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For most of this week I spent my nights in one of those  travel hotels in the industrial park near Auckland airport and my days on Te Manukanuka o Hoturoa Marae. The days were better. Of course this was in part becaue of the contrast in venues. On the one hand there was soulless straight edged built to a budget mediocrity and on the other the fluid graceful power of carvings, the delicate flowing of paint  and the striking, deceptively simple geometric counterpoints of woven flax, together  hinting the whakapapa of every tribe in New Zealand. As soon as I walked onto the marae, I was struck by the rich ruby red of the house, deeper, more bloody than the more customary ochre and particularly powerful when backed by a flannel gray Auckland winter sky. I didn't bring a camera, darn it, but  managed  a few shots with my iPhone. As we sat during the day I could fill in the (I hasten to assure you very rare) dull bits in the proceedings by admiring the extraordinary ...

I missed the last session of Tuesday's program. An old friend had an issue to discuss and, seeing as I was in the neighborhood, I spent late Tuesday afternoon sitting in a bar drinking Speights and talking about life, the universe and everything instead of in the Kinder library discussing Augustine, life, the universe and everything. I would have got away with my wagging except that when I arrived back in school on Wednesday morning I discovered I had been appointed, in my absence, to a panel and my place was there, third to the left and we start in 5 minutes. It was OK. The panel was comprised of people representative of various ministries, lay and ordained, who all spoke eloquently and powerfully about issues of power in the church. People spoke from contexts in which the power of the church to speak the Gospel was severely restricted, in the places where they lived, by governmental and social pressure. Some were students preparing for a future of full time service to the ch...

The flight from Dunedin left early so I was up at 5 and driving to the airport in the dark and wet. Wellington was cloudy and Auckland, when I arrived slightly misty and, by Dunedin standards, warm, but that doesn't seem to stop the wimpy locals banging on about how chilly it is. I picked up my bargain basement rental car- an aging Nissan Sunny with the performance and handling of a slug negotiating a plate of porridge- and navigated my way across the city with surprisingly little bother. With an hour to kill before the powhiriri I found a cafe near the Orakei basin and bought a large and good and inexpensive latte. I sat and looked out at the streets around which, 35 years ago, I had jogged with a pair of adidas on my feet and a pained but determined expression on my face. This was a neighbourhood near which I had lived during that period in my life when I had first been truly happy, and now it was at once familiar to me and as foreign as Honolulu or Beirut. Through long reme...

I went to St. John's College in 1977, a few weeks after Clemency and I married. The college gave us an allowance, a minuscule flat in Abraham Place, and I settled in to study for an Otago BD . The other students mostly pursued an LTh , so I did my degree alone, with participation in the occasional lecture which happened to fit the Otago syllabus. I attended the communal worship and meals. I acted in the plays and played on the sports teams, drank the coffee, did my share of tidying the grounds and played a daily (at least) game of snooker. For the first time in my life I was happy. I learned the value of learning for it's own sake and I met some inspirational teachers and leaders. I made friends and have continued those friendships for the the 30 something years since. St. John's College was one of the high points of my life and consequently it is a place very dear to me. But I'm a part of this church and receive the same scuttlebutt as everyone else. I know that th...