Te Māra Blog

This weeks update comes from the deep south (I can hear the music of banjos drifting in through my window as I write).  Yes, from Otepoti (Dunedin for all you non-Maori-place-names-of-places-knowing-peoples)!

Well actually I’m writing this in Auckland - but its about being in Dunedin! And I’m not too sure where the banjo music is coming from.

From the 20-23 August, Rawinia Gray (Manu Kōkiri, Waipounamu) and I were in Dunedin meeting with the locals and enjoying some beautiful weather.  Tapu Laulu (Manu Kokiri, Tai Tokerau) was also there to lend a helping hand with Waipounamu’s new Manu Kokiri.

Arriving there on Thursday evening, Tapu and I were introduced to a Coptic Orthodox Taxi Driver and consequently I’m now quite knowledgable about the Coptic Orthodox church in NZ, their process for ordination, practice in receiving Communion and Baptism, their sung eucharistic liturgy and structure across Aotearoa (They’re actually part of the Coptic Orthodox Diocese of Melbourne).

Tapu getting tips for blowing the bagpipe in Dunedin.

On the Friday we took a little tour of the Octagon and St Paul’s Cathedral before meeting up with Aymee Brown, one of our Manu Karakia in the deep south. Aymee is 17 and an impressive young woman.  She’s big into drama (she and her brother, Vladimir, who’s an acolyte, often perform skitz for the church whanau), is studying german and her favourite place to hang out is the library.

Yes. She’s Maori.

On Saturday morning we joined the local whanau for a regional meeting of minita.  This was run by Reverend Maureen Martin, someone who was at St John’s Theological College with me.  It was awesome to catch up with her along with several of the other faithful whanau who pour huge amounts of aroha and energy into a challenging ministry there in Otepoti.  Added on to all of this Rawinia was able to give a presentation on her mahi as Manu Kokiri and the work of Te Mara.

In the afternoon, Tapu and I took a quick detour before catching our flight home.

Benjamin & Whanau at St John's Highgate

On Saturday, Benjamin Brock-Smith was installed as the educator for under-40s in the diocese of Dunedin.  Ben was previously Diocesan Youth Facilitator in Auckland and is the Chair of the Three Tikanga Youth Synod Standing Committee (again, that name).

The service was nice, held at St John’s Highgate.  It was good to tautoko a friend and colleague into this role and it was also good to catch up with Rt Rev. George Connor, Bishop of Dunedin. There was a decent turnout of people from across the diocese to tautoko Benjamin and we wish him well in his mahi.

On Friday morning Sharlene and I attended the official re-opening of the John Kinder Library (to which our Haahi has added the sub-title “Te Puna Atuatanga”).  Archbishops Moxon and Turei led it along with Bishop Winston Halapua standing in for Archbishop Jabez Bryce.

The renovated top floor (ground floor or whatever it is - the main floor) is really nice.  The place is brighter and much more welcoming, staying true to the original plans of the 1970s design while updating it for the new millenium.

Sadly, it was during this ceremony that the news came through that a priest of our Haahi had died in the night: Reverend Canon Eru Potaka Dewes.

On the Saturday, Ngira, Tapu and I (having just finished an overnight meeting of the Tikanga Youth Synod Standing Committee - gotta get a better name) made our way to Rotorua where Canon Eru was laying at Mataikotare marae. The next day we followed the tupapaku to Rauru Marae, just out of Ruatoria and remained with Eru until he was laid to rest on Monday.

Some of the stories that were shared about Eru were seriously hatakehi yet everyone agreed that while he could certainly come up with some crazy ideas and korero, he was a very deep thinker with a very deep faith.  Eru was ordained by Bishop Manuhuia Bennet in the ’70s and has greatly contributed to and been involved in many aspects of the life of our Haahi and our people throughout his own life.

So it was a little disappointing to see such a small turnout by the Haahi to honour a senior priest of some 40 years in Holy Orders. No-one from Te Manawa o te Wheke (where Eru was a priest and teacher at Taapapa) was there to take Eru home and return him to his people (excepting Ngira, of course). And only one priest, from Whangaparaoa - which sits on the border with te Tairawhiti - came to the nehu.

While it was good to see some of his colleagues from Taapapa make the trip from Taitokerau and Upoko o te Ika, it would have been good to see more of them.

Ngira, Tapu and I led and organised the karakia from the Saturday morning until the Nehu on Monday with a couple of good relfections from Ngira who spent some time over the last couple of years with Eru. If we hadn’t been there, however, there would have been a couple times, at important junctures, where there would have been no karakia at all

Including when we arrived on Sunday morning as the whanau were putting the lid on Eru’s coffin ready to load up the van and leave without any karakia. While that’s hardly the end of the world - it didn’t seem to fit with such a journey for one our our priests who prayed over everything he did and daily for every one of his mokopuna and children. Yet there had been no-one there to even ask if the whanau wanted a karakia.

Regardless, our final karakia was good - Bishops Brown and Ngarahu arrived that morning to take part and Venerable Hone Kaa gave an awesome™ kauhau on the Marae atea of Rauru celebrating the life of a servant of Christ, his church and his people and his eccentric example of faith and service.

Ka kite anō, Matua

Kia ora ano whanau!

This week (3-8 August) the International Anglican Liturgical Consultation (IALC) met in Aotearoa/NZ.  In 1983 Anglicans attending a hui of Societas Liturgicas (an international body of liturgical scholars which meets every two years) in Vienna met together as a caucus. Through their korero they decided to meet regularly and have become the IALC (I think the Anglicans now meet on their own before every hui of the Societas, which was in Sydney the week after the IALC hui here).

By request of our Bishop, we were asked to tautoko the powhiri on Monday evening and lead morning and evening karakia on Wednesday and Thursday.

The members of the IALC were an interesting bunch gathered from across Anglican Communion with a number of ecumenical guests to boot.

Rt Rev. Waiohau Rui Te Haara (former Bishop of Te Taitokerau) welcoming the IALC at Tatai Hono, Auckland.

The powhiri at Tatai Hono/Holy Sepulchre was good, with a number of our own bishops and local church whanau in attendance.  Tapu and I led the karakia with members of the Maori Anglican Club acting as our choir/roopu kapa haka. This even made it into the news: click here for more.

Our turns at morning and evening worship were also good - incorporating a lot of reo and our own takes on the Lord’s prayer, the creed and the psalm.

Needless to say we were a little nervous about leading karakia in front of 50 odd experts in liturgy (and its fascinating to watch those experts, everyone from high to low, react and respond in different ways at different points in the karakia).

Preparing booklets for Karakia in an environmentally concious manner. What? These books could be recycled.

However, the delegates were very gracious and encouraging and many were happy for the experience and opportunity to worship God in our language and with our style of chanting the creed and the like.

A particular highlight was Karis Knight (mokopuna to the late Mere Knight) doing a flute solo in the call to worship and as a song of praise in one of our evening karakia. We also called upon the time and energy of some of our young leaders: Donna Muru, Zion Reihana, Chris Huriwai and one of our kuia, Myra Rawiri.

Big ups to Ngira as well who provided the music for our himene and waiata and to Tapu for helping to organise and lead throughout.

Young Adult Festival Logo - an interpretation of the General Convention Logo and theme, Ubuntu

D025 - the resolution I spoke about in earlier entries passed in the house of Bishops of the General Convention today.  They’ve made a minor change, so it will go back to the house of deputies, but everyone’s saying that it’s a done deal.

I didn’t think it really said a lot but apparently it might be the straw that breaks the last unshattered vertebra in the camel’s back that is the Anglican Communion.  Effectively, although its couched in nice language, it reverses B033 passed in 2006 which placed a moratorium on ordaining openly gay and lesbian people to the episcopate.

D025 now says that they can - or rather says that anyone called by God who makes it through the discernment process here in the U.S. episcopal church can be ordained.

Apparently the Most Reverend Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, is dissapointed the U.S. church are rocking an already sinking boat.  And I’m interested too what conservative groups still with the Episcopal church will do now.

It’s interesting to note that some of the more vocal right leaning people who would normally be at General Convention have left the church - so their voices were absent from the passage of the above resolution which went through both houses by a healthy 2-1 margin.

One workshop very nearly made me pentecostal! Not fat though, sadly that was already the case.

Well, tomorrow I climb aboard a United Airlines flight to Sydney (yep. I’m coming home via Sydney - it only adds another 5 hours flying time) and have had some awesome™ experiences here in Anaheim at the Episcopal Church’s General Convention.

Highlights include just the immense size of the General Convention - about 1100 delegates all up! The Exhibit hall was also awesome™ with a couple hundred stalls and some sexy clerical wear and vestments (but as even stoles were gonna set me back a couple hundred US, I very reluctantly had to pass).

It’s also been cool to meet some interesting and committed people.  Like Douglas Hexel an army cadet studying constitutional law at Westpoint who wore his millitary uniform to our closing dinner tonight, or Garret a.k.a. G-Quinn, a Christian Rapper from Southeast Florida, or the girl from Vegas who has tourettes (making for some of the more interesting complines I’ve ever experienced).

Compline. Much more interesting when someone has tourettes.

I’ve made some good contacts not only with people who would want to host people from NZ, but would like to pay for it too - and I’ve gotten plenty of info to mull over in terms of what ideas/understandings/practices I’ve witnessed here that might be translatable to Aotearoa.

Even if it is to say confidently that some of the best the rest of the church has to offer won’t really work for our context.

Ma te wā, & ka mau te wehi!

Drummers leading in the procession at Sunday Eucharist

Today I attended the main convention eucharist.  The hall in which they hold eucharists at convention is cavernous.  You could fit ten rugby fields in there and still have room for a clubrooms and parking.

The singing was done by a gospel choir who were awesome™ and a group of hansori drummers and dancers with banners and flags led in a huge procession.

Throughout the service two people took turns up front translating everything into sign language, and where I was sitting I could hear the constant background chatter of someone translating everything into Spanish for deputies from Puerto Rico, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic.

The Presiding Bishop gave a good kauhau on the sending out the 70 in twos (Luke 10) asking if, at convention, they make an idol out of structure and order and supposedly being prepared down to every last detail and arrangement for their comfort.

Most Reverend Schori giving the blessing

She also con-celebrated the eucharist with the past two Presiding Bishops, Frank Griswold and Edmond Browning.

An awesome™ way to kick off Sunday but I didn’t know that from such a high point my day was about to descend into horror. Indeed, from the very heights of heaven into hell’s darkest depths.

As I write even now, just the memory makes me shiver.

The Greeks called it Hades, the Hebrews, Sheol, Maori, Te Po. Jesus descended there.

Here it is simply called Disneyland.

Beezlebub inspecting his domain

Hell on earth - Disneyland - is huge. Just when I thought I had seen most of the tortures it had to offer, there were even more depths to its torment.  And that’s only Disneyland Park.  There’s also Disneyland adventure park right next door and you can get assortments of passes to two hells!

Many other poor souls wandered through the horrors of Disneyland with me, burning in the intense heat. Qeueing in mile long lines for rides that never go anywhere, but tease you with thoughts of freedom before bringing you back to where you started. Sipping on frozen lemonades with raspberry shots. Paying exorbitant amounts for toys and clothes with Beezlebub’s own silhouette plastered to its side.

Yes, the overlord of Disneyland.  To the Egyptians, Anubis, to the Welsh, Gwynn, to the Hebrews, Samael and Satan, to Harry Potter fans, Voldemort - I speak of none other than Mickey Mouse.

It's inhuman to smile so much = dancers in the street parades aren't human.

Every section of Mickey’s domain is themed - the Wild West, Space, Fairytales - with staff with sacharrine smiles directing your every move and fleecing you for every cent.

And throughout the interminable day the cast of High School Musical and every character from every Disney movie ever parade down the streets.  They, of course, are Satans minions.  Who else could dance and sing their way from one end of hell to the other in full costume in 30 degree heat. Smiling the whole time!

I’m happy to have gotten out of there with my life and what is likely to be a recurring nightmare that will haunt my sleep for a few months…if I’m lucky.

Pray for me.

Legislative Committee on World Mission. L-R: Rt Rev. Geralyn Wolf, Bishop's Chair; Gay Jennings, Deputies Chair; and, Deputy Randy Dales, Chair of the sub-committee who came up with D025.

Today I returned bright and early to the committee on World Mission which is responsible for looking at what to do with B033 (the moratorium placed on ordaining gay and lesbians to be Bishops).

These “legislative” committees meet from 7:30-9:00 every morning before going into full legislative sessions (where all 800+ deputies and 100-200 bishops meet together - that is, deputies in one place, bishops in another).

A sub-committee of a sub-committee of the main committee stayed up all night and had polished a draft of D025 which they felt could be this General Convention’s response to B033 from last General Convention in 2006.

Essentially it says the Episcopal Church don’t all agree but that God’s going to call who God’s going to call and it goes a little way to affirming faithful gay and lesbian episcopalians here in the U.S.

The committee debated the clauses, debated words, debated Richard Hookers original formulary (”scripture, tradition, reason” or “scripture, reason, tradition”?), debated semi-colons, and made ammendments.

The committees, made up of deputies and Bishops, vote by house. The deputies passed the resolution about 20 to 2 (that is, they’ll take it to the floor of the house of deputies to debate).  The Bishops said no, 3 to 2.

So what that all means is that D025 will go to the house of deputies.  If they pass it it will go to the house of Bishops - but the Bishops of the Committee wil put it to the house with the recommendation that it be defeated.

Unless of course it is passed with ammendments in the house of deputies, which means the Bishops of the committee meet again to discuss the ammended resolution and decide what they think about the ammended resolution and whether they will recommend it be passed or defeated.

Easy to follow, eh?

Today I had lunch with Keane Akao - who knows eeeeveryone in the episcopal church - and Dr. Jenny P. Te Paa, the boss of our Tikanga Maori college at St John’s in Auckland.

Jenny is here as a guest of Bonnie Anderson, the President of the House of Deputies. See , they’re just like the U.S. government. Bonnie even brought her family to the main stage of the house of deputies to introduce them to the house. A real presidential moment.

By contrast, the house of Bishops, which doesn’t have about 900 views to deal with, seems much more relaxed (the turnover of delegates would be a lot less too).  That’s where I was for the afternoon and I was lucky enough to catch an address from the “official youth presence” here at General Convention.

The official youth presence are young delegates to the house of deputies.  They get to sit with the other deputies and have speaking rights but aren’t allowed to vote. I think maybe that they’re allowed one from every diocese - but there’s only about 18 of them here out of something like 100+ dioceses.

House of Bishops

Two of them spoke to the house of Bishops and had really well crafted speeches.  I don’t know if it was the kind of stuff that makes Bishops make youth/young adult ministry a clear priority in their diocese - but even if you really inspire a couple then that must be good.  They got a standing ovation at the end though - but the americans seem to do that for anything.

An early start this morning, grabbing a quick breakfast and then hopping on the shuttle to the convention centre.

Over breakfast I spoke with one of the participants at the Young Adult Festival (YAF) who was a youth steward at Lambeth last year.  She asked me if I knew a priest who served alongside her as a youth steward from NZ.  I’m still racking my brain over that one…

House of Deputies

The Anaheim Convention centre is massive. It’s three levels of just immense meeting space.  This morning a bunch of us sat in on the first legislative session of the day for the house of deputies.  It’s ultra formal and run very tightly.  There’s a two minute timer for speakers and when time’s up the mike cuts off.

There’s something like between 800-900 delegates in the houses of deputies, and I’m not sure yet how many Bishops, although I expect there are somewhat less.  Although, all retired Bishops are also allowed to attend General Convention with full rights (except when electing a new Presiding Bishop, I think).

This morning the house of deputies moved into “Committee of the Whole” (which apparently is rarely if ever done) so people could speak about the of BO33 which they passed at the last General Convention in 2006 to put a halt to them advancing the blessing of same sex unions or electing an openly gay Bishop.  In committee no resolutions etc are passed or debated.

Even more weird was that the speakers were chosen by lottery - being drawn from the larger pool of people who registered to speak.  There were a range of views expressed.  The impression I got was that their church is really wrestling with this issue, not just going about it haphazardly or with any ill-intent let alone being stupid about it.

Isaiah Brokenleg at a YAF workshop - he's an epidemiologist studying the causes of illness in Native American Populations

In the afternoon I attended two workshops, one on Community expressions looking at how different cultures express their faith and worship, and the other on Vocare.  Vocare are two day retreats they run around the U.S. and abroad focussing on discernment and calling. There were bits and pieces I liked about both, but its still a real task to wade through the “Americantanga” .

The community expression workshop was cool if just for the South African guy doing most of the leading.  Using some traditional Afrcian instruments he lead us through some native music.  He’s a priest now in LA although apparently he used to model for Levi and Hugo Boss.  So did we all.

Tonight I sat in on the sub-committee looking at a possible resolution to affirm, repeal or move beyond BO33 discussed above.  A lot of talking, a lot of it good even, but no resolution.  A smaller group is working through the night on it so they can hopefully get something in before General Convention ends.

Bishop Bob of Hawaii, Rev, Bill Allport, and Keane Akao also say hello as well to the team that went to Hawaii in October last year.  Keane will be in Aotearoa at the end of October this year and apparently we’ll be doing a video link-up from our Rūnanganui to the Diocesan Convention in Hawaii which meets at the same time in October/November of this year.

Far too much happening here to take in all in one day.  I don’t think awesome™ quite captures it.  Just damned big.

Anaheim Convention Centre

Registrations didn’t begin until 1pm today, which got me my pass to the Young Adult Festival (YAF) and to the General Convention. The YAF programme runs full days beginning tomorrow.

After breakfast, participants are given time to get involved in the General Convention which runs pretty much like the U.S. government.

There’s special committee/commission hearings at which anyone can talk (that is a couple of minutes at the microphone), as long as they register beforehand, there’s the legislative sessions (a bit like General Synod looking at its canons and passing resolutions etc).  Just like U.S. Congress and the U.S. Senate the whole thing is organised in two houses, the house of deputies (lay and clergy) and the house of Bishops which each meet in separate spaces.  Legislation has to get a majority in the same language in both houses to pass. The house of deputies can pass something, but then the Bishops can defeat it or even send it back to be discussed some more.

There’s also a massive exhibit hall, events, seminars, concerts, galas and lunches and dinners and a thousand other things going on across several hotels and the convention centre.

The daily eucharist happens at 11:30am then the YAF provides a selection of workshops in the afternoons focussing on topics ranging from “Money, Economics and Ecology”, and ” Body Politik: The Relationships between Gender, Faith and Action” through to stewardship, calling and liturgy.

Dinner is happening in various places over the course of the hui. But by 8pm Mary Getz gives us a debrief back at our hotel of whats happening in the hui and what’s coming up.  Mary heads the Episcopal Church’s lobbying organisation (forget the name) in Washington DC where she pushes the views of the Episcopal Church to influence legislation and decision-making.

Compline closes out the night after 9pm.

Passing the peace at during compline at YAF

Tonight we had our opening reception and I got to meet a bunch of intense and dynamic young people from across the U.S. What I noted most was that the majority of them are either finishing or have just finished a graduate or post-graduate degree. There’s also three participants here from Scotland, one of them being Sarah Tomlinson who’s a youth rep with me on the ACC.

I think Isaiah Brokenleg is the only native person attending the YAF. He’s an epidemiologist from South Dakota, but living in Minneapolis.

Apparently an epidemiologist researches and studies the causes of diseases etc which Isaiah does with Native Americans.  He knows Bardia Matiu and Ven Hone Kaa too from a hui in Jamestown, USA, a couple of years ago.

Met up with my room mate who’s a black dude from New Jersey who slept through the opening reception and is trying to see if he can get tickets to the New York Yankees vs Anaheim Angels series happening just down the road. He can’t believe that I come from a world in which we don’t care about baseball and I”m trying to convince him that rugby is the name of an actual sport.

Still a bit confused by the time-difference here (something like 17 hours behind NZ) but adjusting.  Hopefully I can really soak up all the experiences tomorrow.

Logo of the 76th General Convention, the theme being Ubuntu, not to be confused with that joke.

Today I arrived in Anaheim/Orange, California where I will participate in the Young Adult Festival (YAF) and General Convention (GC) of The Episcopal Church (USA).  I’m here from today 8 July (even though its 9 July back in Aotearoa) until the 14th.

I was invited by the Young Adults and Campus Ministries Co-ordinator for the Episcopal Church, Rev. Douglas Fenton who organises the YAF - and they’re paying for everything so reluctantly I agreed.

You can learn more about the GC and YAF at http://episcopalcommons.org/yaf/ and catch up on everything happening at GC at http://gchub.episcopalchurch.org/ which even has live streaming.

The hui is taking place across several hotels in Anaheim and the Anaheim Convention Centre (Anaheim being best known as the home of Disneyland).  The Crystal Cathedral is even just down the road.

There were stickers reading “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You” on all the shuttlles of the shuttle company I used to get to Anaheim. There was a big banner at the Convention Centre too reading the same. There was also a bunch of protestors underneath the banner with placards reading “Why does the Episcopal Church Hate God”.  Should be an interesting hui and will provide the next big installment in the ongoing saga of the crisis/schism over Human Sexuality / authority and interpretation of scripture / etc in our worldwide haahi.

The TEC General Convention is the largest convention in the United States after the Democratic Convention with tens of thousands of people attending and taking part in the main hui, and many other events, workshops and forums. It meets every three years and people here even take their holidays at this time so they can be a part of it (Question: ever hear of anyone, other than delegates - or even including them - taking their holidays so they could be at General Synod?).

Anaheim Convention Centre

Anaheim is part of Orange County (although I couldn’t tell where Los Angeles ended and Anaheim/Orange started).  So I’m in the O.C. All I know is that it’s about an hours drive from LAX, Los Angeles International Airport.

So stay tuned for more as I update you daily on my experience and the daily happenings here (or once every two days if I don’t find a cheaper way of getting on the net than the Hotels daily wireless rate which would get two people into Sylvia Park Hoyts on Tuesdays).

Final words for today: 14 hour flight from Sydney to LA in economy between two guys bigger than me, not so awesome™ Being here, pricele- I mean awesome™

(Sat next to that Ropati dude off Sky Sport from Akl to Sydney - he’s actually a really nice guy although he dresses like a 17 year old who’s trying to pass as 20.)

Yesterday, we welcomed delegates and participants in the 2009 Tikanga Pakeha National Youth Forum (TPNYF) into Auckland by way of Otara!

This year the diocese of Auckland is hosting the TPNYF and had asked that we provide them with a powhiri.  Tapu organised this with the whanau at The Church of the Epiphany in Otara and with the Te Kenehi Rangatahi supporting we welcomed youth of Tikanga Pakeha into Auckland.

It was also an opportunity for many of the Tikanga Pakeha rangatahi to hear about what we do as a Haahi in Tikanga Maori and about some of the ministry that happens around Otara.

For several of them it was the first time they had been around Maori (I kid you not) and the hariru was an interesting exercise - its actually harder to line up a thin Pakeha nose.  If you’re just a couple of millimetres off, its not a hongi anymore Dr Ropata!

With Tapu leading, and myself preaching and celebrating, we also shared communion with our Tikanga Pakeha whanaunga, being joined by Bishop Victoria of Christchurch half-way through my kauhau.

Although the Tikanga Pakeha organisers didn’t follow through with our idea of making the Tikanga Pakeha rangatahi compete in “Survivor Otara”, where we leave them all in Otara overnight and see how many make it out alive, the powhiri and eucharist was still a nice way to start off their hui which runs until the 10th of July.