Your indulgence for a rambling kind of post is appreciated. I have no striking thesis to develop this week. I am typing this in the airport at Chatham Island (where our most remote parish is), waiting for our plane to land, it having been delayed because of storms in New Zealand disrupting its flights yesterday. We have been here for five days and had the best weather ever of four trips here over the past eight years.
The Chathams, as always, inspire with the beauty of isolated land sitting in the midst of surrounding seas.
During those five days there has been a good result for the All Blacks under their new coach, some amazing results in the World Cup, a good outcome (in my view) of ACC deliberations re the Nairobi-Cairo Proposals, all kinds of machinations in the Catholic world over the SSPX episcopal ordinations, a Chinese ballistic missile launched into the Pacific Ocean, and, incredibly, President Trump intervening to change the outcome of a red card against an American player and the FIFA President meekly obliging. What a broken world!
I am pleased that the ACC is (at the least) pausing to reflect further on the nature of a Communion which should involve communion with Canterbury rather than not. (See, e.g., this Living Church report).
On a completely different note, I had seen good reports of "Prime Minister", a documentary about Jacinda Ardern's time as our Prime Minister (2017-2023), and last night had a chance to watch it courtesy of Netflix (upon which site it remains for about another 30 hours). I found it very moving (and very well produced, though no surprises there because Jacinda's husband, Clarke Gayford, is a top TV cinematographer). Sure, I know we can have a discussion about the financial legacy of the latter years of her premiership (none of which is mentioned in the film), but the moving part of the film was the humanity of our then PM as she met some huge challenges, with little or no rest between them - raw emotion is involved. Only view if you are comfortable being moved to tears.
Hopefully back to a longer and better focused post next week ... our plane has landed here in the Chathams, ... and life resumes in (very cold, damp) Christchurch.
7 comments:
I really love this post, +Peter! Best wishes for a safe and pleasant flight home. I'm glad it was so nice there during your trip!
I read the Living Church article, (thank you), and was struck by this comment:
“On same-sex marriage there are two opposing doctrines. Either one is right and the other is wrong or both are wrong—but both can’t be right.”
It occurred to me that in my life I had a struggle with being ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. But my salvation came via a young woman telling me, “It’s not about right and wrong but trusting Jesus through it all”.
Maybe I am into situational ethics, but it seems that in the faith and in Scripture, there are sometimes contradictions which, on the face of it, can’t both be right. But they are, given the context, and trusting the Lord.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
(Gerard Manley Hopkins, "God's Grandeur")
I thought to offer this note about a new NZ political analysis essay on Pope Leo's AI encyclical - I follow Deb Te Kawa on Substack and today she posted this essay. I've just read a bit of it, but for those of you happy to delve into serious writing perhaps it will be of interest! One paragraph for context:
"The encyclical’s questions, in other words, are public administration questions that the AI governance discourse keeps forgetting it inherited. And I should be plain about the lens I am using, because it shapes everything that follows. I am not reading these instruments as a technologist, and I make no claim to be one. I come at this through political theory, through questions of consent, ethics, legitimacy, and good governance, and through the empirical field of public administration: how institutions actually behave, where discretion actually sits, and what happens to the people on the receiving end of the state."
https://debtekawa.substack.com/p/under-the-hood-a-detour-magnifica
Love this poem and more and more believing what GMH discerned.
"So far as I can see the words “being in impaired communion” within a church are little more than a euphemism for denying the legitimacy of ordained women."
Interesting reflections on ACC-19 including how the Nairobi-Cairo protocols etc were received (spoiler: lukewarmly:
https://thurible.net/2026/07/10/acc-19-the-anglican-consultative-council-in-belfast/
Hi Mark
I am using The Thurible post in my blog for this week!
Peter
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