A visual representation of Manaakitanga would be the interplay of waves on the shore. With its repetitive flow the wave’s mana leaves its mark. In the same way, through our duty of care we share our inner presence and mana with others, and in doing so mana increases.  Duty of care is a necessary reciprocal and continual relationship between individuals (although not solely confined to humanity, but the includes all of creation) and then further into a wider community.

The Apostle Paul suggests that the church is the body of Christ, so every time we take Eucharist together, we are not just remembering the breaking of Jesus physical body, but we are invited to participate in it too. To remind us of the idea that we also might be given as life and nourishment for the world. And maybe we’re a little broken in the process – but like Jesus – the breaking offers an opportunity for resurrection life. 

Because of the way the ancient Hebrews understood God, they believed that God embedded rest into the very heart of creation itself. In fact, because human beings were created on the 6th day and God rested on the 7th day, in this story the first day that human creatures truly experience is a day of rest. Life is to be lived from rest, outward.

There is something beautiful, healthy and holy about naming our need, our longing, our desire, our pain, grief, or joy. We take these things that circulate in our heads and hearts and keep us awake at night and make us anxious and worry and stress and wonder and problem solve - and we bring them out of ourselves into the midst of this ongoing conversation that is already happening with God and with others.

No matter how small or insignificant we may feel or well pleased with our current disposition, prophetic encounter comes to disturb our blind obedience to the machine of life that can often trap us in a false sense of security or a hopelessness that says that this is all I am or will ever amount to. Prophetic encounter does not diminish your current status in life by suggesting a better option but rather somehow offers to advance to the ongoing evolution of your becoming.

Inspiration is a stunning metaphor that encapsulates the very essence of what it means to be prophetic, originally used to describe the ‘divine' at work in the cosmos, it gives us the scope to reconsider our participation in the  grand idea or reimagining and re-enchanting the world. Inspiration is innovation and inventiveness that pertains to the individual and corporate genius of our humanity.

The word healing in its simplest form means to become sound or healthy again, implying that there was a time when we were not. The Church is one such community, where the core value of ‘love’ is our catalyst, emulating and imaging the words of Jesus to ‘Love God…and to love our neighbor’ and is itself is a community of healing.

While it takes courage for someone to share their personal afflictions, it also requires grace, mercy, care and love of varying and effective degrees and styles to help people heal.

It was a sensory experience, a thing of beauty. The bread was placed in my mouth, which would be followed by a sip of wine from a beautiful chalice, a cup we would all share from. I can still feel the burning sensation of port trickling down my young throat. And it was an embodied experience. Posturing, waiting, kneeling, hands open, receiving, and tasting, this was an invitation into something real, real food, and something mysterious that this food also metaphored. 

Jesus offers us a different vision of what it means to be human, and offers the antidote to Psalm 137. Not the elimination of our need to express our pain and grief, but a refusal to use our pain and grief to turn us against one another. Instead, Jesus offers a kind of belonging that does not depend on excluding those who are different from us.