hill as interns, Linda felt that 9/11 had been a watershed about what was actually important in life and a wake-up call to America’s lack of a sense of community. “They saw in a number of Islamic reactions a recognition that US spirituality was out of alignment with its practices. On the one hand the US espoused being a Christian community, but it had rampant sexuality and an interest in going and being in control of people: the incongruity became very clear.

“The Pendle Hill Peace Network’s Spring conference held in Philadelphia brought together people of all faiths and had the theme If We Are All for Peace, Why Is It So Hard? One of the speakers was a very inspiring man, Rabbi

Michael Lerner, who called on the faithful Left to come out of the closet, put their faith into their liberalism, and start standing up to the orthodox fundamentalist religions which are the only ones getting publicity in the US. His claim was that people of faith who belonged to the liberal Left hid their faith, and the only party that was talking about its spirituality was the Right. Rabbi Lerner is a leader of the Tikkun community, an international inter-faith community calling for social justice (see www.tikkun.com) – he was a hot topic of conversation.

People responded with a sense that he had named something true.”

A

nd now, back home in Dunedin and back at the helm of the School of Occupational Therapy, Linda has new vigour and a new attitude to life. “I have learnt surrender, partly through two classes I took – one on pottery as meditation, one on simple gifts where I found the joy of making boxes of heavy paper, where I learnt that part of the creative process is that you don’t know what is going to happen.

“You can apply that to life too, so I have come back with a checklist to monitor myself as I get back into my current job and see whether it is healthy for me and for others that I am there. I can wait and see what develops, I don’t have to be unduly hung up on goals and timelines. I can ‘let go and let God’” n

Barn in the woods where they gathered daily for meeting for worship

Tui Motu InterIslands 21

social justice

Sleeping Rough Glynn Cardy

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ohn was your average hardworking middle-class Kiwi. He came home one night to discover his best friend in bed with his wife. John stormed out and hit the drink. Six days later, the storm still raging, he returned, signed everything over to his wife and left. Over the next three months he swallowed a lot of drink and a lot of pride. He slept rough, under a bridge, in doorways, and in a park grandstand.

Finally he washed up at the Auckland City Mission in Hobson Street.

They got him on a benefit ($168 a week), gave him some new clothes, and put him in touch with Housing New Zealand. The waiting time for accommodation is somewhere between one week and three months. John had a place within three days. Within a couple of weeks he had a job. The Mission hasn’t seen him since.

“Nobody really chooses to sleep rough,” says the Revd Wilf Holt. “Something happens to collapse their normal expectations and desires. As with John it might be a relationship breakdown or the onset of mental ill health, it might be as a result of misusing drugs or alcohol, or as a result of a prison sentence, or after being made redundant.” Wilf is the team leader of Crisis Care Drop-In at the Auckland City Mission, located next door to St Matthew-in-the-City. One third of the Drop-In’s clientele sleep rough.

“It’s probably the hardest area of social work practice due to the multiplicity of issues facing rough sleepers combined with the difficulties of contacting them.

In New Zealand few if any universities or training institutes offer papers on rough sleeping.”

Wilf has been at the Mission for many years and in his easy manner tells me

22 Tui Motu InterIslands

about some of the people he’s known.

Young Sam started sleeping rough when he was about 11. His family was a sorry bunch. The Police and Social Welfare were involved with him in those days. Yet by 14 he was permanently on the streets, and permanently stuck on glue.

Sam has now been sleeping rough for some 20 years. He gets breakfast, lunch, and dinner from the Methodist Mission. He gets a shower with the Baptists. He’s got a favourite sleeping place under a concrete overhang by the motorway, and keeps his cardboard and blankets there. He’s well and truly addicted to solvents. He also has a number of physical injuries from being beaten up.

I interrupt Wilf. “Did other Streeties beat him?” “No,” says Wilf, “It was a bunch of louts from the suburbs who used him as a football.” Wilf goes on to explain that violence between Streeties is quite rare. Usually it is middle class white or brown youths who come into the downtown area looking for ‘a bit of fun’. The older and mentally ill rough sleepers are particularly vulnerable.

Wilf and his team have known Sam for most of those 20 years. They’ve helped nurse his wounds, managed him when he gets high and aggressive, and tried to get him into Detox. The Detoxification Unit is part of the Mission. It will be very hard for Sam to cease living on the streets. The street life is his life.

To move he will need to find a whole new community of friends. Finding a job will be impaired by two decades of sniffing glue and petrol.

Recently the Auckland Rough Sleepers Initiative (ARSI) did a survey. The ARSI is made up of people from the main agencies – the Auckland City

Mission, Community Mental Health, the Salvation Army, the Methodists, the Baptists, and the James Liston Hostel staff. One Sunday night in May volunteers combed a three-kilometre radius from St Matthew’s. They found 81 people sleeping rough.

With most rough sleepers trying to stay out of public view, they were difficult to find. The survey team reckon they found just over half of those anecdotal evidence would suggest actually live in the area. Of those they did find 80 percent were male, 58 percent were Maori or Polynesian, and 27 percent were Pakeha (European). There was an eight percent increase in the number of people found rough sleeping compared with the same survey last year.

Jim was a bit different from other rough sleepers. He was a successful businessman, with the houses and cars to prove it. His marriage though blew apart, and blew him onto the streets.

Jim took a conscious step away from respectable society. He walked out of door of others’ expectations and onto the city pavements. It was a calculated step of disengagement. He still had considerable assets but ignored them.

The staff at the Mission got to know him. He came, like others did, for food, clothes, medical support, and to use their message and mail system. But Jim also came for intelligent conversation.

(A smile flicks across Wilf ’s face, “Occasionally we’re capable of a little bit of intelligent conversation.”) Twelve months later Jim decided to leave.

He simply chose to walk back into respectability and pick up the remains of his former life. That’s a choice that not many rough sleepers have.

The last story Wilf tells me is of Stuart.

Stuart comes from an average working

class New Zealand family. He was a labourer when he came down with schizophrenia. His illness, the resulting strange behaviour, and his developing taste for dak (marijuana), culminated in him sleeping rough.

Stuart drops into the Mission. It is open Monday to Friday 8 – 9am and 6.30 – 9pm and Saturday, Sunday, and public holidays from 10am – 7pm.

Stuart likes playing cards; and he likes the outings the Mission sometimes arranges.

The Mental Health team assessed Stuart, and together with the Mission helped him acquire a small Housing NZ apartment. However, a number of fellow Streeties came round and began to terrorise the other residents. His tenancy became tenuous. Through significant intervention Stuart’s colleagues were persuaded to leave him be. Stuart himself was given assertiveness training.

So far it’s working.

Wilf pauses. “Getting a rough sleeper into an apartment is like resettling a refugee. It is a whole life and culture change. A Streetie will need significant support. It’s relatively easy to obtain a tenancy – the trick is to maintain that tenancy.” Housing NZ is helpful, yet there needs to be more housing designed and built to meet the needs of rough sleepers, for example single accommodation for older men who drink.

“Accommodation by itself, however,” says Wilf, “is a recipe for disaster. Any resettlement service must offer practical support, life skills training, vocational and social opportunities. These kinds of interventions offered on a 24-hour basis will go a long way to ensure a successful resettlement outcome.”

There was a funeral in St Matthew’s some time ago for a rough sleeper. His son and daughter-in-law attended, as did his former work mates and a large section of the rough-sleeping

community. These three groups hadn’t met each other before and didn’t have a lot in common.

The stories told were no different from what you would hear at other funerals, the words spoken no less generous or heartfelt. When one of his streetmates played a farewell tune on the harmonica, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It was an occasion that recognized the spirituality amongst the rough sleepers.

Beneath the shabby clothes of those who sleep rough there are men and women worthy of respect and dignity. n

All the names of rough sleepers in this article are pseudonyms.

Glynn Cardy is parish priest of St Matthew’s-in-the-City, Auckland

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Tui Motu InterIslands 23

creation

Hawk Express Errands of mercy are not confined to helping other humans. Wendy Ward describes doing a Good Samaritan act to a wounded harrier hawk

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or those who believe there is value in reflecting on and imitating the values expressed in the parables of Jesus, the parable of the Good Samaritan (Lk 10 v 30-37) is one of the most challenging. Who amongst us can imitate the Samaritan in overcoming powerful cultural and social prejudice and exercise a quality of mercy envied for centuries. Sometimes things happen that bring us close to the dilemma faced by the three men in Jesus’ story. Even in such a safe haven as New Zealand, there are countless calls upon our compassion.

In this instance, it was an injured wild bird that set in motion a series of coincidences fuelled by compassion.

I live in the King Country in the North Island. This is a mountainous wilderness and farming area. Not many people but lots of sheep, cattle, deer and wildlife both furred and feathered. Our property has flat paddocks rising up to a steep hill. The top of the hill is the haunt of the Australasian harrier hawk while magpies dominate the lower slopes.

There are spectacular aerial fights when a hawk flies over magpie territory. I enjoy watching the graceful soaring flight of the hawks. That was until a foundered ewe had her eyes pecked out on the uppermost ridge.

However, I discovered there was divided opinion about the possible culprit. Some locals declared it was a magpie because hawks eat carrion. Others with sheep clear hawks off their properties before lambing. As an SPCA inspector I get unusual requests. On Easter Saturday I was asked to accept delivery of a harrier hawk. She arrived wrapped in a

24 Tui Motu InterIslands

towel, after a forty-minute journey from Turangi, where she had been hit by a lorry. She was put into a hay-filled box, immobilised by a towel while we waited for the vet to check her injuries.

Meanwhile my husband remembered there was a bird sanctuary near Wanganui, about two hours’ drive away.

He was given advice on what to do if the vet’s prognosis was good.

Twenty minutes later the woman who runs the sanctuary phoned to say that a friend of hers was travelling south to Wanganui, passing through Taumarunui in about an hour’s time and would pick up the hawk.

We learned a few hours later that the hawk is a female in good condition.

There was a break high up on one wing and she was receiving pain relief and fluids. After Easter she would be taken to the veterinary department at Massey University for x-rays and treatment, free of charge.

This incident, full of happy coincidences, highlights the power of compassion to beget yet more compassion. My ambivalent attitude was tipped towards helping the wounded creature because others had cared before me. I wonder what effects the Samaritan’s actions would have had on his fellow Samaritans or Jews observing his merciful response.

We know nothing about the Samaritan except that he was merciful. Was it easy for him to stop or a struggle? Did he worry about the consequences of his actions? Would fellow Samaritans shun him or harm him for aiding the enemy. Whatever the answer, I suspect something unexpected happened to him.

In letting his heart go out to a foe, he, in turn, experienced a healing encounter with another human being. Perhaps this became a turning point in both their lives.

A broken creature on a lonely King Country road stirred the chain of events triggered by the first moment of compassion. But she was passed by several times, like the injured Jew, before compassion became action. I wonder whether the closed, uncaring hearts of the religious men who passed by an enemy still beat in the church today. I think of the rejection of those people whose sexual orientation does not fit the exclusive mould of fundamentalist Christians. The continuing ‘passing by of priests in the Roman Catholic Church’ of women has an unholy echo with the past. The droves of people who are leaving the church have found their Good Samaritan elsewhere.

There has been a global shift in attitude to the environment, which the church is catching onto. This change is about understanding the interconnectedness of all created matter and valuing every atom of it. Taking pity on a tree due for the forester’s axe or an injured hawk is as much a beautiful reflection of the loving-kindness of our God as helping another human being. We have been entrusted with carrying divine pity to all of creation.

The hawk, unaware, enriched the humanity of the people who encountered her one Easter Saturday. The prophet Amos, who had a rural background, might have bent down, cradling our hawk in his arms and proclaimed Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream (Amos 5:24).

Postscript

At the time of writing, the hawk has had an operation to repair a bad break on the upper wing. She will have another on the broken wishbone and spend winter at the sanctuary, If all goes well she will be released back in the King Country in the spring. n

women’s spirituality

Spirituality at Women’s Convention Trish McBride

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he call for workshops early this year ‘station’ was marked by a short biography for the Women’s Convention at on laminated card, a paua shell and a Queen’s Birthday weekend stirred Sisters sprig of rosemary.

Paula Brettkelly (Black Josephites) The final station at the open end of the and Marcellin Wilson (Mercy) to koru had, among a heap of pearls, a card offer ‘something spiritual’. They were headed “You”. It invited the women joined by Patricia Booth, a laywoman to reflect on their own value, gifts and interested in alternative expressions of contributions. spirituality, (pictured right) who had the same vision. They and a later addition The Cosmic Walk was available for the to the team pooled ideas, and developed first two days of the Convention as photo: Woolf Photography a theme of Nourishing te Wairua/Spirit. something women could do in their own This was based on Sr Miriam Magilles’ time. The formal workshop/‘conducted Cosmic Walk, adapted (with permission) for the women of tour’ of this history of the cosmos took place on the Sunday Aotearoa New Zealand. afternoon. The facilitators invited participants ‘to be aware The planning team thought this Cosmic Walk would be interesting for women, and would provide a quiet reflective space away from the intensity of listening to the many prominent women speaking about their perspectives on the roles and positions of women. But they were unprepared for the response from the women who came. There were deep experiences, and tears from many of the participants.

Before all that, there had apparently been some resistance from the organising committee of this secular feminist Women’s Convention. Sr Marcellin visited them with the outline of the proposal, and not only did she allay fears of a ‘too religious’ outreach, but also ensured that a sufficiently large space was allocated.

So in the Green Room of the Wellington Town Hall, they laid out a large koru/spiral with over 60 metres of tie-dyed fabric. The ‘station’ in the centre marked the beginning of all things ‘in the depths of not-yet-time’, about 15 billion years ago. Various other moments of cosmic and geological time were recognised. Then the historical record began with the coming of Maori women and men to our shores, and the honouring of a succession of about twenty New Zealand women who have contributed to our national feminine wairua/spirit. These were chosen from a cross section of cultures and backgrounds, some famous, others not. Each

of the mauri/life-force of the feminine in our creation story, the feminine spirit embodied in the women from our past, in you women present today, and in our hopes for the women of tomorrow’. All slowly walked the spiral. A deep meditative silence developed as they rested and reflected.

As they entered the room, each woman had been given a paua shell, a piece of rosemary and a blank piece of paper. Many sprinkled rosemary leaves at the stations as they went, which gave a wonderful scented dimension to the experience. They were then invited to honour and record women who were special to them – these could be set into the koru or put on a special board for responses.

In small groups they were invited to reflect on and share something of their own spirituality. This too was moving, as different belief systems were respectfully acknowledged as contributing to this shared time. For some this invitation was an unusual experience and all the more precious.

To conclude, Margaret Megwyn led the group in a dance and chant “Earth my body, water my blood, air my breath and fire my spirit’ which affirmed, embodied and gave voice to women’s connection with the earth and with the cosmos. n This Cosmic Walk workshop is available for use by groups around New Zealand. Contact Sister Marcellin Wilson: Marcellinrsm@xtra.co.nz

Tui Motu InterIslands 25

young people

Loving and grieving over our kids Paul Andrews, S.J.

Y

ears ago I was startled by the comment of St Alphonsus Liguori, an Italian who lived three hundred years ago. Towards the end of his life he remarked: I who for long years have heard the confessions of so many women of all walks of life, do not remember having found one who was happy with her lot.

Was that because the only women who went to confession were the unhappy ones? Or does it reflect a state of oppression of women, which has happily been remedied in many countries? We cannot check it out with Alphonsus, but it came back to me lately when I was visiting an old people’s home where most of the residents are women. So many of them poured out to me not merely sadness but above all a sense of guilt, that I was reminded of Alphonsus’ remark.

You’d have to admit that it is not easy to be happy in an old people’s residence.

You are no longer in your own home, or with your family, and mortality stares at you from every corner. But whereas the men there grumbled more about being cut off from the convivial relief of the pub (and drinking together was not allowed in the home I visited), the women’s misery came mostly from self-reproach.

This was true even of the widows and mothers. You might expect them to be comforted by the memory of past loves, and by the thought of their children. To quote one mother of six (the first of them died as an infant): I feel this awful sense of guilt that I am responsible for all my family’s failings, that I was not a good mother.

Forgive me: from inside a male skin I marvel at the capacity of mothers to give themselves, to risk the huge commitment not just of marriage but of rearing children and so giving hostages to fortune. You will never be the same

26 Tui Motu InterIslands

again. There is no such thing as complete success, either in marriage or in children.

There must be failures. Marriages will fail, not just in break-up, but in loss of communication, in wandering affections, in sexual boredom. Children will fail, because they are not machines – only machines are perfect.

Here as in our working life, success is what we do with our failures. But failures in marriage or mothering touch us so much deeper, because they involve the most deliberate and costly decisions of our life. Choosing a spouse, (or for me, choosing to join the Jesuits) is the biggest option we will ever have made.

Failure here is not like a business failure where you can pick up the pieces and move on. The pieces here are pieces of ourselves, our sense of identity.

Failure is different with children – when they grow up selfish, deceitful, violent, greedy or whatever. They reflect their parents’ influence, but they have their own identity. Once they are through the first few years of life, they answer for themselves. If they misbehave in class, teacher has to deal with the child, not his parents. If they neglect their homework, it is they, not their parents, who are responsible. After a period in which we have to do everything for them, we reach the stage where the best policy is to do nothing for them that they can do for themselves, whether that be housework, transport, making friends, homework, or offering a safety net when things go wrong.

The Scriptures do not offer much advice on family problems, but we can pick up clues. We know nothing about the later life of Jesus’ mother. But can we imagine Mary reproaching herself for what happened to her son, cut off in the prime of life? Or blaming herself in middle age for the horror of Jesus’ final days: If only Joseph had been around, it would not have happened. Why couldn’t I have stopped him talking

himself into danger like that? She stood by the cross and shared Jesus’ disgrace and sufferings, but we cannot imagine that she blamed herself for them.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, the father (the nearest approach Jesus makes to imagining God) allows his feckless son to make his mistakes and sow his wild oats. When the boy has brought shame and sorrow on the family and squandered his inheritance, the father enjoys him when he comes home, shushes all apologies or resolutions for the future, and simply expresses his own delight by throwing a party.

Here we have Jesus’ model of what it is to be a parent. He is not overprotective.

He allows his son the freedom to follow his own dream rather than his father’s, to take risks and to make mistakes. He is still there for the son who has made a fool of himself and brought shame on the family. He absorbs the jealousy and anger of the older son but does not yield to him. He shows what it is to be a man: there when he is needed; faithful to wife and children; able for lifelong commitment; nurturant, forgiving, patient, and aware that children can learn from their mistakes. He does not blame himself. When the boy is bursting with rehearsed self-reproaches (I have sinned against heaven. I am not worthy to be called your son…), the father has no time for them. Instead he blesses and heals.

Where parents are felt to be bristling with spoken or unspoken condemnations, children simply shy away from them; and still more from parents who blame themselves for their children’s failures. We hate to be made to feel a disappointment to those we love. And we hate them to feel guilty over happenings that were not their fault. But we warm to the parent who, without any illusions about what has happened, is still ready to fall on our necks and kill the fatted calf. n

scripture

The rich man and the needle’s eye Susan Smith In vv 16-22, Matthew’s Jesus instructs the rich young man on the dangers of wealth. Wealth can prevent him from loving his neighbour as himself. When the young man hears this, he turns away in sorrow. Jesus then teaches the Twelve about the difficulties the rich will experience as they seek entry into the Kingdom.

O

f late, the media has been telling us that the world’s most powerful states plan to alleviate the appalling poverty of poorer African nations through cancelling US$40 billion of debts. $40 billion seems an enormous sum, but when we read that rich countries spend $350 billion a year on subsidies to their farmers, it puts this so-called generosity in perspective. As the leaders of the G8 nations ponder on how to persuade people to up their contribution, I wonder if they have read Matt 19:16-26 where Jesus teaches us about the dangers of wealth.

There is nothing in either the Old or New testaments indicating that God wants people to be poor or destitute – in fact the opposite is true. Through the prophets and then through the Gospels, God denounces those whose selfish lifestyles directly contribute to the poverty and destitution of so many.

The disciples are astounded at this, and wonder who can be saved. Jesus replies that while it looks impossible for the wealthy to be saved, with God all things are possible. Today the impossible has happened, as an unlikely combination of ageing rock stars, activists, and some church leaders join forces to pressurise government leaders into action on behalf of the poorest nations.

They are right to do this. We surely live in a crazy world. Today the wealthiest three men in the world (two Americans and one Indian) earn more than the combined total income of 80 poor nations; 225 billionaires are worth $1 trillion, equal to the annual incomes of just under half (2.7 billion) of the global population. Overcoming such injustice seems almost impossible.

Even in New Zealand where we pride ourselves on our egalitarianism, there is ample evidence that the rich are getting richer, and the poor get poorer.

As the election approaches, politicians are urging us to think of ourselves, our needs, our wants, our futures.

They believe that to ask otherwise is tantamount to political suicide. Unlike the rich young man, our politicians probably never even consider what good deeds they must do to gain eternal life. Three years ahead is about as much as they can manage.

Even among those who overtly espouse a Christian agenda, the evangelical imperative to care for the poor is not as important as angry tirades about those whose sexual orientation marginalises them in our heterosexual society. And often enough we are happy to go along with the politicians. Maybe we all need to ask: “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” n Dr Susan Smith is a Mission sister who teaches Biblical Studies at the School of Theology, University of Auckland

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Tui Motu InterIslands 27

books

Taking a long look at the Treaty – and after Pakeha and the Treaty: why it’s our Treaty too Patrick Snedden Random House N.Z. 2005. 187 pp.

Price: $27.95 Review: Tom Cloher

T

his publication is invested with quiet passion, which contrasts somewhat with the national radio coverage when these ideas first surfaced in 2004. The initial impact of the foreshore and seabed debate plunged Pat Snedden into a round of engagements throughout the country.

Determined not “to indulge in private agitation while remaining publicly mute”, he became a victim of his own success. Taking the further step to write this book was generous because writing a book is not for the faint-hearted. It is an isolating and demanding exercise.

Snedden’s early years will resonate for many. Life in suburbia or small towns spelt periodic mischief in the neighbourhood and occasional trauma at school, but no large-scale problems on the horizon. This could be partially attributed to our experience of slight exposure to Maori students and a history curriculum that dealt poorly – if at all – with the story of colonisation and its consequences for Maori. The myth of racial harmony was official.

Awakening had to come.

Ironically, the first challenge to race relations was precipitated by the implications of the Springbok tour.

New Zealanders, to their credit, manifested their distaste for the rank discrimination in South Africa towards its indigenous people, and received international admiration for their stand.

It began to dawn on young Snedden and his associates that taking to the streets on behalf of another country was fine, but there were no signs of a campaign on behalf of Maori in New Zealand. Who would take to the streets for them?

In the first instance they did it themselves. The iconic picture of kuia

28 Tui Motu InterIslands

Whina Cooper and her grandchild setting off from the North on the Land March was a signal that Maori had truly had enough. It raised the national consciousness.

An even more dramatic stage was being set in Auckland, however, as the Muldoon government set out to deliver the deathblow to the Ngati Whatua whanau at Bastion Point.

Had that confiscation succeeded, the cemetery would have become their sole remaining possession. This was too much for Snedden and his wife Josephine. They joined in protest with the whanau, including leaders Joe and Rene Hawke. Ten were duly arrested, including Snedden. In court they decided to defend themselves, and Snedden was nominated spokesman.

He succeeded in having the charges dropped on a technicality for everyone but himself! He was convicted and fined $120, later paid by his employer.

With this kind of affiliation with – and commitment to – a better deal for Maori, it is no surprise that he was invited to be economic adviser for the Ngati Whatua o Orakei Trust Board in 1982, becoming later a participant in their Treaty negotiation team. Other opportunities to work for Maori in areas like housing and health reinforced his respect for what Maori could achieve for themselves given an appropriate framework.

Notwithstanding these special contacts with Maori he remains the quintessential Pakeha. He represents Pakeha reactions with recognisable accuracy. He notes that some Pakeha are increasingly uneasy that Maori seem to derive a special status from the treaty of Waitangi. He uses the following words to typify their reaction: “Yes, we have a Treaty, a founding document, true enough. But one that has no future. It is a document of a different time, and the world moves on.

“Today there are multiple ethnic groups: none should have precedence over any

other. We are, after all, a ‘one person one vote’ democracy”. This sounds like talk back radio, though perhaps more polite.

Central to Snedden’s analysis is the Treaty and the interrelationship of its three articles. Pakeha persist in regarding it as a Maori document, and they are partially correct. But if the Treaty does not belong to Pakeha as well, we are in serious trouble.

Article 1 provides one law for all; Article 3 confers citizenship for all who live in New Zealand and observe that law; Article 2 refers to the people of the land, who were welcoming the new arrivals by exercising their chiefly authority. At Treaty time they were the incumbents. They wanted order, trade, and new technology and they were willing to welcome as fellow citizens those who could promote these things. On this basis the Treaty assured newcomers of a home in this land if they were prepared to be law-abiding citizens.

It is the same today. So, the seeming threat of Maori traditional governance is in reality our entitlement to being New Zealanders. It is not outrageous to suggest we should be grateful that it is our Treaty too.

In many respects we have earned bicultural equilibrium. Setting up the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975 was a groundbreaking event (comparable to our stance on votes for women), and enhanced by reaffirmation in 1985 that conferred a mandate to investigate claims going back to 1840. The Tribunal provided a forum for Maori to have their history recognised, their experience recorded, some compensation given, and mana restored. It has undoubtedly encouraged the Maori renaissance of art, language, and performance.

But why is it taking so long? Snedden observes that the process is underresourced, and judgments being referred to the Office of Treaty

in memoriam Settlements occasion more delay.

Worse yet, the Tribunal also figures in the sea and foreshore saga that precipitated the writing of this book.

Its recommendation for dealing with that issue was ignored. A situation that called for statesmanship had to settle for political expedience. One particular positive had to be the number of Pakeha groups that made submissions on Maori behalf.

Working with Maori over two decades has convinced Snedden that the Maori perspective expressed in the traditional exercise of authority, as outlined in Article 2 of the Treaty, is essentially a communal and collaborative one, and that the Crown would do well to regard it as a companion, not a competitor.

More trust, letting Maori be Maori, would lead to more fruitful outcomes.

Snedden covers a wider canvas than this review has touched on. He has given us in an engaging way a discourse we need to have. While he never backs off the hard stuff, the text is laced with incident. He is never angry but always concerned. He deals with the sea and foreshore saga – the very thing that disconcerted him in the first place – with equanimity, predicting that the case will inevitably be won as time goes by. The Maori renaissance can only flourish further in his view, and Maori share of population and leadership will ultimately win the day.

In the meantime we have a book that has put on record very important aspects of our journey to bicultural maturity. It is accessible, engaging and encouraging. It deserves a wide readership. n

We will find those books for you Books mentioned in this paper, or any other books you can’t find, can be ordered from:

O C Books Use our email to order – or to receive our fortnightly

email newsletter Tollfree 0800 886 226 • Ph/Fax (03) 477 9919 99 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin email: shop@ocbooks.co.nz Visit our website: http://www.ocbooks.co.nz

Cardinal Jaime Sin

J

aime Cardinal Sin died on 21 June, aged 76. His familiar greeting to visitors: “Welcome to the House of Sin”, will be heard no more. No other Asian bishop in the past 50 years has had such an influence on the church and on the politics of this area of the world.

Born into a Chinese-Filipino family – 14th of 16 children – he was able to bridge the sometimes hostile gap between the two cultures. His rise in the church hierarchy was swift. Ordained in 1954 at the age of 26, he became the youngest cardinal in the church in 1976.

Concern about the politics of his country of 80 million people, the stronghold of Catholicism in Southeast Asia, was inevitable. Two dictators, Marcos and Estrada, were toppled as a result of Sin leading the people in rebellion against the injustices and corruption of their regimes. That there was no bloodshed in either revolution speaks volumes for the courage and diplomacy of the Cardinal in insisting that the people follow the teachings of Jesus and use peaceful means to bring about change.

In 1986 Marcos sent 250,000 troops with tanks to quell 300 rebels. Despite opposition by the Vatican, Sin used the radio to rally two million Manilans on to the streets. The troops and the tanks were stopped by people on their knees praying the rosary and singing hymns.

Not a single shot was fired, and Marcos fled to Hawaii to be hosted by President Reagan.

In 2001, Sin helped organise the movement that toppled the corrupt presidency of Joseph Estrada. His successor, current President Gloria Arroyo, said in a statement at the time of the Cardinal’s death: “Cardinal Sin leaves a legacy of freedom and justice forged in deep personal courage – a blessed man who never failed to unite Filipinos during the most crucial battles against tyranny and evil”.

Jaime Sin serves as a reminder that great church leaders possess strengths that serve the church well in their time and their culture. Dominican Kevin Toomey, who met the Cardinal on several occasions, remembers him as a great host with a fund of stories – a man of political savvy and spiritual power; a personal friend of John Paul II and, like that Pope, a consummate actor, thriving on being centre stage.

His theological leanings were too conserv­ ative for some Catholics and he was not the best of administrators. But he expanded the main seminary, put in place a successful programme for dealing with con­tem­porary problems facing many clergy, set up a lay formation centre and helped produce a policy that placed the local church squarely on the side of the poor.

In a statement during his final illness, he said, “I have given my very best to God and country. I beg pardon from those I might have led astray or hurt.

Please remember me kindly.” Millions of people will do just that.

May he rest in peace

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Tui Motu InterIslands 29

comment

The suicide bombers

L

ast month suicide bombers struck again, this time in the heart of London. They now seem planted firmly in the contemporary world of terrorism, against which all peoples seem powerless to combat, let alone understand. The enemy may be officially known as ‘terrorism’, but its real name is clearly becoming radical Islam.

In 2001, the destruction of the twin towers in New York by suicide bombers heralded the beginning of hostilities in the Middle East. This atrocity sanctioned the use of bombing raids, torture and, above all, the countless civilian deaths caused by the maelstrom of self-righteous retaliation against an unseen enemy. Suddenly, Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine were in the sights of the greatest war machine in history.

Are these suicide bombers acting from despair or is it revenge, on the part of Islam, for the brutal occupation of their lands?

The bombers are young and not what psychologists call suicidal types. They are not impulsive, depressed, or lonely.

They are not driven by economic difficulties. Their act is one of choice in response to unaddressed grievances.

They have become a category of soldier, which subordinates life to objectives which transcend life itself.

These are freedom from persecution and injustice, and freedom to choose a martyr’s reward.

The suicide bombings challenge two fundamental principles of Islam, the prohibition against suicide and the deliberate killing of non-combatants.

Nevertheless, suicide bombers are willing to die as an act of ultimate devotion in a ‘defensive’ holy war, one fought in defence of Islam. George W. Bush inadvertently called his war against terrorism a ‘crusade’. Were the crusades so different from the practice or the motivation of Islamic fundamentalists?

30 Tui Motu InterIslands

Crosscurrents John Honoré

Suicide bombers are mainly young Muslim males who the West desperately tries to associate with Islam in order to justify its own atrocities in the name of freedom and democracy.

The number of civilians killed in the Middle East in the war on terrorism is in tens of thousands. The Western powers do not bother with the details.

“We don’t do body counts”, states one American general. When we remember the deaths in London, let us remember the Muslims who are dying every day.

Perhaps the motive propelling these young men to their deaths is not so difficult to understand.

T

Anyone for cricket?

he election campaign in New Zealand and the cricketers’ propos­ ed tour of Zimbabwe seem to have blended seamlessly into one entity, proving once again that sports are impervious to moral considerations and are subject to the vagaries of politics.

The Government seeks to make political capital by strenuously voicing its concern. The Opposition is against the tour, but despite an overwhelming sense of outrage from the public, the political parties cannot reach a common accord to stop it.

Robert Mugabe’s abuse of human rights is appallingly evident but, according to NZ Cricket’s Martin Snedden, so is the financial loss to cricket. In his view, the loss of revenue and the breaking of contracts override any gesture of protest against the starvation and persecution of the host country’s people. Coach John Bracewell states that the cricketers are there only to do a job. Professional sport has assumed a monetary importance that supersedes all moral considerations. It has become a cult fostered by the media for the sole purpose of making a profit.

Snedden has stated that there are no penalties against individual players who choose not to go. However, one might suppose that if several players refused, they would be replaced by others. Would a second string player dare to step in?

At the time of writing this column, not one of the players named to tour Zimbabwe has chosen not to tour. Is sport of such importance that human suffering can be ignored? Does cricket divorce itself from human rights abuses?

Is a century at the crease worth all this injustice? Do they expect to come back to a heroes’ welcome?

The tour is a total embarrassment to all New Zealanders. Sports administrators seem unable to grasp the fact that politics are part and parcel of sports.

They benefit from Government hand­ outs, and the players are fêted and bedecked with honours. It is a form of idolatry that has no regard for morality.

The politicians have sought to enhance their reputations in the coming elections by condemning the tour, but they will not stop it. The campaign against the tour was started by Rod Donald in all good faith. Phil Goff refuses to legislate, but has banned a planned tour by Zimbabwe of New Zealand in December. Don Brash warns that the right to travel might be jeopardised if a prohibiting law were enacted. The minor parties express their disapproval, but add nothing to the possibility of stopping the tour.

Mugabe’s demented genocidal regime is set to continue its murderous campaign against innocent people. The politicians will continue to protest ineffectively. Professional sport is ruled by money and politics. This whole affair is reminiscent of T.S.Eliot’s world of Prufrock where morality is debased to mindless chatter:

In the room the women come and go, Talking of Michelangelo. n

Harkening to Bob Geldof

L

ast month the media covered in extensive fashion issues of great importance to anyone with even a spark of Christian faith and responsibility. Poverty in Africa was highlighted by Live8’s worldwide series of concerts. The leaders at the G8 summit made the issue of aid and debt relief for the peoples of that continent a main topic of consideration. Their other leading topic was global warming. This too is one that believers with their respect for the Lord’s work of creation place high on their own agendas.

The London bombings pushed to one side for some days media coverage of world poverty and climate change. But those outrages themselves raised issues about which believers must ask themselves questions. Not so much about terrorism itself.

That we would all readily condemn. But what of the factors that fuel terrorism? What of the imbalance between developed and under-developed nations, of the hostility often shown to migrants of a different skin colour, of the continued denial to the Palestinian people of a land that is their homeland?

I look back on the topics I have dealt with on this monthly page with a feeling of guilt. I doubt if I have ever written a word about such mammoth issues. So much of what I have shared with readers of Tui Motu has been about in-house, churchy issues.

Could we find better ways of administering the Lord’s Precious Blood in communion, may those in second marriages receive communion, could we ordain married men to the priesthood, could we ordain women to the priesthood. Anyone outside our church ranks would surely be amazed that we fight and worry over such matters while outside our own little world vast issues demand our attention and our commitment to the seeking of solutions. It seems as if the Bob Geldofs of the world are more in touch with reality than we church folk.

Readers such as the re-married and the many women who call for the ordination of members of their sex may understandably feel put off by what I have written above. Bear with me a little longer.

There is a personal pain about in-house church grievances that does not exist in such global issues as climate change and world poverty. Many after a disastrous first marriage have given themselves generously to a truly committed and flourishing second union. They are understandably pained at not being readily admitted to reception of the Eucharist. Women see it as injustice that the Church will not even discuss the possibility of the ordination of women, given that there is such minimal revelational evidence supporting the official position.

The growing priest shortage in New Zealand, a problem regarding which the hands of our bishops are tied by Roman intransigence, is threatening the continued existence of many local church communities. These and other in-house issues bring with them immediate personal pain and frustration that is not the case with global warming and the plight of the African poor. I will continue in this monthly page to reflect on issues within the church. To do this is my competence and my commitment.

But let us remain aware that there is more to Christian life and the struggle for justice than the solution of contentious issues within our own church community. There are world-spanning problems to the solution of which we are called to contribute.

Thank God, there are many who would not call themselves Christian already ranged on the side of justice and reform. We must see to it that as they battle on, they find us ranged actively at their side. n

Humphrey O’Leary

Fr Humphrey O’Leary is rector of the Redemptorist community in Glendowie, Auckland

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Tui Motu InterIslands 31

postscript

Success is what we do with our failures

T

his quote, from Paul Andrews’ August article (see p 26), could well describe many episodes in the life of Dame Cicely Saunders OM (19182005), the founder of the modern hospice movement. Dame Cicely died recently, aged 87. Her childhood was very unhappy because of the apparent inadequacy of her mother: yet she determined to spend her own life caring for very needy people.

After World War II she fell in love with a Polish survivor of the Warsaw ghetto.

She sustained him through the final months of his life, and together they conceived the idea of creating places where people could end their lives in comfort and peace. He left her £500, asking that “he should be a window in your home.”

His death inspired her to train as a nurse and then as a hospital almoner. In 1960 she lost her father and two close friends, and that determined her to study medicine and dedicate the rest of her life to the science of palliative care.

Hospices already existed before Cicely Saunders’ day. In the 1940s the Hospice for the Dying flourished in Dublin. She herself served her apprenticeship at the Catholic St Joseph’s Hospice in Hackney, London, where in the early ’60s she spent seven years researching pain control.

Her special gift was to combine good nursing care with carefully monitored pain control. She was also an intrepid campaigner for the Hospice movement, which spread eventually to 120 countries world-wide. She was not

always regarded favourably by the medical establishment. She utterly rejected the verdict, so often heard: “There is nothing more that we can do.”

Care of the terminally ill was for Dame Cicely a spiritual vocation. She believed that “as the body becomes weaker, so the spirit becomes stronger.”

Even after she retired from active direction of St Christopher’s Hospice, which she had founded, she regularly attended daily prayers in the hospice chapel. She believed that hospices should be welcoming places, where relatives could spend time – and where the patients, as well as being expertly nursed, could garden, talk, write and get their hair done.

She believed that dying was an important phase of life, even though finally she struggled with the idea of meeting death herself. She died peacefully, as a patient at St Christopher’s, on July 14.

M.H.

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32 Tui Motu InterIslands

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