Posts from June 2025

Blessed are you when you have a sinus infection and are curled up on the couch in the sun with the cat on your knee…I wasn’t feeling much like reading so I ended up listening to an audiobook about the Beatitudes called The Ninefold Path of Jesus, by Mark Scandrette.  There was something relaxing and almost comforting about tuning in to the slightly robotic voice and being ‘read to’.  But the messages from the book are quite challenging and counter-cultural: “Instead of…

A Walk in the RainI really enjoy walking in our city’s green spaces. In our local neighbourhood we are fortunate to have places like the stunning Halswell Quarry and also Te Kuru, a vast wetland and stormwater basin to wander through. In Ilam, near the church office, we have the beautiful Ilam Homestead Gardens and the magnificent Riccarton Bush. Several times a week I head out for a stroll through these urban breathing rooms. The rhythm of footfall often moves…

The Daily Practice of Incarnation“Kinship and kingdom are the same thing … God’s dream is that we find kinship and connection.” (Father Gregory Boyle) Over the past weeks I have been reading Barbara Taylor Brown’s book An Altar in the World, in which she writes about ‘the daily practice of incarnation’ – a life of embodied faith that recognizes the importance of the body in God’s revelation to us. Jesus’ final instructions to his disciples the night before he died did not comprise a…