Musician Moana Maniapoto found her beliefs challenged when the ashes of Headless Chicken’s founder Grant Fell were sprinkled on stage during an award ceremony by his wife Rachael. But one of Fell’s colleagues said, ‘I felt like he was there. It was a total magic moment for us.’ The broadening out of how we express […]
Humanist chaplains help normalise spirituality in healthcare
Lindsay van Dijk, a humanist, has been appointed by the Buckinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust to lead a chaplaincy team that includes Christian, Buddhist, and Bahai members. As Lindsay told the Guardian, ‘A lot of people don’t have an organised faith, but still have spiritual and emotional needs at difficult times. Often people are trying to […]
Shame on you Dr Billy Graham
Dr Billy Graham, often called one of the most influential Christian leaders of the 21st Century, died on 21st February. He was a powerful influence on my life in the 1950’s and 60’s, and not in a good way. His evangelical preaching filled stadiums worldwide including New Zealand in 1959 but by the time of […]
Support for the End of Life Choice Bill
New Zealand is currently considering David Seymour’s End of Life Choice Bill through the Justice Select Committee process. My submission is below in its entirety. Support for the Bill I support the intent of this Bill because it emerges from a compassionate approach to human suffering and moves towards a society where every person has […]
Jacinda, Episcopalians and El Shaddai
Jacinda Adern, Prime Minister of New Zealand, is having a baby. But you probably already know that unless you’ve been holidaying on Mars. Her partner Clarke is to be the main caregiver dealing with the general insanity a new addition brings along with getting baby to mum for feeds whether she’s running a caucus meeting, […]
Absent God
Absent God missing in action, always guardian of open space blankness in my life. Sad? Perhaps but more than this the blankness is for me a symbol of what God might be rather than what God is not. There’s never been a time, God when I’ve felt your presence the kind of presence, people talk […]
Hooking up with Theo, again
Did you ever have a first love that you couldn’t leave behind? Whatever new friends you made, you just wanted that connection so much, even though it was hard to figure out what it was all about, exactly? Theo and I are like that. We formally got together in January of 2000. I’d travelled 1200 […]
Divine dance partners: theology, compassion and interconnectedness in health
Reading Divine Dance: the Trinity and Your Transformation reconnected me with the insightful 20th century Trinity of The Matrix movie when she announced to the chosen, but reluctant Neo that ‘it’s the question driving us’. Like, everyone, he faced the choice of awakening to reality or believing other’s certainties. Reality, says author Richard Rohr, is […]
Devilish digger defiles divine destination
‘It’s apocalyptic, said my friend as we looked out across riverbank willows ripped to shreds. She’d felt like crying as the big digger fed its gaping maw day after day. Felt the same on my morning walks with Kali the Labrador as we picked our way through the desolation that used to be soft foliage […]
Standing for Spiritual Independence Alongside Gretta the Heretic
In the old days, we used to burn heretics. Nowadays, there are more subtle approaches. The Reverend Gretta Vosper, a United Church of Canada minister has undergone the new methods by being deemed unsuitable for ordained ministry. Gretta doesn’t take the bible literally, nor does she go in for supernatural ideas about God. She even […]