Pastor Peter’s Pod

Kia ora e te whānau.
 
I’m wondering how people are getting on with reading through the Book of Daniel week by week in our services. It is a real anomaly of a book, isn’t it? And yet the stories are really absorbing – although in some ways intensely irritating, too, in their glibness. I’m convinced that they were intended to be read with a sense of drama, as they are filled with so much exaggeration and repetition, and they are almost absurd at times. Why were they written? Very probably to encourage people facing persecution and oppression. How would they have been heard by the first readers? Probably as pointers to God who is with them in all their adversity. The challenge we face, then, is to keep thinking about what they might have to say to us today as we read them in our times. Happy reading!
 
There doesn’t seem to be a lot of let-up in the COVID news from Auckland, does there? We are discovering as the weeks unfold that there are some incredibly vulnerable sections of the population up there who, through the ways they have ended up living, are much more susceptible to the transmission of infection from this virus. Life isn’t simple and straight forward for many of these people – and enforced isolations and quarantines must be hard for them to grapple with and understand. We need to be praying so much for grace and love and patience to abound! It must be so hard, also, for all Aucklanders who struggle on, knowing that the rest of us elsewhere in the country are better off – for now, at least! (Carol and I are still waiting to hear what is to happen to our September Court Theatre booking – but that is the worst of our problems from COVID, so we definitely have no sense that we are in any ways victims of the government’s policies!)
 
The church staff this week did an in-depth exploration of ways which we could maybe look at meeting one Sunday in or around Ilam School. There are a number of complications around making it happen – not least of all that the 100-person limit necessitates that groups are kept apart, which could be fairly hard to police, especially with the kids. With school holidays starting, we have decided to stick with home-based Ilam in Groups again this week, and maybe review things for the future following on the next round of Government announcements due on Monday. That said, we’re always open to suggestions and ideas – maybe there are other ways we could meet as larger groups, especially if the weather becomes a bit more settled for outdoors.
 
Roll on Alert Level 1!  In the meantime, I hope that you’re staying safe and that if you’re heading away over the holidays, you have some quality family time – I hear rumours of some long distance tramps being planned!
 
Poem for this week.
 
You’re possibly already familiar with the poem which I’ve chosen for this week  by John Donne. I realise, though, as I have read and re-read it today just how much it still feels like a prayer I need to be praying.  It may also resonate for you (if you can work your way into the early 17^th century English, that is!). If you have a few moments, sit with it and use it for a time of reflection.
 
Batter my heart, three-person’d God
John Donne
 
Batter my heart, three-person’d God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp’d town to another due,
Labour to admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv’d, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lov’d fain,
But am betroth’d unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthral me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.