Dear Neville I want to tell you, and anyone else in earshot, that you were one of the most encouraging people I’ve ever known. You were also generous, kind, clever and remarkably adept at making archaic systems work for good. You were the school principal of second and third chances, a teacher who’d seen it […]
Naked fat women push boundaries of presence
As France tangles with burkini bans, who knew that images of pretty much butt naked fat women would leave such an impression on me, whilst 60 photographs of glorious women at 60 would seem lacklustre in comparison. The Adipositivity Project is images of fat women by Substantia Jones who explores ideas around social justice, body […]
Hospital Chaplains too Christian for Nones?
She sat beside the bed, tears brimming. ‘Mum’s dying.’ ‘Yes.’ We sat in silence for a bit. ‘I’ve lost my faith.’ ‘Uh huh.’ ‘When my friend died.’ ‘Mm.’ We held hands and Mum’s too, wondering in our own ways, about God and faith and people dying and what the universe meant, if anything. As we […]
Living with my desk skull
Amongst the debris on my desk sits a small skull. It’s just big enough to remind me that I’m not long for this world. No, I don’t have a diagnosis that may make you feel awkward, other than being terminally human that is. Keeping the end in sight instead of trying to clutch at immortality […]
Shared vulnerability: the key to soulful & just end of life choices
I used to love the story of Little Red Riding Hood. There was something deliciously appealing about getting dressed up in an elegant red cape and sauntering off into the world alone. Grandma turning into the wolf didn’t bother me, perhaps because I was so absorbed in the elegance of my outfit. But there’s no […]
Stories crucial to midwifing death
Midwifing death is as important to the dying process as pain relief. For me, it’s walking slowly beside another person as they disengage from their dwindling life force and listening intently to the stories of their life. Stories can tumble out in a great sigh of relief or drift out in fragments. Sometimes there are […]
Dirty laundry leads to Easter grave turning
My Mum always said we shouldn’t wash our dirty linen in public. Secrets, lies, and doubts about anything, particularly the godstuff, were for the privacy of our own kitchen and closed down before they got too heretical. What mattered was unquestioning faith, cleanliness, and order, evidenced by the clean washing fluttering on the line. No rotary […]
Rape culture in need of a spirituality that grows us
New Zealand’s ‘rape culture’ is in the news after a group of teenage boys allegedly had sex with intoxicated underage girls and then bragged about it on Facebook. The report triggered memories of my own. As a young mum, I watched my two-year-old heading over the fence in her first bid for freedom. Her contempt […]
on rape, stagnant pools and echoes in the void
no matter how much we protest about rape (haven’t women been experiencing this forever, remember Dinah in Genesis and when we thought our marching might take back the night) no matter how many rape laws are drafted, enacted people imprisoned, diagnosed, decried somewhere deep within culture, psyche, being, (I throw these terms around because we […]
Muslim woman’s seam of resistance
There’s more to art and spirituality than meets the eye, ear or intellect. More is what lingers, soothing the troubled soul, leaving a bad taste, irritating beyond belief or what we thought we knew. More is about our interaction with that which is not obvious, a process that inadvertently engages us in co-creation of the […]