Nine months is a long time to wait, but thousands of years is longer. Week two of this year’s Advent in Art cycle places the Christmas story in context of a much larger narrative of hope and a longing for justice. As we meet them in today’s painting, Mary and Elizabeth, like all mothers around the […]
When my baby started moving around and exploring, I heard myself saying ‘Be careful!’ an awful lot. My husband and I are pretty relaxed about SBJ taking risks and maybe getting a bit bumped. We don’t make a fuss if he falls over (when he falls over) and mostly neither does he. Our standard has […]
Ano te pai It is a good and beautiful thing O tenei huihuinga this gathering o nga teina me nga tuakana of those who are like younger siblings and those who are like older siblings I runga i te aroha pumau under the covering of love everlasting SBJ and I have just got back from […]
In A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor gives the news each week from the township of Lake Wobegon, where ‘all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.’ It’s not just Lake Wobegon. Some friends of ours observed the amusing number of parents around them who considered […]
Home, home, home. On returning to New Zealand, the hospitality we received from friends and former-acquaintances-now-friends made us quite reflective. Hospitality as a spiritual practice is something that has been on my mind for a few years, and at the forefront of my church leadership. This is the last of a three-part series on some […]
I donât think I was a perfectionist at kindergarten, but certainly by my first year or two of primary school I had begun the fear-based behaviours associated with the word. I was afraid of trying new things in case I couldnât do them. I never learnt to play elastics or skipping or handstands at lunchtime, […]
This is the fifth post in a series reflecting on my experience of postnatal depression. Feel free to head also to How It Is #1, How It Is #2, How It Is #3: What to Say and How It Is #4: On A Bad Day, and feel free to pass any of them around, if theyâre helpful, using the share […]
My Mum is my hero in lots of areas. As well as playing hockey for New Zealand and being one of the best teachers I’ve ever known, she’s extremely, consistently gracious. She’s my top role model when it comes to giving people âthe benefit of the doubt,â choosing to think the best of people rather […]
So the story goes like this. The new, radical bishop in a South American city is due to preach his first sermon in the cathedral. At the signal, he rises, robed in splendour, and solemnly ascends the staircase to the lectern. He fixes the congregation in his eye. In silence he gathers everyone’s attention into […]
My congregation got smaller last year. I began 2011 working fulltime as the pastor of West Baptist Church in New Plymouth, a place of shelter, faith and laughter, where I was responsible for a lovely, diverse community of people aiming to make a difference in a challenging part of town. It was my job to […]