Hols!

Easily bored by holiday snaps? Give this a miss then. 

My goddaughter Lydia has come over to stay for about 10 days and that's a huge joy. Fresh from completing (very successfully) a Masters in Law from Cambridge, she's chilling out before the next move and chose to spend some time in Fiji. I am blessed.

So, we're having a lovely time. She got off the plane and within an hour or two we went to soothe away the jet lag in the Sabeto Hot Springs. Much is said about the healing and restorative properties of the natural mud baths of Sabeto: the local village hosts it as a tourist attraction as well as it being revered as a much loved place of healing. A slice of the profits go to the local churches of the village and we were guided through the process and the four pools (extremely muddy - quite muddy - only a tad muddy and pristine) by Buna, our kind, local guide. Here we are at various stages of cleanliness and uncleanliness, but never far from Godliness.

Sunday was spent with the inspirational Rev Grace Reuben at Bethany Methodist Church in Nadi where I was kindly asked to preach at the second morning service. Bethany's present worship centre stands on top of the original church building, and the original church building became the Manse - but not reduced in size. Grace must have the lengthiest Manse sitting room I've ever seen! It was lovely to catch up with her - the first ordained woman in the Methodist Church of Fiji's Indian Division. She has many a story to tell. Here we are after worship and enjoying lunch - the Fijian fried prawns particularly wonderful.

We did real 'tourist' on a day trip to South Sea Island and a cruise around the outer Mamanuca islands. You can get the low down at https://ssc.com.fj/day-cruises/south-sea-island/. I'm an uneasy tourist in a way, ever troubled by the impact on the environment and the culture of this kind of mildly exploitative day trip: Fiji easily and almost flippantly packaged for the tourist dollar. And yet... Fiji's tourist 'industry' is needed. It was a lovely day: sun, sand, snorkelling and underwater viewing from a semi-submersible and a blissful, lazy cruise back on the top deck above the radiant blues and greens of the moana.

(I guess it must be good Methodists who operate the South Sea Island day trip because pretty much the first thing you happen upon on disembarking is a hot water urn alongside coffee, tea bags, sugar and a milk jug. God bless 'em, I say). 

We're back in Suva now and I've had a bit of work to do while Lydia's been socialising with PTC's younger contingent. Some leaping around in waterfalls was done today I think. And tomorrow we go with Nanuku settlement friends to Pacific Harbour; our nearest sand and swimming spot, for 'church on the beach' and some fun and games. Here we were making plans for all that last Wednesday at youth group. 

Is it theologically OK to pray for sunshine? Discuss. (We did, anyway). 

Spot the Prophets

Yesterday's sermon from the 8.00am Holy Communion service at Wesley City Mission which generated conversation with me afterwards. Possibly because it mentioned the age-old and yet vibrantly live issues of recognising prophetic voices for the days and times in which we live and serve as followers of Jesus. See what you think. 

Recognising Prophets                                                     

Selected readings: Ezekiel 2.1-5   Mark 6.1-6

Opening text: Ezekiel 2.5. Thus says the Lord God - whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house) they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.

How will we know if there’s prophet among us? What’s the test? It’s a great question. Even if you think this sermon isn’t up to much, remember it started with a great question! There are prophets predicting my country – England – will win the 2018 world cup. Should I hear or refuse to hear? 

That lighthearted remark is downplaying the role of prophet isn’t it – as merely some sort of predictor of the future. The heart of prophecy isn’t necessarily foretelling. A prophet is – essentially - chosen by God to speak for God.  She or he is a selected and commissioned mouthpiece. Not speaking on their own authority. 2 Peter 1:20–21: “No prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

So two questions:

How shall we know if there’s a prophet among us?

How shall we know whether to listen or refuse to listen?

Let’s allow those questions to be the undercurrents of our thoughts this morning, bubbling below the surface as we spend time with the passages.

Firstly, Ezekiel 2.1-5. How shall we know if Ezekiel is a prophet? How did his original hearers know? He certainly had amazing revelations direct from the Lord. Does that give him enough credibility? Looking back to Chapter 1, we see that the prophet had an extraordinary vision of the splendour of the Lord and fell flat on his face! The language and style and spirit of the very complicated book of Ezekiel is similar to the book of Revelation in parts. In Chapter 1, it involves winged creatures and a crystal dome and a throne made of sapphire and everything was surrounded with fire. Wow! ‘When I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard the voice of someone speaking’, says the prophet. That someone is God.

How would the people know that Ezekiel was a prophet among them? Well an early reason, presumably, is because God communicated to this person in ways that were powerful and awesome. Signs and wonders. Wow! He sees things we don’t and he can do things we can’t.

There’s something in human nature that makes us drawn to leaders who have special revelations and powers. In Mark’s Gospel, before we get to Chapter 6 which is our reading of today, Jesus has already done wonders. He’s driven out evil spirits, calmed a great storm on Galilee, done miraculous healings – a woman with flow of blood, Jairus’s daughter – and the people say, ‘Where did he get all this – what deeds of power are these?’

So, what are we deducing so far? We’ll know there’s a prophet among us when that person has sufficient special revelations from God and demonstrates sufficient amazing powers. When there’s the ‘wow’ factor. I watched children flying kites very high in the strong breeze on Suva’s seashore the other day and the little ones were gaping at them, open mouthed. WOW!

But if what we’ve mentioned so far is the only test of a prophet, we quickly run into a problem or two. What happens with prophets and prophecy when the wow factor is diminished? When prophets just have to keep slogging on with unpopular message after unpopular message and nothing very dramatic or wonderful happens. Do we still recognise them as God’s prophets? God tells his prophet Ezekiel actually to expect this kind of experience. Clearly it won’t always be angels and thrones and rainbows: it’ll be hard slog. Chosen by God to communicate for God, maybe: but, Prophet, prepare yourself for a rubbish experience.

Read on in Ezekiel and God who’s shown such amazing things to inspire his prophet warns that they won’t listen to him. In Chapter 2.7 - none of the people of Israel will listen to you. They won’t even listen to me, says the Lord.  At the end of Chapter 3 there’s a worrying prediction that Ezekiel, far from being an amazing communicator for God all of the time will lose his powers of speech for a while. ‘I will paralyse your tongue’. Ezekiel has a hugely difficult assignment.  It’s about seven years before the destruction of Jerusalem which had to be destroyed – so we’re given to understand here - because of its sinfulness, described as rebellion and transgression. He has to deliver unpopular message after unpopular message, most of the time with no ‘wow’ factor and no ‘hallelujah’ factor, because he’s not successful! Don’t count easy successes as criteria for deciding who the prophets in our midst are like some of the shiny modern day ‘prophets’ in the gleaming four-wheel drive and the snazzy suit, smiling to camera:  See – look what a successful and profitable preacher or prophet I am! God’s genuine prophet may not feature in the popular headline. He or she might well be ridiculed and laughed at.

Ezekiel 33.30-33 expresses this well and I like the Good News Bible translation. 

³⁰ The Lord said, “Mortal man, your people are talking about you when they meet by the city walls or in the doorways of their houses. They say to one another, ‘Let's go and hear what word has come from the Lord now.’ ³¹ So my people crowd in to hear what you have to say, but they don't do what you tell them to do. Loving words are on their lips, but they continue their greedy ways. ³² To them you are nothing more than an entertainer singing love songs or playing a harp. They listen to all your words and don't obey a single one of them. ³³ But when all your words come true—and they will come true—then they will know that a prophet has been among them.”

So that question again? How shall we know if there’s a prophet among us? Because the prophet himself or herself is outwardly very successful and everyone goes ‘Wow!’ No. Rather because God’s words through God’s mouthpiece come true, and everyone says, ‘Wow - I wish we’d listened’. Truth will be a major test.

Let’s go back to Jesus now, as presented to us in Mark’s Gospel.  Jesus: God’s most authentic mouthpiece. Jesus: God’s top prophet. In Mark 6. 1-6; at first it’s like the people are full of that ‘Wow – isn’t he amazing?’ factor. Many who heard him were astounded. That’s the NRSV translation. They said, ‘Where did this man get all this? What is this wisdom that has been given to him? What deeds of power are being done by his hands!

But there’s a huge difference between being astounded and being persuaded. Between saying: this is amazing – and being convinced that this is true. They are astounded that he comes from Nazareth, that he’s the local carpenter,  that they know his biological family, his village and his relatives. And they were persuaded by him? Convinced by him? Not likely. They took offence at him. They were not persuaded that God’s words were in his mouth and God’s works were in his hands. Where’s the ‘wow’ factor disappeared to now? Only offence remains.

How shall we know if there’s a prophet among us? Another answer worth considering - that a genuine prophet of God may cause offence.

See the people surrounding Jesus in Mark 6.1-6 falling into a dangerous trap. A true prophet will come from the place we approve of and have the family background we approve of. It won’t be Nazareth, that’s for sure!  And God – surely – is much more likely to speak through one of our high powered lawyers or one of our highly learned Pharisees than through a common labourer: a carpenter with dirt under his nails and sawdust on his feet.

Think about that same trap for our times in the churches of Fiji and the Pacific. We have our theological Colleges like the Pacific Theological College and the Methodist Theological College at Davuilevu. In offering theological education and ministerial formation, aren’t they also meant to be equipping God’s prophets for the present age? Don’t we yearn to see those chosen by God who can communicate for God graduating from these Colleges? If so, how much does birthplace, village and family line affect decisions about who gets a place? About who is recognized or not recognized?

⁴Then Jesus said to them, ‘Prophets are not without honour, except in their home town, and among their own kin, and in their own house.’ ⁵And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. ⁶And he was amazed at their unbelief.

Surely laying hands on a few sick people and curing them is a pretty fine deed of power. But Mark’s wants to separate here supernatural deeds of power from Jesus’s prophetic, daily ministry. The big, headline making miracle; the amazing, earthshaking revelation; the water-walking and the storm-stilling. No. That couldn’t happen. But Jesus’s healing hands and pastoral care among the most needy? Yes. Jesus the prophet can still do that, despite their offence and disapproval.

And Jesus the prophet will keep on doing that, day in and day out, unflinchingly, until they put him on the cross. Just as Ezekiel the prophet kept slogging it out with unpopular message after unpopular message; so Jesus keeps slogging it out day after day. God’s voice, God’s hands: preaching, teaching, healing, forgiving, mixing with the wrong people, causing offence, challenging religious authorities, choosing sacrificial love in action rather than easy, attention grabbing popularity.

The Gospels tell us that the people of that day crucified the prophet in their midst, Jesus of Nazareth, God’s most authentic mouthpiece. ‘Father, forgive them’, said the Prophet on Calvary, ‘they don’t know what they’re doing.

Is there an invitation for us today to receive from all this? God’s invitation to learn the lessons of New Testament times and make sure eyes are open and ears are alert in our times for God’s true prophets – not least as elections rapidly approach in Fiji - and as all our churches of whatever denomination seek to speak prophetically to the issues of our age.

They crucified Prophet Jesus, Son of God, but they couldn’t silence him. Resurrection was the final victory over refusal to listen. It all came true. An empty tomb. Everything he’d prophesied. Everything he’d promised.

And perhaps God smiled and said, “So… you need a ‘wow’ factor to convince you there’s a prophet in your midst, do you?”

Well, try Resurrection.

Amen

Lord of all hopefulness

It's Wonderful!!

via GIPHY

What is?

Mmm.... I knew you'd ask, and that's the problem really, because I can't tell you just for the moment. But it really IS wonderful and I look forward to feeding back very, very soon. It's news from this side - full of hope and excitement.

In the meantime, over that side, the British Methodist Conference has started meeting and here's hoping that's wonderful too. Should you wish to be in the know about doings and goings on, the requisite link is here including livestreaming options for a lot of it.

Here's a bit about the new VP who's into hope also. Praise God for that.

30 June 2018

New Vice-President reflects on Transforming Hope

In his address made earlier today, Bala Gnanapragasam, the newly elected and inducted Vice-President of the Methodist Conference, reflected on ‘Transforming Hope’.

At the Methodist Conference, taking place at the University of Nottingham until 5 July, Bala Gnanapragasam, a Trustee at Christian Aid and former Labour Councillor, shared emotive stories that looked at the importance of inspiring hope and challenging injustice. 

Reflecting on hope, Bala said: “Hope is vital, and it is right at the heart of our faith. I want to engage in the sort of listening and conversation that makes friendships, builds communities, and encourages hope.” 

Bala spoke of his passion for social justice: “We face poverty and injustice at every point of our lives and in every place. So I ask myself constantly: 'Can this be what God wants for his people?' 

“A church that abandons the poor is no longer the church of Jesus Christ and we do abandon the poor if we don’t challenge these ideas. 

“But in the middle of this apparent hopelessness, I know that God must be doing something – changing things, calling us to new journeys so we have to be ready!” 

Mr Gnanapragasam gave his address to an audience at the Conference which included friends from Sri Lanka celebrating the first Sri Lankan Methodist to be made Vice-President of the British Conference. 

The video of Bala Gnanapragasam’s address is available here

The text of the Vice-Presidential address is available here

It's at this Methodist Conference that the report from the Church's national Stationing Committee is passed. That's the Committee that makes matches between available Methodist ministers and requesting Circuits, hoping to unite persons and places, gifts and needs in a Holy Spirit-prompted way. Methodist ministers [Presbyters and Deacons] who are pretty sure they're going to serve in a particular place and appointment come 1st September, nevertheless await the final Conference decision to be absolutely sure. Stationing is 'subject to Conference'.

As the Stationing Committee's report is in the public domain, as with lots of other material on the Methodist Conference website - which is fabulously helpful and transparent - you could take a look if it's of any interest and empathise with some of the agonies.

How would you solve it? Hopes and dreams?

Back here at home, Rosy married Krishneel. More matching and praying, hoping and dreaming. A Christian-Hindu marriage arranged by their families, a white dress was worn, prayers were said and rings exchanged at Rosy's home in Nanuku settlement. In about three weeks' time she'll move to Krishneel's family's place in Sigatoka, about 2-3 hours from Suva, and they'll take it from there. 

As Rosy got her Certificate in Cookery not so long ago - graduation featured on this very blog - and her new husband is a pastry chef, expectations are high about the quality of raisin buns and custard slices from the new marital home. God bless, you two, and many, many prayers. Expect a visit! 

Saptapadi - seven steps fire ritual in traditional Hindu weddings.

Elders, Youngers, Philosophies and Mission.

As mentioned in the last post, many elders of Oceania did indeed gather this week, in a mighty and moving way, for an Inaugural Pacific Philosophy Conference (IPPC). Clicking on that link will take you to posts from the Conference where many who were named as philosophers: the wise and revered thinkers of the region, came together to share with each other their knowledge, their skills and their heart for Pasifika. It was described as 'a gathering of people with the purpose of progressing and advancing our Pasifika yet keeping intact our traditions and our ways' and was organised collaboratively by an awesome quartet of voices: the Pacific Theological College, the University of the South Pacific, Fiji National University and the Pacific Islands Association of Non Governmental Organisations. 

Welcome ceremonials with the offering of kava and woven baskets awaiting offerings of wisdom from the elders as the conference progressed

Revd Dr Tevita Nawadra Banivanua leads Day One Worship

The gathering heard on day one from His Highness Tui Atua Tupua Tamasese Tupuola Tufuga Efi, who spoke on the importance of recognising that the departed still have a lot to offer us, in acknowledging our ancestry, our lineage, and our ways of life.This was followed by presentations by Rev Dr Iaitia Tuwere and Professor Manulagi Meyer, amongst others. 

I was in and out of the Conference because of juggling commitments back at PTC - very humbled, as someone of non-Pacific origin, to be allowed to attend at all - and heard Hon Sir Justice Taihā Kurei Durie (pictured below) speak on day two about Māori perspectives on law, faith and well-being. He is Chair of the Māori Council and was the first Māori appointed as judge of a New Zealand Court. He offered many examples of how traditional wisdom has been, in his experience, suppressed by imported 'Western' wisdom, to the detriment of well-being in life, society and faith. Those strong themes were recurrent throughout the Conference, with key concerns being decolonisation, the reclaiming of Oceanic values, critique of church and mission history, and the rediscovery and rechampioning of Pacific wisdom. 

Through Pacific eyes....

On Saturday I attended another Conference in Suva which was again wholly Pacific, but so markedly different in tone and spirit that you wonder, sometimes, if you can be in the same city, let alone the same country. The Sunday School Rally of the Methodist Church in Fiji's Indian Division gathered at Dudley Intermediate School. Its proud evangelistic theme was 'Bring a friend to Jesus', and well over 200 children and young people were given suitably emblazoned new T-shirts, immediately pulled over heads and worn with immense pride.

Like before, here was a Conference that knew what it was about and had clear agendas. The Divisional leaders and Sunday School teachers are as passionate about mission activity and Christian conversion as the Pacific philosophers might be about mission critique and decolonisation. And, to be fair, a simplistic dualism isn't helpful as a passionate, indigenous Pacific philosopher may well hold a vibrant, rooted Christian faith as well. At the philosophy conference I didn't notice any speakers of Indo-Oceanic origin, interestingly. But I may have missed them. So here at the Sunday School rally we sang with gusto, 'I have decided to follow Jesus - no turning back!' and browsed through, not indigenous Pacific artwork or philosophical publications, but a Bible Society of Fiji bookstall offering Bibles (good) and a table full of glossy, popular paperbacks generated by Korean and North American evangelists. 'Anything written in Fiji - or the Pacific?' I asked hopefully. 'No Madam - we get all these from overseas'. 

Both Conferences invited me to lead opening devotions. So I did. It really is an honour to be asked and, even after all these years in ministry all over the place, I still feel totally inadequate and unworthy; searching and praying hard in the attempt to be God's instrument and mouthpiece, with the 'right' word for the 'right' occasion.

For the philosophers, I played guitar - we like to strum here - and offered song. I set new words to the inherited hymn tune St Denio, well known here as a result of missionary endeavour, and which most people use for 'Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise'. 

Maybe it captured something? Maybe not. A tiny love-offering for the woven baskets anyhow.  See what you think...

Reclaiming, reweaving, reviving our ways,

Researching, respecting, to God be all praise;

When seated expectant; when listening with awe,

Descend, Holy Spirit; your influence pour.

Recording, retelling, reliving the past,

Refining, reframing the truths that will last;

Creator of nations, O Wisdom supreme,

That Your will be done is our prayer and our dream.

Recalling, responding to ancestral voice,

Reflecting on legacy, challenge and choice;

O God of our forbears and those yet to be,

Your Gospel amazes: so rooted, so free.

Rejecting, rebuking when sin causes pain,

Reseeding, restoring; by grace born again;

In chaos of climate, in rape of the earth,

We cry: resurrection; redemption; rebirth!

Reclaiming, reweaving, resourcing for now -

today’s generations: but Lord, show us how?

May mortals repent and may stars realign,

Through vision Pacific and Wisdom Divine.

So, above leading worship among Pacific Elders. Below, leading Bible Study among Pacific Youth. God's wisdom? To be discovered in both places. And hallelujah for that. 

Wisdom in the Pacific Way

Walking back through campus after the Saturday market trip, I came across this friend...

We don't rear pigs at PTC - they do at the Methodist College up the road - so it's not a usual encounter. What we can safely assume, I think, is that there'll be pork aplenty at an upcoming feast on Monday when the PTC community welcomes paramount Chiefs and other Pacific elders gathering in Suva for an inaugural conference on Pacific Indigenous Philosophies. Or possibly they'll be gifts? I'll wait to be educated on this one, as on so many other matters. Memories of making official visits to Zambian chiefs in former days when presentations of chickens and other edibles were vital, ceremonial protocols before conversation. Certainly if the conversation was about land. 

Here's the official description of the Conference and a video clip of our Faculty colleague Dr Aiava explaining more.

The Inaugural Pacific Philosophy Conference (IPPC) with the theme: "Vuku ni Pasifika-Wisdom of the Pacific: Indigenous Relational Philosophies of Life", hosted by the Pacific Theological College, Pacific Islands Associations of NGOs, University of the South Pacific, and Fiji National University from 11-14th June, Suva. Bringing together elders and custodians of wisdom from around the region to discuss the relational philosophical underpinnings of life in the Pacific (logo designed by Islands Business and flyer by Shelvin Naidu Eddi

Breakfast at Fiji One

Breakfast at Fiji One. 14K likes. Breakfast@Fiji One is the first show of its kind in Fiji and the Pacific. Watch it LIVE every weekday from 6am to 7am on Fiji One.

It's extremely humbling that I've been asked to lead morning devotions at this on the Wednesday, and in such a setting and among such illustrious company, prayers for a small pinch of English wisdom would be appreciated.

We've celebrated younger wisdom at PTCEE this week as well. We presented Maiarii Pohue from Maohi Nui with a book and certificate for passing her 'Themes in Theology' course: making a particular fuss of her because in doing that she became PTCEE's first student to submit and complete a course ONLINE! 

We wondered who'd be the first. We even have a Pacific student in Texas signed up now. But in fact it was Tahitian Maiairii, currently Fiji based, but we know she's going to be such a wonderful ambassador for PTCEE when she's elsewhere in the world. We loved the last part of her assignment, and share it with you. Links in beautifully with the news about the Pacific philosophy conference because here, Maiarii as a younger person, draws with great love and respect on the indigenous myths and wisdom from her own roots that she's been taught and which she proudly lives and breathes. She's a very inspiring example of a young person who fully embraces her ethnic identity, has a living Christian faith and has the ability to communicate some of that to the present age through online theological education. Here's that sample of her work. The story of the breadfruit tree...

4C - Longer Assignment

a) The mythical story that I have chosen for this assignment is entitled, Ruataata – Te Uru. This story is about the time of famine and drought. At that time, there were no crops that could grow, and therefore, the whole population was affected and many have begun to starve. As a result, people started to die from that terrible season. Then came a time when a man could no longer support seeing his family suffer from hunger. He was so heartbroken when he saw his own family starve to death and didn’t know what to do. After that, he found a solution, but the option he thought of, which will help his family, was a hard decision. In order for his family to be happy again, he had to sacrifice himself. It meant that this man had to give up his life to the gods in order to bring joy and happiness. As a fact, the man was in deep sorrow and cried for help to the gods to save his family and the whole population from starvation. Then, the gods answered him saying that they will help him, but in exchange he will have to give his own life to restore balance and give a fertile land. After their agreements, the man started to transform into a tree, and it was not just any tree, but it was a breadfruit tree. The breadfruit tree gave a new life for the whole community as it bears enough fruit to feed the villagers and his family. Through his sacrifices, people rejoiced again. However, it also brought sorrow into the man’s family who had to live without a husband and a father. But on the other hand, he will always be remembered for his courage and his deep love towards his family and his people. Even though the man was not physically present, the family could see him every day, because the tree remained in their compound.

This is a famous story back home because it’s a story of good moral values and whereby several people made a dance out of the song written for this story. Also, I first heard this song through my little sister, and ever since she told me about that song, we kept on singing that song at home until today. As a fact, someone as to which I do not know the name of, has written a song about this story, but it is more like a sad and an encouraging song too. It is a song which reminds us of his sacrifice he has made through the deep love for his family and the courage he had of sacrificing his life in exchange for the survival of his own village. The lyrics of the song describes and the melody expresses perfectly the man’s feeling during that time. The song that I will talk about expresses sorrow, sadness, compassion, love, courage and determination. As an overall, he felt heartbroken, sad, and courageous at the same time because he felt the need to save not only his family, but also his people from starvation and hunger. In my perspective, this story is a strong one because is teaches us humility, respect, courage, and sacrifices, but not only that, it also teaches that love is a strong weapon which enables us to fight for our loved ones and the strength to face any obstacles or difficulties with our head high. And also, because once you love someone, you will overcome your fears and realise the impossible to be possible.

Here is a link for anyone who is interested in listening the song: 

This is the lyrics of the song: Ruataata-Te Uru.Tahitian song

English translation

I te hoe tau oe
Uatopatateroimata of Ruataata
I roto ite ava itiuapoia tana mautamarii
Teoto noa ra
O Ruataata

Aue, uamauiuitonaaau
No reira, uapupuoia (i) tonatino
E tapaoteuru no te here metua
Tetumu o teora
O Ruataata

During the time of drought
A man called Ruataata was grieving
In the valley, his children cried of hunger
Ruataatafell in deep sorrows

He was heartbroken
That is why he sacrificed himself to save them all
The breadfruit is a symbol of a parent’s love for his children and his people
He is the source of life

b) The first symbol used in this story is drought and famine which symbolises death, starvation, hunger and a world without life. This symbol clearly shows the struggles villagers had to go through without any sign of food crops grown. The second symbol is the man’s sacrifice. This shows the heart of a man who has no limit when it comes to saving its own family. We can also see that this man was willing, with all his heart and soul, to give his life to save and free his family and his people from famine and drought. This truly is an inspiration to me because he would do anything for the one he loves. Also, when we come across difficulties, parents always do their best to comfort, help and save the family, and sometimes parents have to sacrifice for the sake of their children. As a result, we can see that through the strong love of a parent towards his family and also the deep responsibility of a parent towards the family.

Nevertheless, the breadfruit in this story symbolises a new life, a new start for the people to rejoice again. Furthermore, I would like to put into detail the structure of the breadfruit tree in my tradition. Firstly, the leaves of the tree represent the man’s hands. Secondly, the branches of the tree itself are his arms, the roots are his feet and legs. The trunk represents his whole body and at last, the fruit represents the man’s head. As you can see, the gods have perfectly transformed the man into something that will be useful for the village. Therefore, the tree gives food, shelter, and medicines for villagers. Additionally, this mythical story gives us another perspective and understanding to the life that we live in with all its structures.

Lastly, there is also another point I would like to share and that is the name of the man called, Ruataata. This name is a special name which I did not tell the meaning of the name from the beginning of this assignment. But now I will tell you the meaning. Ruataata in TeReoMaohi means, two persons or people. Rua means two and the word Taata means a person. As you can see, the name is divided into two sections which means that Ruataata is one person that transformed into something else. In this case, the man was transformed into a tree which was able to feed the whole village. Therefore, it is one person with two distinct faces and body. Finally, this story is a story that I will cherish and pass it on to my children because it contains great and beautiful meanings behind it and as a Tahitian young woman, I am proud of my culture and my history. 

Congratulations Maiarii!

And another first. First time back in the office since shocking fall and painful surgery. Nisha's presence on Friday made PTC very happy indeed. Not yet on legs, but wheels will do just fine for now. Praying for your speedy, full recovery and all respect to Nurse Nitesh too!

Bugles in Heaven

Some grieving over here, combined with massive gratitude. It's been a week of lively and poignant communications with friends and contacts in the light of this news.

Methodist Church announce Rev Dr Colin Morris' death

Preacher, author and broadcaster Rev Dr Colin Morris has died.

The past president of the Methodist Conference was head of religious broadcasting and controller of BBC Northern Ireland from 1987 to 1991.

He served as a missionary in Zambia and was elected as the first President of the United Church of Zambia.

The Rev Canon Gareth J Powell, Secretary of the Methodist Conference, said he was "one of the most effective and thoughtful communicators".

Outspoken

The Rev Dr Morris, who was born in Bolton, became known for his passionate and outspoken views on political and social issues.

He became a close friend of President Kenneth Kaunda, with whom he worked  during negotiations for Zambia's independence.

"In Colin, Methodism was faithfully and passionately represented but more than that - the gospel was proclaimed with integrity," added Rev Powell.

"He took the task seriously, was alert to the contexts in which he served, and above all he waited on God."

Sandy, Colin's wife, their immediate loved ones and all those who'll be closely involved in funeral and farewell gatherings are being firmly held in prayer here, far across the waters. And why wouldn't we? Colin headed up the British Methodist Church's Overseas Division for some memorable years during his ministry. His correspondence archive contains letters from the Methodist Church in Fiji. He was a prophet of many parts.

He was also my PhD subject. An unwilling one, self-confessed. 'I can't think why you're bothering', he used to say wryly, in the no-nonsense Lancashire tones that never left him, while handing me another carton of 'treasures' - unpublished manuscripts in various stages of completion, correspondence, newspaper clippings, cassette tapes, sermon skeletons, lectures, speeches and scribblings. These were logged and filed during the research - about 1000 items up to 2013 - and deposited at the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History with his knowledge and extraordinarily kind permission. There simply aren't words sufficient to  express my gratitude to him for this generosity.

The reason I bothered is below: expressed as well as I was able, in order to justify both conviction about the subject/project alongside sufficient, rigorous academic detachment. Colin would have been teasingly scathing about that sort of establishment requirement, considering it rather po-faced and pretentious. I knew just what he meant, but produced the goods anyhow rather than put the whole thing in jeopardy. It just meant sharing part of my Christian testimony basically, in the kind of way that wouldn't cause a PhD examiner to wrinkle their nose and tut too much. Here it is.

3.3.2   Looking Within

My personal interest in Colin Morris’s life and work needs to be declared. It is not detrimental to academic detachment: it rather represents a small background section in the jigsaw. There is nothing dramatically colourful that should grab attention but, like an indefinable piece of blue sky or green grass, it must be given its place in the totality of this project. 

In 1976, at the age of sixteen, I was confirmed at Plymouth Grove Methodist Church, Manchester. This rite of passage marked a serious personal commitment to the Christian faith. It was the year of Colin Morris’s Presidency of the Methodist Conference and his influence was everywhere. Northern, working class Methodism of which I was a part revered him, not least because of his Bolton roots. My own father, a committed, cradle Methodist with a living faith died suddenly two years later at the age of fifty-four. He had spoken frequently about Colin Morris and admired tremendously his preaching and principles. I respected my father and absorbed much from this. I read Include me Out! with its poignant story of the starving Zambian found dead on Morris’s doorstep, while I was in my teens and about to embark on a first theological degree in Manchester. Because of it, I wanted to change the world. I began by training to be a Methodist local (lay) preacher. How else? 

Vocationally and professionally since that period, my background has been in radio broadcasting, as a minister in the Methodist Church here in Britain - but ordained in the United Church of Zambia where I served on the Copperbelt from 1993-1998 - teaching in the field of global mission education at the Selly Oak Colleges and the Queen’s Foundation in Birmingham (2000-2009), and regularly preaching, speaking and broadcasting. There is no comparison whatsoever intended between the magnificent breadth, substance and reach of Dr Morris’s work and my own. To suggest so would be as ludicrous as it would be embarrassing. I am simply fascinated by the autobiographical points of connection: vocational, professional and geographical; entirely unplanned. 

3.3.3 Looking in totality 

In summary then, this study embraces and is energised by Creswell’s support of the biographical or life history approach to qualitative research and has applied his criteria to make a justifiable case. There is sufficient literature by or related to Morris who more than fulfils the requirement that the research subject should be ‘someone who has had a distinguished career, someone in the national spotlight…’  Accessible and available material about the subject from historical or present day sources Creswell sees as essential, and this is exactly what the Morris database affords. Drawing heavily on Denzin’s interpretive biography, Creswell’s four challenges for the interpretive biographer are regard as baseline principles for this study: the collection of extensive subject-related materials; the positioning of the subject historically and contextually within the larger trends in society or culture; the necessity of reading the life as a multi-layered phenomenon; and the writer-researcher being able to acknowledge her standpoint in the narrative.

Brinkmann, writing on the use of everyday life materials in interpretative qualitative research, is keen that researchers build on questions and problems that are of genuine interest to themselves. The Colin Morris Collection’s materials are somehow ‘everyday’ and unusual in equal measure, and my particular interest is in what they reveal about one human life-script which has been consistently able to traverse different territories and make radical, vocal impact. Or, how one ‘voice’ has managed to communicate its messages transcriptively into and out of many audiences and across competing cultures. The key to unlocking that question in the thesis is activated by conscious, radical, looking, listening, reading and questioning throughout. 

Colin, communicator par excellence, inspired me to road test a bit of new vocabulary. That was one of the things that caused mild examiner tutting and nose-wrinkling. I tried to put forward the case that he was able to communicate, with consummate skill, transcriptively; ie. across hugely varied scripts and spaces, and in doing so, brought a wealth of theory and resource to communicators within the Church and without. In the 'transcriptive space' of Colin's communications, scripts intertwine and interact, themes emerge, are reworked and reemerge, and the whole marketplace or dancefloor of scripts is wonderfully energetic and mutually creative. That was the gist, anyhow.

And now, since being in Fiji, it's been absolutely fascinating to reflect even more about  this notion, enriched by precious, intricate, indigenous Pacific understandings of communication, under the umbrella term talanoa. What I understand of talanoa is a miniscule drop in the vast ocean, but out of initial musings, and much encouraged by Pacific colleagues, transcriptive space met talanoa in this Conference article. I share it for your interest below, but primarily as a personal tribute to Colin. It wouldn't have happened without him. 

Neither would a whole lot of other things that have made the world a better place.

Bless you, Colin. Thank you, Lord. 

Here's that Conference article I mentioned. Should I have taken the carving knife to it?

Transcriptive Space meets Talanoa

A paper presented to the 14th Assembly of the International Association for Mission Studies. 11-17 August 2016, Seoul.

In the Education by Extension (Distance Learning) Department at the Pacific Theological College, we are often asked by students for a certified copy of their transcript. A transcript details someone’s educational achievement. We click the button on a departmental database and usually - because sometimes the spirit blows where it will in Microsoft Access - a neat summary of courses and credits appears. An accurate transcript is a precious piece of communication. It is much more than documentation. It can speak volumes: not least to the one who earned it; the human being, the very mind and heart, flesh and blood whose sweat and toil brought forth the words and got the grades. So precious is this unique piece of student communication that many universities are keen to boast about their watertight transcript stationery: a secure and personalised hologram, controlled watermarked paper, innovative and highly secure ink, verifiable numbering matrices and security infilling. Nobody messes with our transcripts, is the stern message.

The prefix ‘trans’ before ‘script’ is useful. It suggests a script that can move: not a piece of stationery that is stationary. It refers, in the academic sense of course, to the summary of achievement across a spectrum of learning. Someone has navigated their canoe through oceans of learning. ‘Well done!’ we say. Here’s a flag to nail proudly to your mast. But that flag-transcript, flying high, will inevitably catch the breeze and face the elements if the person’s voyage of discovery continues. Unchartered waters beckon; choppy seas, maybe. That flag-transcript can be raised aloft for sure: as a formal record of learning, it should not be tampered with. But for it to be any use in practical mission, the formal script cannot stay forever in the safe harbour of the issuing University and the student’s ornamental photo frame. The transcript needs to become powerfully transcriptive; credited learning able to live again and communicate afresh across multiple places and spaces. 

In recent years, I have researched the mission and ministry of someone who, I humbly propose, has operated transcriptively. (Ogden 2014). The Revd Dr Colin Morris, now in his eighties, permitted me within his own lifetime, and with breathtaking generosity, to scrutinise a huge range of published and unpublished documents and scripts emerging from his life of multiple identities and contexts. The Colin Morris Collection comprises about 1000 items, now held as a hard-copy collection in the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History.[1]

Allow me to introduce Dr Morris briefly, though briefly is hardly sufficient. Colin Morris was a Methodist ‘boy preacher’ in the 1930s, in the North of England. His family were from Salvation Army and Primitive Methodists roots. His father was a coal miner. They were down to earth, working class people. It was soon discovered that Colin Morris was a gifted communicator and could enthral a crowd as he preached in the open air, at a very young age. Much later, this communicator’s gifts in political and pulpit oratory led him into the British Methodist ministry and the mission field of Northern Rhodesia, later Zambia. His high profile role in the country’s freedom struggle, its movement towards Independence in 1964, his friendship with Dr Kenneth Kaunda and his own presidency of the newly formed United Church of Zambia are reasonably well documented, though in popular (Charlton 1968) not academic forms (Laird 1980). [2] Returning to England in 1970, he became Superintendent of Wesley’s Chapel, popularly known as the ‘Cathedral of Methodism’, in City Road, London, until his appointment in 1973 as General Secretary of the newly branded Methodist Church Overseas Division, previously the Methodist Missionary Society (Pritchard 2014:43). Inevitably, British Methodists were to choose him as their church’s president for a memorable and highly publicised one year term 1976-77. In 1978 Colin Morris joined the British Broadcasting Corporation as Head of Religious Television and was then, successively, Head of Religious Broadcasting and BBC Controller, Northern Ireland. Morris retired from the BBC in 1991 and until 1996 was Director of the Centre for Religious Communication in Oxford. He continues to write and reflect on major themes: mission, media, politics, prophecy, ethics and communications would be frequent favourites.

The territories of operation for Dr Morris have included the pulpit under fire, the radical political platform, the mission field, the global mission desk, the minister’s study, the broadcast studio and the busy newsroom. I contend that Morris operates most effectively in the transcriptive space these territories spawn as scripts converse, collide, intersect and reemerge. The broadcaster within Morris constantly dialogues with the preacher, the author within him converses with the lecturer and so on and so forth. Transcriptive space – a term I have coined - is of essence non-geographic: there is no locatable temple, no abiding city in which to dwell comfortably and permanently. It is communicative space where diverse yet related scripts converse. 

The point of this paper, emerging with immense gratitude from Morris’s work, is to offer the notion of transcriptive space, if useful, as a working tool for mission thinking and practice. It may not be. Of particular interest to me at present, understandably, are the faith and life ‘trans-scripts’ of my current context, the Pacific Theological College in Fiji, where Tuvalu meets Samoa; West Papua meets Kiribati; home islander meets distanced diaspora; mainstream church meets new religious movement and residential education meets distance learning. Converting and transforming encounters abound in the transcriptive space that is PTC. This may be when the received script of biblical literalism meets the current literature on climate change, for example, or when ordained women from one Pacific mainstream denomination encounter sisters from another Pacific mainstream denomination unable to pursue ordination because their denominational script; culturally, historically and ecclesiologically, has emerged differently. Just two examples of many.

When the transcriptive space notion travelled with me to a new life in Fiji in 2014, I wondered what might become of it, if anything? How God might use it, if at all? Almost immediately I found myself bathing in rippling tides of talanoa: the Pacific communicative concept and space common to many contexts. As a well-disciplined mission partner, I’d read a little about talanoa previously in the course of teaching mission studies and in preparation for the new ministry.[3] But when you’re in London, on the top deck of the bus, reading about talanoa as the icy-cold rain beats against the window and you shiver; it’s a world away from Suva, seated in community space, on precious woven mats, inhaling the sun-blessed fragrance of earth and ocean, engaging in talanoa. 

A tidy talanoa definition is almost impossible to pin down, but Jione Havea has written expansively on this theme.

Talanoa is a word used in several of the native languages in Oceania (also known as Pacific Islands) to refer to three interconnected events: story, act of telling (of memories, stories, longings and more), and occasion of conversation (teasingly and critically and usually informally). Talanoa is more than one or two of these, for talanoa is all three events – story, telling, conversation – together. Talanoa is a point of intersection, like a passage in a reef, through which currents and waves whirl with the rising and receding tides. (Havea 2010:11)

Talanoa as a point of intersection. Where whirling currents and waves meet. What a powerful Pacific optic impelling me to look again at so many aspects of Colin Morris’s ministry and mission. In the 1950s, for example, the scripts of Northern Rhodesia’s freedom campaigners intersected with Morris’s in such a profound way that they revolutionised the biblical exegesis and application that had previously informed his preaching, completely rewriting the scripts (Morris 1961:32-33). These were waves of change indeed. It was through life-changing talanoa – never called that of course – with passionate, articulate, black African leaders of the time: Sokota Wina, Godwin Lewanika, Lawrence Katilungu and, definitively, Kenneth Kaunda that Morris’s life scripts were transformed and transcribed (Kaunda/Morris 1980).[4] The vastness and complexity of all Morris had previously been exposed to and schooled in through Western philosophy, anthropology, theology and political science: the myriad words and ideas, took on flesh with intelligibility, simplicity and dignity in the form of those with whom he sat, ate, wrote and debated.

What else in these oh-so-tentative early explorations of talanoa and transcriptive space? Karlo Mila-Schaaf, writing on social work practice, draws on the Samoan socio-spatial concept of vä with reference to a number of Pacific thinkers. Vä, it seems, has room for both speech and space. She writes,

If we imagine that you and I are positioned on a map, vä is used to describe the nature of the terrain that lies between us. It is the ‘imagined’ space that we ‘feel’ as opposed to see. Ka’ili writes that: ‘Vä emphasises space in between. This is fundamentally different from the popular western notion of space as an expanse or an open area’ (Ka’ili, 2005: 89). As Albert Wendt writes, the vä is: ‘Not space that separates but space that relates’ (Wendt, cited in Refiti, 2002: 209). One can imagine or visualise the gardens and boundaries between people. Either they are tended and fruitful, or they are barren and unsafe. (Mila-Schaaf 2006:1)

In conversation with the Samoan concept of vä, transcriptive space is both focussed and enlivened. Perhaps, seen this way, it is less a performance stage on which competing players with their scripts jostle to be in the spotlight and more relational ground which allows for breathing space and transformational exchange. The terrain between our human life-scripts and that of others is perhaps not so vast after all, and not necessarily oppositional. Transaction and transcription for mutual benefit are possible. Colin Morris political campaigner and Colin Morris pulpit preacher can dig the same soil as they tend carefully the space in-between their scripts, anticipating new shoots and a mouth-watering harvest.

These Pacific-inspired thoughts are as yet few, and without polish. I have much to learn. Exposure at IAMS will refine them and help them to shine a little brighter. Thank you. [5]

Bibliography and references

Charlton, Leslie (1969). Spark in the Stubble. London: Epworth Press.

Havea, Jione (2010). Talanoa ripples: Across borders, cultures, disciplines. Pasifika@ Massey.

Laird, Doris., ‘Colin Morris, Modern Missionary.’ PhD diss., Florida State University College of Arts and Sciences, 1980.

Lilomaiava-Doktor, Sa'iliemanu. "Beyond" migration": Samoan population movement (Malaga) and the geography of social space (Vā)." The Contemporary Pacific (2009): 1-32.

Mila-Schaaf, Karlo. "Va-centred social work: Possibilities for a Pacific approach to social work practice." Social Work Review 18, no. 1 (2006): 8.

Morris, Colin (1961) The Hour After Midnight. London: Longmans.

Morris, Colin., ed (1980) Kaunda on Violence. London: Collins.

             Ogden, Valerie., ‘Information made Intimate.’ PhD diss. Spurgeon’s College/University of Wales. 2014

https://www.academia.edu/15099007/Information_made_Intimate.

Accessed 20 May 2016

Pritchard, John (2014). Methodists and their Missionary Societies. Farnham: Ashgate

Refiti, A. (2002). Making Spaces: Polynesian Architecture in Aotearoa/ New Zealand. In S. Mallon and P.F. Pereira (Eds.). Pacific Art Niu Sila: The Pacific Dimension of Contemporary New Zealand Arts. Te Papa Press: Wellington: 209-225

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[1] http://www.history.brookes.ac.uk/Research/Centre-for-Methodism-and-Church-History/Special-Collections/

Viewing by appointment.

             [2] With the exception of Doris Laird’s 1980 unpublished doctoral thesis, ‘Colin Morris, Modern Missionary’ covering the Northern Rhodesia-Zambia years only, and which I critique in Ogden, Valerie ‘Information made Intimate.’ 172-178.

[3] Discovering that there is an ever expanding contemporary and critical talanoa literature, not least in the area of academic research methodology. See for example, Fa‘avae, David, Alison Jones, and Linitā Manu‘atu. "Talanoa ‘i ‘ae Talanoa—Talking about Talanoa: Some dilemmas of a novice researcher." AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 12, no. 2 (2016) and Vaioleti, Timote. "Talanoa: Differentiating the talanoa research methodology from phenomenology, narrative, Kaupapa Maori and feminist methodologies."Te Reo 56 (2013): 191.

[4] See the preface to Kaunda on Violence (London: Collins, 1980).

[5] I express sincere thanks also for the conversations and colleagueship of our Oceanic and increasingly global faculty and learning community at the Pacific Theological College, Suva. www.ptc.ac.fj. You have in many ways fed this paper and its musings. I am wholly responsible for its inadequacies. Vinaka vakalevu. Tenkyu tumas. Fa’afetai tele lava.