Category Archives: Coming soon…

Praise for Greens and Greys by Rosalie Sugrue

Here is what two readers have said about Rosalie’s enthralling new novel:

“Molly’s story will take you through experiences spiritual and sexual seldom talked about openly, but so often struggled with in silence. The skilful and insightful choice of words – both descriptive and sometimes disturbing – creates images and recalls memories for people of all ages. This book is engaging, informative, entertaining and challenging.” Rev Loyal Gibson

 “Thank you Rosalie for your passion for social justice. This book challenges us to think about complex issues that unfortunately are still very real today. It is thought-provoking and an ideal book for group discussion and dialogue. Each chapter brings to life questions and a reality we sometimes would rather avoid for fear of the unknown. We all have a responsibility to care and make a stand for life.”
Mataiva D. Robertson: Social Issues Convenor for Sinoti Samoa, Methodist Church of New Zealand

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Four Haiku from Mark Gibson’s The In-Between Land

The In-Between Land: Psalms, Poems and Haiku will be released in print and as an eBook on 15 June 2015.

The book will be launched at 2.30pm on Saturday, 13 June 2015 at Wainoni Methodist Church, Avonside Drive, (between Kerrs Road & Wainoni Road.)

Here are sample haiku that appear in the book.

autumn leaves party
loudly for days on the trees,
then loiter on streets

 

first snow of winter
white magic-dust turning hills
into polar bears

 

 the gardener plants
evenly spaced lettuces
self-sown spud subverts

 

light loiters around
long into the evening
taunting the darkness

 

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Another Poem from Mark Gibson’s The In-Between Land

The In-Between Land: Psalms, Poems and Haiku will be released in print and as an eBook on 15 June 2015.

The book will be launched at 2.30pm on Saturday, 13 June 2015 at Wainoni Methodist Church, Avonside Drive, (between Kerrs Road & Wainoni Road.)

Here is a sample of the poems that appear in the book.

Neighbourhood all-year BBQ

fire up the barbecue
gather up again
create a loving island
in this sea of suffering

it’s always simple fare
with sausages and bread
if you’re lucky there are onions
but everyone gets fed

come sun, or cloud or snow
we keep the circle warm
we started in the shingle
now we’re on the lawn

we’re never really sure
who will turn up on the day
the group that forms each Thursday
always seems to change

there’s always lots of talking
laced with a laugh or two
it colours up our week
when feeling grey or blue

sometimes a bellbird sings
from the bottle-brush tree
and dogs like to join the party
hoping for an extra feed

the chef once made a toast
to all our absent friends
Dave and Noel have passed away
but mem’ry never ends

for the Unseen Presence
we raised our glasses too
the Spirit at the heart
calling us on to the new

— New Brighton, 2013

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Sample Poem from Mark Gibson’s The In-Between Land

The In-Between Land: Psalms, Poems and Haiku will be released in print and as an eBook on 15 June 2015.

 Here is a sample of the poems that appear in the book.

They’re taking my city away

like some failed
experiment
they’re taking my city away

house by house
block by block
whole suburbs
disappearing
to hidden forest
blackhole

dirty trucks
on shattered streets
moving much more than bricks and wood,
moving mem’ries
moving hopes
moving all
the little things
that take a lifetime
to grow

sadness haunts
the empty land
where children once played,
couples made love
argued and cried
neighbours chatted
over fences
about grandchildren
and things

nor’wester
sucking up dust
they’re taking my city away
ground going too
filling our hair
getting in eyes
gritting mouths
with the bitter grain
of what was

they’re taking
my city away
now the sacred task of building
a new one starts –
may we all be the builders
may we build with
wise heads
raise up with
love in our hearts.

— East Christchurch, 2013

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Sample Psalm from Mark Gibson’s The In-Between Land

The In-Between Land: Psalms, Poems and Haiku will be released in print and as an eBook on 15 June 2015.

Here is a sample from the 15 Psalms that appear in the book.

Psalm 6

From the heart of this unfolding disaster I cry to you O God.
On the days that the earth shakes with great ferocity,
many people are terrified, and try to flee to a safer place.
Others stay and weep as they watch their homes bend and break.

Some have claimed that you are punishing us,
but this is such a cruel and untruthful thing to say.
It just adds to the fear.
I don’t believe you are that kind of God!

But it is not what the earth is doing that upsets me O God.
The earth is just doing what it has always done,
and we have just not been good at listening to it.

What disturbs and angers me is the way that the rich and powerful
are looking after their own interests first and adding to our misery.
Behind their carefully crafted media releases,
glossy brochures and feigned grief
they manipulate and exploit and act unjustly.

People live in cars and vans, or on the streets.
Three families crowd into a small house.
Landlords charge exorbitant rents because they can.
The market eclipses ethics and social justice.
Yet the political leaders deny there is a crisis.

O Compassionate One,
when the powerful say that they care,
but then abandon the people
to the jaws of greedy insurance companies,
it is easy to fall into despair.
It is easy to give up.
It is easy to feel overwhelmed.

The biggest disaster of all, the hardest to bear,
is the crumbling of truth,
the rise of deceit and the refusal to care.

O God of Truth, keep us strong in your ways.
In the midst of this catastrophic failing of human love
may your aroha forever hold and embolden us!

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“The dead cannot be allowed to simply cease to exist.”

“Most New Zealanders seem to hold some form of belief in post-mortem existence. Faced with death an existential niggle emerges, prompting a desire for a belief, however rudimentary. The dead cannot be allowed to simply cease to exist. As quoted earlier, Hedtke expressed this very thought: ‘When we are faced with the death of a person that we love, it is a horribly difficult thought for most people that they will never again have this person in their lives.’ What I outline now are patterns of belief that I have observed presented as I have co-created celebrant-led funerals as well as working with families preparing for Church funerals. They also appear in Death and In Memoriam notices as well as tribute pages on the Internet. They do not represent the full spectrum, but indicate how some respond to the question ‘what next?’”

From Chapter 4 — What Comes Next? of Earthed in Hope: Dying, Death and Funerals – A Pakeha Anglican Perspective. By Alister G. Hendery.

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‘When people talk about me losing my son, it makes me sound so careless.’

“When speaking with children about a death, the news needs to be broken gently, and then a brief but accurate description of the death needs to be given. Unfortunately, adults, encouraged by the media, regularly use euphemisms to deny the reality of death. How often do we hear people saying someone has ‘passed away’ or that they have ‘lost’ their mum? We understand such language as code for death, though at times it has an almost comic side to it. A parishioner whose son had died remarked: ‘When people talk about me losing my son, it makes me sound so careless.’ For children such language results in confusion. What does ‘passed away’ or ‘passed over’ mean? Passed to where?

She has ‘fallen asleep’ or ‘she is resting.’ I recall working with a family whose baby girl had died. In one session it emerged that her brother was afraid to go to bed. It transpired that the baby’s death had been explained to him as her ‘going to sleep and not waking up.’ Not surprisingly, the boy was scared to go to sleep.

He ‘has gone on a long journey’, but people come back from long journeys. We take holidays that involve long journeys. This simply adds to a child’s confusion.

As with adults, but even more so with children, it is crucial that euphemisms be avoided. Children ask what they need to ask and become confused or anxious when we lay on them adult-formed inhibitions. The minister and family need to be very careful how they use religious language and imagery to speak about death to children. In an attempt to reassure the child we may say that, ‘Grandma has gone to heaven to be with God’, but the child may then resent a God that takes to heaven a person they love and need. Adults as well as children are easily alienated from God by such language, and we must consider the consequences of its use. If it is said, ‘Jesus loved her’ or, ‘she was so good God wanted her’, then why have any dealings with God who removes from my life someone I love? God might take me away as well. A boy began to behave badly after his uncle died. Eventually, he explained that he was being naughty so that God would not take him away like God had taken his uncle. He had overhead someone say that his uncle was such a good person that God had taken him, so the boy was working hard to be bad to ensure the same thing did not happen to him.”

From Chapter 11 — Children, of Earthed in Hope: Dying, Death and Funerals – A Pakeha Anglican Perspective. By Alister G. Hendery.

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“…a Christian funeral celebrates first and foremost that this person is a beloved child of God…”

“Ministers learn not to be surprised or shocked by anything heard as well as learning to make careful assessments about what is said and what is left unsaid. During the conversation with the family the minister may be told some ‘dark part’ of the dead person’s life, or experiences that resulted in hurt for others. Occasionally, the minister will deduce the dead person was thoroughly unpleasant or was in some way difficult or cantankerous. It may be appropriate to allude to this without describing matters in detail. There is no virtue in ‘washing dirty linen in public’, but nor is it helpful to pretend the person was someone they were not. Rather than idealising their life it is possible to express what people will miss and not miss. Occasionally, it has been sufficient for me to say, ‘In all our lives there are memories and aspects of our experience with another that need to be laid to rest – things that need to be forgiven.’ As I make that comment mourners give a nod of recognition as they recognise the meaning of what I have said. Sometimes the following may be used, either as a prayer or adapted as part of the minister’s comments:

God of mercy,
as we mourn the death of N and thank you for her / his life,
we also remember times when it was hard for us to understand,
to forgive, and to be forgiven.

Heal our memories of hurt and failure,
and bring us to forgiveness and life. (ANZPB, 862)

“We should not underestimate the importance of acknowledging and dealing with difficulties of this kind. We are loved and accepted by God for who we are, not for what we would like to be, or for what others wanted us to be. In contrast to a life-centred funeral that focuses on a person’s achievements and virtues as the source of celebration, a Christian funeral celebrates first and foremost that this person is a beloved child of God who is loved unconditionally.”

From Chapter 9 — The Funeral Service, of Earthed in Hope: Dying, Death and Funerals – A Pakeha Anglican Perspective. By Alister G. Hendery.

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“It is no wonder then that funerals are the most widely practiced human rituals.”

“Death is our inevitable fate. However hard we work to postpone it or try to deny it, we cannot escape it. Our mortality rate has consistently stood at precisely 100%. It is no wonder then that funerals are the most widely practiced human rituals. ‘Of all human events, death concerns us the most deeply’ (ANZPB, 811). The inevitability of death might suggest an equal inevitability about our response to death, but nothing could be further from the truth. How we approach death, how we mark it, what we believe about it, what we do with our dead, changes from generation to generation and from culture to culture. Within New Zealand, our response to death has changed radically in just the past few decades, and the changes keep coming, but amid them all, we keep having funerals.

Since its beginnings the Church has been deeply involved in people’s dying and response to death. It has made death its business. Indeed, its very life hinges on the death and burial of one man, who then rose from the dead. Funerals are an integral element of Christian ministry just as they are to human life. Yet, as with the rest of society, the Church has experienced such changes in this sphere that they might almost be described as seismic.”

From Chapter 1 — Introduction: A Changing Landscape, of Earthed in Hope: Dying, Death and Funerals – A Pakeha Anglican Perspective. By Alister G. Hendery.

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Manurewa launch of Weaving, Networking & Taking Flight

Weaving, Networking & Taking Flight has three Forewords and merits two book launches!

On Saturday afternoon 25 Oct. 2014 Vai Ngahe, invited guests and church members, launched his book at Manurewa Methodist Church, Cnr Alfriston Road & Great South Road, Manurewa.

WNTF_Launch_Manurewa_25_Oct_2014_A

Above: Vai autographs a copy with local MP Louisa Wall and other key supporters looking on.

Below: This was an all-age celebration.

WNTF_Launch_Manurewa_25_Oct_2014_B WNTF_Launch_Manurewa_25_Oct_2014_C

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 Join Rev Ngahe at the second Book Launch

3pm Sat. 8 Nov. 2014
Rosebank Peninsula Church
Cnr of Rosebank Road & Orchard Street, Avondale.