Wellington . . . at last!

Here Helen and I are at the start of our weekend in Wellington - enjoying the first of few delightful meals or coffee at the local cafes. This one in Cuba Street.
the large suspended silver fern ball over the plaza by the art gallery
the walk through to Te Papa - the museum - and the fabulous structures along the way
the distant sight of some pacific performers about to go into the town hall
Te Papa in the distance. . .
Fish bridge. . .
WONDERFUL coffee, and how could I resist the nougat?

The entrance to Te Papa
Looking down inside. . .
Our room at the Youth Hostel - and the view I woke up to as the sun rose over the harbour
Olives, anyone?
A lost umbrella made a pretty photo this morning
We walked along for breakfast to Oriental Parade, and the fountain there.
Had breakfast at this cute little cafe, larger than it seems, inside. . .
Typical Oriental Bay housing. . .

Inside the cafe at Oriental Bay
Took a long bus trip around to Eastbourne, and the driver kindly dropped us off close enough to take photos of the snow on the top of the South Island. Yep, those are mountains you see.
Mmmmm, soup, quiche, and blueberry and apple crumble.
Helen with her back to the city, at Eastbourne beach
Gorgeous day, and what a way to see Wellington by public transport.

Dave's Dinner Party

We had another great dinner party - held by Dave Alty at his new home last night.
Here we are eating the pre-dinner nibbles and catching up at the counter. . .
Everything is spick and span and the latest, with a row of remote controls for a number of functions concerned with curtain raising, music dispersion and heat on the counter before us.
And at 10pm, we sat down to a delicious meal of Thai Chicken Curry cooked by our host. Delish. Thanks Dave.

Beautiful day in Auckland today

I went by shuttle bus between the two AUT University campuses. . .

. . and the harbour sparkled in the sun, the jaunty little boats glowed whitely in the foreground, and all was well with the world.

Then I turned up at the City campus to work again. Ah, but for a moment, I glimpsed something.

Mid-winter Christmas Dinner

Here we are gathered on a dark and stormy night (last night) for our annual Mid-winter feast. The theme was loosely - "NZ Pioneer", which meant an assortment of shawls and long skirts for the women, and swandri shirts and hats in some cases, for the men.
We all pooled the food, which was two casseroles, roast vegies, and salad . . .
and the fire roared all night, keeping at least this large room warm. We tried a Citrus hot toddy as well, which warmed the cockles of the heart.
And to follow, I'd made a lattice applie pie, which we drowned in cream, and managed to finish off completely.
Then after a game of 'SPOONS' which got rougher and rougher, John entertained us with cheek music played against the hollow of his mouth with a teaspoon. I attempted to contort my own face to make music but only created laughter.
and Helen thought she was staying out of the shot, little realising it was actually SHE who was the subject, bless her.

Bits and pieces

She's pretty cute - I had to catch up with my beloved niece Magda today - even if it meant crossing a suburb or two and braving rush hour traffic home. That's her, in a cafe with me, SO GOOD TO SEE her after so long. Sheesh, you'd think we lived in a different country or something.
. . . and this was last Friday night, with six of us enjoying our first journaling evening - putting together and making a book each, with pages filled with bits an pieces just waiting to be written on.

Time's Up

I was just thinking, sitting up here in bed with my tea and toast, about time. How many mornings have I awoken just like this – got cup of tea and then lain gazing at the sun filtering through my net curtains and thought about what I may do today. Why am I always surprised by this turning of the daily cycle – the coming and going of the sun – is it because I am a being who has always existed and whose life is sourced from another realm? I feel a bit like Bill Murray in Groundhog Day, where the main character relives the same day again and again. I was thinking about my tremendous capacity for a ‘fresh start’ or a new adventure – where does that come from? Why don’t we settle like automatons, in to the dull onward turning of the times and seasons, instead of (and maybe this is a personality thing) the continued zeal to ‘seize the day’. I think, deep down, I am a little irritated by time – its forwardness, its predictability. A deep craving to ‘get off the bus’ exists in me – but I don’t mean the bus of Life, I mean the bus of TIME, with the wheels of the seasons turning forever onward beneath it. I feel that I came from somewhere where the surprises exist in full measure and it is not necessary to sleep to regain the energy to enjoy them. Where life is the dream, and the light is not bound to an orb turning on a system bound by laws of gravity and attraction. Mathematics. A place where, finally, 2 + 2 never equals 4, but always more. Disappointment does not exist where I come from. My own heart is so full that it is as natural as breathing to let it bubble up and overflow with joy – love never ceases. I look in one direction and my eyes behold love looking back, and my heart receives a surge of the joy that just left it. There are people I see, no, not people, closer than family here, who look at me as if I am their treasure. Each one seems to me so different in expression and yet so vital to me, I long to be with them.
I turn in another direction and there are more closer-than-family I feel just the same about. The place where we are changes constantly, the quality of light perfect for every setting; golden, muted, radiant, soft – the light is not impersonal but (distinctly personal and) KNOWING. He illuminates everything; flowers, trees, faces, forms with colours no longer restricted by a measured spectrum, but perceived beyond the limitations of what has been here on earth. It seems now, that life here on earth is a colour-tinted black and white experience.
Did I mention smells? It would be an assault to my fallen nostrils to receive even one blast from the air around me in my real home. I would faint. Everything has its own scent, and that scent is carried in the light, and both are . . . organic.
And that’s just the setting.
There are as many activities going on as there is imagination to conceive them, and none of them are compulsory or to do with survival. They’re to do with LIFE. They go on as long as there is love to inspire them.
That love never fades or diminishes but is multi-faceted and shows many faces. It is no wonder that I feel a deep detachment to the things of this world, and yet there are so many resemblances to what I ‘remember’ of my real home, that I can actually live here as well. In many ways, it is like a long sleep, full of dreams. Except this sleep is intensely active and rigidly bound by the meters and rhythms of time on the surface level, and the only peace and rest must be sought by turning deeply inward.
By comparison to my real home, I am living in a battle zone, with casualties all around me and the endless cry of discord. The fact that I know it as such, that the wrongness of it disturbs me, is a sturdy reminder that it is I who am the alien here.
When I read (Hebrews) ‘there remains, therefore, rest for the people of God, for he who has entered his rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His. Let us be diligent to enter that rest. . .’
I think of the REST we enter as not so much a passive, sleep-laden relaxation, but more a laying down of the shackles of this world and the chains of time, and a letting go completely of the taint of the culture of Adam – bequeathed to us since the Fall. In returning to the state of our natural being, with the added experience of having lived in these ‘chains’ on this world, (and yet seen the light of Christ here,) I am a fuller, more appreciative soul than otherwise I would have been. Like a profoundly blind man who sees light and colour at last, who knew it existed, whose world was flavoured by it through language and the touch of living things that grew because of it, he who finally sees it after knowing OF it all his life.
Nothing can really prepare him for what sight is in all its brilliance and subtlety, but as much as he is able, he has been aware of it, and the physical presence of his own eyes has assured him of its existence. Multiply that example one hundred fold – more – and you see the beings we ‘children of light’ are, here on this planet.

‘But here, we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come’ Heb 13: 14

‘For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands. Eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven. If indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked. For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened not because we want to be unclothed but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed by life. Now he who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has also given us the Spirit as a guarantee.’ 2 Cor: 5 . . .

Making the most of Queen's Birthday

Come with me, into the Cascade Kauri walk situated about 40 mins from Auckland out in the West Auckland coastal area. Helen and I walked this on Saturday, really enjoying the crisp air and the bird song, and the sight of the massive Kauri trees from which the walk got its name.
NZ's native nikau palms. . .
the enticing path dappled with light. . .
One of the Kauri trunks - impossible to fit the whole tree in the picture.
Sister just ahead of me on the swing bridge


and that's it! Enjoy that? the fragrant air, the moist atmosphere, the sound of tuis and bellbirds. We came back and sat on a picnic table (it was still a bit damp) and ate a light lunch of blueberry muffin, banana and apple.
Lovely.

The cup of Life

I've been caught up, lately, in the whole concept of the cup we each are given. Recently had a look (as a church) at the parable of the vineyard owner who went out to hire people to work in his vineyard. The first ones were hired early in the day and agreed to work for a denarius, and then later, as the day progressed, others were hired, and at the end of the day, they were all paid a denarius for their labours. You can imagine how disgruntled the early workers were.
I thought about that - how much we try to be 'fair' and how strongly our human nature labours to be right and just, and yet how little that has to do with the Kingdom of God. I thought I'd illustrate it by bringing to the meeting a basket of cups, all filled with a differing assortment of things: dried up pasta to represent sorrow and suffering, sour worm sweets to represent the bitter/sweet pleasures of life, fruit to represent health, and deflated balloons to represent illhealth. It was an interesting discussion point. We who are believers ask to know our Lord better, and yet when he gives us some of a share in his sufferings, we can't understand it. I am always gripped when I see someone who has had a larger portion of sorrow in this life, and yet who has been humbled by it, and has found a depth of compassion and mercy out of it, for others.
There is so much out there that people believe is 'christian' or the 'christian way' and often it is a self-righteousness piousness which has nothing to do with the Lord at all. He knew how to lose. He knew how to patiently bear suffering and loss without comment. Although he didn't ask for suffering ("Father, let this cup pass from me, but not my will but thine be done") he bore it for us. And he LET'S us share some of HIS suffering so that we can partake more fully in his life. What an honour. And oh, how I hope I remember that when next I feel the press of inexplicable crushing upon me. In fact, I have to say, that sometimes out of the sorrows I've been begrudgingly accepting of, I've been able to find joy which goes deeper than just happiness.
I miss the people who were once in my life, but are no longer. I think as you get older there's a quiet grief (that sits comfortably beside the peace and joy), which is for the loss of people or situations in the past, and it's something you just have to bear. My hope is that one future day, those separations now, will be joined into some wonderful wholeness and great GAIN.
So, thanks for the cup I have been given, which I will drink down to its dregs.

The years go by. . .

Well, here she is at 49! My little sister. Hard to believe that through 49 years I've known her and we've been in each other's lives. We're not so far from being able to rummage through the dress up box and pull out the old nighties we dressed in to be fairies and romp around the yard. I took her to lunch at the lovely little local cafe, and she looked happy enough:
. . . of course, that was after going across the street to see what was happening in her house. She had been well looked after by each of the three children there - as you can see by the various cups of tea and homemade cards nearby.
. . . nothing like 'self-timer' to capture the moment.
later that day we all got into one car and went out to Mum and Dad's to have dinner and the cake.
. . . and then my niece got hold of the camera and things just didn't remain 'safe' as far as the photos were concerned.
I think I'm a very brave woman to let myself be taken THIS close to a beloved niece! Which one of these faces is 20 do you think?
MOST of the family in our usual haphazard disarray.
Happy Birthday sweet sister, Helen. (Also known as Mmmmbelele, Bugskin, Bug, Honey)