Levuka Days

There's been a birthday in February. If you happened upon the Facebook or Twitter feeds, you'll be familiar with me saying I knew it was my birthday in a globalised world because Google said so, and in Fiji because it said 'Ma'am' on the cake.

I've tried - and managed for a number of years now - to do something retreat-like around my birthday and have a bit of a think and a pray. I've managed this each year in Fiji so far: 2015 in Sydney for Holy Week (a few weeks' later than the actual birthday, but never mind), 2016 in orchid gardens four days pre-Cyclone, and this year in Levuka, Fiji's first capital.

I went early Saturday morning. A 12 min Northern Air island-to-island hop at an exquisite height of 1000 feet (so, so stunning....) and no tedious faffing about, up-ing and down-ing the wheels. Returned early Monday.

Settled on a theme of 'vocation' as the reflective focus. Took some helpful reading which I'll come back to in a minute. The idea of a quiet, solo retreat is a bit odd to colleagues here in a culture which is so community and family orientated. It generates a sort of quizzical, 'Where's she going and what's she up to?' kind of interest. Tourism we get: there's a lot of it about. But this? The RCs understand.

Levuka took a bad hit from Cyclone Winston a year ago and is still recovering. It's a gentle, beautiful, atmospheric city, oozing character, on Ovalau island which is lush, volcanic, and about 180 square km in size. A population of about 8000 people mostly live in villages around the coast and inside the crater of Lovoni. Levuka has 1/4 of Ovalau's population. Farming and fishing are the main sources of income and the main local employer is a tuna cannery.

Levuka was named Fiji’s first World Heritage Site in 2013 by UNESCO because it combines natural beauty, 19th century architecture and heartstopping ocean views, under the shade of coconut and mango trees.The tourism leaflet in my room listed proudly a number of Fiji’s historical firsts which occurred there: the first public school was established there in 1879; the first Masonic Lodge in the Pacific Islands in 1875; Fiji’s first newspaper, the Fiji Times in 1869; and the first bank, the Bank of New Zealand, opened there in 1876. Of these, the school and the lodge still stand, as does the oldest operating hotel in the South Pacific, the Royal Hotel, opened in the late 1850s. That's where I stayed in absolutely fascinating worn and faded colonial 'splendour'. A second floor room, cold water only, where everything from floorboard to headboard wobbled, groaned and creaked. A bit like the occupant, really. I hardly saw a soul and it was nourishing, reflective space.

8am Mass on Sunday at the Sacred Heart (built in 1858 by the Marist Fathers) was appreciated....

...as was some quiet time in one of the Wesley Division's Methodist churches, where the faithful are still worshipping under a temporary roof since Cyclone Winston.

I started reading William Placher's amazing collection of writings on the theme of vocation gathered from a broad swathe of Christian history. A varied menu and well worth chewing on. 

His concern about Churches being too cautious when it comes to challenging younger people seriously and radically about faith, I found refreshing. It's a reflection from outside the Pacific though and that struck me as I thought about context here. Fiji churches aren't cautious at all about urging faith commitment with action among young people, it seems to me. They just go for it.

Here's a short extract from Placher's thinking.

I'm no Spring chicken these days, as the birthday reminded me. But I realise how fortunate I was to have been taken seriously back in the teenage and young adult years as faith was forming. And to have been challenged about faith and life choices.

Levuka has a Mission Hill with 199 steps. It's well worth the climb and the resulting view. And there could be worse places for futher vocational reflection.

Thanks, Levuka.

Does God not see 

my ways and

number all my 

steps?

 Job 31.4