Category Archives: Spirituality

Feb 3

Kaha, and Tapu Te Ranga

If any of you also read Ryan’s blog, you will have read that  we recently(Jan 23rd – 25th) went to a hui(conference).  This was a wonderful, magical hui  like I have never been on before (and I have been on maybe 43+ conferences in my past). I was amazed at how many people were there I think in the end we had 159 people most of those seemed to be under 25.  This group was an amazing group of people who had a lot in common and a lot of things that held them apart. There were no issues or complaints from most of the people, and it appeared that almost everyone(if not everyone had fun.

So what made this such and awesome hui compared to the others I have been at? Well I have a few ideas…

First was location, the beautiful Tapu Te Ranga Marae.

taputeranga

This is an absolutely wonderful and amazing place to be for any reason. If you happen to also be in a position where you are staying at the Marae then please consider yourself lucky.  Tapu Te Ranga was the first marae I have been  on and it did not disappoint me in any manner.

For my non Kiwi readers a marae is is a sacred place which serves both religious and social purposes. ” It generally consists of an area of cleared land roughly rectangular (the marae itself), bordered with stones or wooden posts perhaps with terraces (paepae) which were used in olden times for ceremonial purposes; and with a central stone ahu or a’u. In  modern  Māori society the marae is still a vital part of everyday life. The closest parallel I can bring to it from America is the reservations that my people and other indigenous tribe wer placed into. The key difference is that a marae is a place chosen by and built by the Maori  as a spiritual home and a place that they can continue to connect with the earth in ways that they cannot connect in modern society. Meanwhile the Native Americans were forced onto small parts of tiny bits of land that were (usually but not always) far from their homes, they were considered “gifts” from the government for “mistreatment”.

It was really a great place to have such an amazing hui, because when you walked onto the land you could feel the positive energy and good spirits. These both only grew as the hui continued, and over all I feel like we all left on sunday afternoon with a lot more pride than we had to begin with and a sense of purpose. It was the begining of a great force to change the world led by the next generation and man you better watch out cause they are feirce!

Nov 29

Being green and devout.

I recently went to a very interesting lunchtime lecture at St Andrew’s on the Terrace called God, Gaia and Us by Lloyd Geering a really interesting New Zealand theologian. The lecture itself was primarily about how taking care of the earth was the most Christian thing you could do. I’m not Christian as many of you may know but I also have no issues with those that are thus why I was at the lecture.

It was really fascinating as  he talked though the history about how as the faiths changed our view and outlook on world changed. I sat back and just listened as Llyod explained about how the ancients polytheism  meant that they saw the earth as part of them. They respected everything part of natures in order not to cause offense to the god that was in charge of that item. They also believed that the gods walked among them, Because of all of these things we were connected to the planet all of it’s cycles and storms. As we slowly moved to monotheism from 200 CE to 1000 CE(which was the begining of a dark ages) our thought processes with from a living earth in which we were connected to, to a inanimate object that was the domain of satan and thus doomed. It was from this period on to the late nineteenth century that we created this idea that the earth didn’t matter, that it wasn’t important and thus no sins could be made against it.

I think what astounded me the most was that Llyod is a 90 year old minister and theologian and was saying Christianity kinda got it all wrong on this level and we need to be more like the Ancient Greeks and Romans. I believe he is on to something there and was very fascinated to hear what he had to say. He wasn’t saying we should all whorship 18 Gods and Goddess, but instead that perhaps God wasn’t to just be whorshipped in a church.

One of the best ways we can do the work of God and obey God is to take care of the earth he built. It is our responsibilty as the so called dominant species to make sure the earth is in good condition and well managed. Making sure to keep the air as clean as possible and that animals are protected when we need them. We cannot sit back and let more and more species become extinct. Just because we are the dominant species does not make us the most important one. There is a possibilty that many “Evangelical Christians” are too self centered to even contemplate. The possibility that if we don’t protect the earth and continue to help it thrive and thus respect the work of God that he very well may feel the need to have us removed for it’s own protection. That seems to be the path that we are headed to that one day the earth may reach a place that it cannot sustain human life and thus we may die off, leaving the world to the “lower species” again.