Tai Tokerau - or?

It's the Tai Tokerau by-election this weekend so the name comes up quite a bit. In a few minutes of TV this morning I heard the Maori name of the region where I live seriously mis-pronounced on every occasion it was spoken by five different people.
I guess I don't want to join a protest march over it, and I realise we don't pronounce Paris the way the French do. And Tai Tokerau isn't in the list of 100 Maori words every Kiwi should know.
But we live in the land of Te Reo. Is it too much trouble for broadcasters and Parliamentarians to get to grips with the very simple rules of pronunciation of an important Maori noun in the context of a Maori election?
Language is part of what makes a people what they are. Language can be a way of respecting what other people are. That didn't happen this morning...

A day in the rain forest

A few days ago we rode the Rainforest Express through part of the Waitakere Ranges. Fenton was our guide, shoulder-length dreadlocks and all, and he and the driver gave us an amazing experience.

This 24 inch guage track was a remnant of 19th Century logging tramways and was re-established about 1923 to build the Upper Nihotupu dam for Auckland’s water supply. In 1998 it was rebuilt a second time to provide a small tourist trip into the ranges. There are ten tunnels, nine bridges and the very impressive Quinn’s viaduct. We saw cave wetas at arm’s length and a great display of glow-worms. At the 7km terminus we had a picnic under the shelter and climbed 160 steps up the face of the dam, returning back down the much easier footpath.

The Rainforest Express is a greatly under-rated half-day excursion, probably bested in this country only by the unique Driving Creek railway near Coromandel. We support the Bay of Islands Vintage rail because that, too, is a great visitor trip, imbued with history.

In these days when the great steam trains are no longer common, these tiny trains give us the opportunity of experiencing a different kind of mobility, different views of the environment, and more intimate relationships with our fellow travelers.

In a way they’re a kind of metaphor for the small church. It runs on a different scale, it has a different style, and its people develop close relationships in their common journey.

Charitable Churches?

When I saw Nick Smith’s piece in the Business Herald last Friday my immediate thought was to dash off my own answer to the question Should Churches be Charities? I’d have said, No they shouldn’t. Nor should they get relief from property rates and charges.

Then I read the rest of his intemperate, prejudiced and ill-informed article and I posted a reply saying he’d lost my sympathy for his cause. Perhaps I was a bit intemperate myself, as my post hasn’t appeared.

But Nick has put his finger on an issue: if only he had separated charitable works from worship. If churches are active in charitable works they might well earn tax and rates privileges from a grateful State for their contribution to society. The Charities Commission still thinks so. But, should these privileges extend also to the facilities for public worship for a very small minority of the community? As a general rule, I think not. I can’t see why the State should support the religious choices of individuals.

Of course, rebuilding Christchurch cathedral will command wide public support. It is a public facility and should again become a focus for tourism and local sentiment as well as a place of worship for a few dozen. But perhaps our little congregation in Paihia should one day have to learn to live without subsidies from the public purse...

Fantastic?

This morning’s Business News on Breakfast reported significant falls in share market indices all over the world. Economic collapses in various European countries were noted as factors in the sudden lack of confidence.

The report went on to talk of falling prices for commodities and ended with the words “even New Zealand is coming under attack”.

Ever-smiling Petra immediately responded from the anchor armchair: “Fantastic!”

Yeah, well, we probably know what she meant - but we heard what she said...

Earthquake Tax?

Thank you, Brian Easton, for spelling out so clearly that the government intends that the cost of the Christchurch rebuild be carried more by the “poor, weak and vulnerable” than the more fortunate. (NZ LISTENER May 14 2011)

I’m no economist, but even I can understand that paying for the Christchurch rebuild out of a specially raised tax would come hardest upon those who pay most tax. And paying for it out of the consolidated fund while at the same time reducing “Working for Families, benefit entitlements, support for students and the Kiwisaver subsidy will eventually reduce the incomes” of the most vulnerable in our communities.

Brian Easton says: “I leave it to you to decide whether that is a good thing.”

Thanks, Brian; I have decided and I am not happy with the Government's decision.

Meet Brian Easton

What price our carbon footprint?

This week we have had four trees taken down. One was a wildling that had gone mad on our fragile terrace, one was encroaching on our driveway and the other two had got far too big for the places they’d been planted. Two absolutely dominated the street as you drove down towards our place.

I had it done with a heavy heart. I had supposed that they absorbed enough C02 to compensate for some part of our human lifestyle. But I went to the internet to check on the facts. One calculator suggests that our home creates about 25 tonnes of C02 a year and that would need 120 trees. Taking out four didn’t make our situation a whole lot better.

But down the bank we have got another few dozen which we regard with a new respect.

All soft and furry…

We’ve been enjoying watching some of our 1997 trip video while transferring it to DVD.

Yesterday we recalled captivating sequence of a squirrel building a stash of winter food in Canada. He was bounding backwards and forwards about eight metres from a small source of good stuff to a hole in the ground. He seemed to carry just one item at a time and carefully nibbled at each one to check it was OK. He then spread leaves over the cache and tamped them down. It was irresistible viewing for Kiwis who never see a squirrel at home, especially as the action was just outside Doug’s window.

The same day I opened our compost bin and right on top was another soft, furry creature about the same size but lacking the bold bushy tail. Bright eyes. Twitchy nose, I think, but I hardly noticed I slammed the lid down again so quickly.

I’ve heard squirrels described as vermin in their home countries but they seemed really cute to us. Perhaps someone can see beauty in the large swamp rat that has taken up residence in our compost bin. But we will set a trap…

Singing a new song? Oh, dear, no...

I’m taking a service tomorrow and we are going to read a hymn. The words are just right but the tune will be completely unknown and too difficult even for the music readers among us. The sense of the words will be lost in the struggle with the music.

It's a shame. Hymns are to be sung. Singing is one of the distinctive things about worship. If I made the decision to read this one tomorrow with a heavy heart, my frustration has been somewhat lifted by the memory of a service I attended in a sister church in Australia recently. There was not one thing I could sing in the entire 75 minutes. Everything was quite foreign to me.

I remember our Principal at Trinity College, in reflecting on the possibility that heaven and hell are what you make them yourself, once told us whimsically, “An angel would take something of heaven if she were sent to hell. And the worst reprobate would hate being transferred to heaven – he wouldn’t know the tunes!”

I think I can sympathise. I hope our worship tomorrow will match up some vigorous and tuneful singing with some thoughtful and inspiring words. We may not be quite good enough for heaven – or bad enough for hell, perhaps – but we will try to uplift each other in our singing.

Head and Hands in the LSM congregation

Recent tensions in our small parish have highlighted for me the issue of the relationship between the Parish Council and the Local Shared Ministry Team. I've always argued for separation. It has seemed to me that the Council (the head) discusses policy and makes a decision; the Team (the hands) take the lead in carrying it out. Of course, one or two team members might be on the Council but, generally, the roles of the two bodies are separate and distinct. It's a good distinction. Our own difficulties were made worse some time ago when one Team passed a "resolution" opposing a management decision that was being made. They were seen by some to be intruding on others’ business. However, when the parish membership is very small, it is simply not practicable to have two or three separate bodies making decisions around the same mission and ministry. Perhaps the very small congregation could have a Calling for a team which would also exercise the powers of the Council. I wonder if this has been tried and found effective anywhere else in the LSM setting?

Misdirected enthusiasm

In Orewa recently we saw at least a thousand godwits flying south along the beach, presumably to assemble at Miranda prior to their autumn migration to the northern hemisphere. I am always filled with wonder that they know how to do it.
In the Australian National Botanic Garden last week I encountered some other birds who knew what they had to do and were diligently doing it. There was a galah industriously hollowing out a nest site in a tree; a red-browed firetail finch carrying a feather as big as himself; and an immature male bower bird dancing among blue bottle tops and little bunches of twigs in the makings of a bower.
They were all quite magical encounters. All three birdswere doing what their instincts told them to do for courtship and mating, nesting and raising young. But they were all doing it at the wrong time. Somehow, their internal clocks told them that after long heavy rains, the bright sunshine must mean it was that time of the year when all thoughts turn to love. However, Spring is months away and there will be a hard Canberra winter to endure before it comes.
It’s just as well that the godwits have a more reliable sense of the day when they must head out on their long ocean migration. I suppose the lesson for me is that, for some things, there is a season that is right. It is important for me to be living in that moment and not in some other time, no matter how much I am enjoying what I’m doing.