An end or a beginning?

Rāpare - Rua tekau mā ono - Hakihea

Tuesday 26th December

He Whakaaroaro (Reflect)

Counting Down to Christ-mas is over for another year, yet the celebration of the birth of Christ continues Our journey continues. In the church calendar we’re now in the season of Christmas. The traditional festival lasts for 12 days. Even beyond the next 12 days, our hope for each of us, both ourselves and our subscribers, that we’ll take the inspiration we’ve experienced over the last few weeks and carry it into our days, months and years ahead. The celebration of God-With-Us is ongoing and never-ending and it informs the ways in which we live out our every day God-filled experiences. We end our countdown for Christ-mas 2024 with the feeling of beginning something new after the reflections of the last few days.

Our countdown to Christ-mas this year has been very special and the feedback we’ve received from tangata both here in Aotearoa and from countries far from us has reflected how very much appreciated our bilingual offering has been.

In today’s email we’d each like to offer our own reflections and invite you to post your own feedback in the comments or in the chat or to send it to us via email or messaging. We’ll post one more email sometime over this next 12 days of Christ-mas, showcasing a few more pōhutukawa pics, a few more images of Jacynthia’s art that we just couldn’t fit into our series, hopefully some of your creations that you’ve made and would like to share with others, and some of our subscriber feedback. We’d love it if you could spare a few minutes to share your thoughts or photos so we can share these with the wider subscriber base.

Korero from Caroline

It has been a real privilege for me to write this year’s resource. The idea has been bubbling along in my head for a few years now, but I knew I’d need to find a collaborator who could guide me and help make it happen. I love the whakatauki we shared on the first day of our Countdown. “Whāia te mātauranga hei oranga mō tātou - he waka eke noa” Seek after learning for wellbeing - we are in this waka together.“ When Jacynthia and I had our first meeting together, I knew instantly that we were going to create something wonderful together. I am deeply appreciative of the way Jacynthia has encouraged and guided me as we’ve navigated this waka together. I’ve grown in my understanding of what taha Māori means not just for this season, but for how I live every day as tauiwi in this beautiful country of Aotearoa, New Zealand. I have enormous respect for Māori culture and my desire is to continue to show respect and to incorporate more of the rich learnings I continue to discover into my every day life and actions. My journey over these last few weeks and months has made me a little braver to try. Try to speak more reo, try to understand things from a Māori perspective, try to do more to care for our natural world, try to be a voice of calm in confusing and troubling times.

I’m about to go on holiday to a familiar place on Āwhitu peninsula where I’ve been holidaying for almost 20 years. I’ll still be in Tāmaki Makaurau, but it will take us 3 hours drive to get there as we drive from north to south and east to west, moving from one peninsula to another. There is a property not far from where we stay that has a sign on the gate. It simply says, “Manaakitanga”. Years ago when I first read the sign I had to look up what the word meant. I could not believe that I’d never known or understood there was such a single beautiful word which encapsulates the very essence of what it means to me in how I live out my faith. It was the first word that I knew I wanted to include in our countdown.

Language is a journey. When we’re open to listening we can always hear new words with new meanings. When John came up with the name, ‘the Word’ for Jesus, he showed his readers of the Bible that being a follower of Jesus was an open-ended, all encompassing journey. It’s continuous and enriching. I want to thank Jacynthia for joining me on this journey and I want to thank you too, the subscribers who open up these emails and read them and support our work. To all those who’ve contributed videos, photos, comments or any other support I am especially grateful. For those who were shy, nervous and a bit worried about how they presented, I want you to know how much it means to me that you were involved. The community of subscribers gathering each year for Advent is very special to me. This is my favourite resource to write and I want to thank you for the ways that you encourage this work. This would not have been possible without your contributions and support.

May God be with you in this Christmas season and this coming year.

Korero from Jacynthia

“Ahakoa he iti, he pounamu - Although it is small, it is greenstone”. This poignant whakatauki speaks fondly into the production of this year’s ‘Counting Down to Christ-mas’ (CD2C). It is an expression that acknowledges one’s humble contribution to a bigger taonga. It reveals the feelings one might experience when we receive something we think is really precious rather than very ordinary. Much like God’s extraordinary pounamu/taonga of Ihu Karaiti in human form. The pounamu metaphor is simply something gifted from the heart and that’s what makes our CD2C 2024 very precious. He taonga pounamu!

Our CD2C resources are a culmination of many passionate people who have given willingly and lovingly. We all envisaged that the learning experience and enjoyment would one day be a pounamu to others also. It has been a huge blessing to share these taonga within God’s inspired CD2C.

Ngā mihi mahana tino nui ki a Kararaina (Caroline) for reaching out and in her gentle persuasive way convinced me that I may have something to offer. My passion and compassion for Taha Taiao must have been evident when we first connected and to be asked to exhibit my whakaaro is a great blessing. Thank you for discerning my aroha to advocate for environmental justice and how we are to be the best kaitiaki we can be. Thank you for allowing my artwork to speak in a way that each of us might consider a re-think, reset, recycle, repurpose, and upcycle. It is to simply see how we have neglected what te Taiao cyclically provides for our aesthetic and wairua pleasure.

Kararaina, it has been a wonderfully humbling and inspiring experience to walk alongside you and Kererū Publishing in resurrecting some of these resources and producing some fresh material also. You are God centred and focused on our joint commitment to serve. Your expertise in publishing material is outstanding. I have followed your taonga for some time and I particularly enjoyed the ‘spices’ series which I actively displayed on our 2022 parish Christ-mas tree. Coupling with Taiao inspired ensembles was indicative of our collaborative efforts in this 2024 edition. I confess that you are very ‘infectious’ when it comes to Advent celebrations. Ngā mihi aroha.

Te Taiao goes on giving us the ‘pounamu’ of life here on earth. In so many locations we may not actually notice all the precious gifts around us, yet once we look, learn and grow we can fully realise our place within creation and be thankful for it. CD2C 2024 encapsulates the ‘Uara’ that I hold most dear as taught to me by my grandmother and parents and they by their ancestors before them. They include aroha, kotahitanga, manaakitanga, tiakitanga, rangatiratanga, whānaungatanga, matauranga, and the many uara we have humbly unpacked in this series.

As we look to the horizon of 2025 and beyond let us collectively experience our Saviour in all that we do and remembering to give thanks each day for all that we are and all that creation does for our oranga.

Meri Kirihimete me te tau hou ki a koutou katoa. Ma te Atua e manaaki e tiaki i ngā wā katoa, kia tau te rangimārie.

As a wāhine Māori, there are sometimes challenges that I must navigate each day. The blessing is that our Creator makes a path that opens our eyes to dream and pursue that which is for the wellbeing of all, one-day-at-a-time! Āmine!!

Big shout out to Mat Paese/Mixxtape Studios with this video by Zeneth Talasinga, sung by the Williams Sisters of Ex Nihilo, and directed by Ex Nihilo. Adapted by Jacynthia Murphy for wāhine motivational talks.

Karakia (prayer)

May we be tangata who care for the taonga of God’s creation.

May we be tangata who care for the taonga of walking alongside fellow travellers on this journey of life.

May we be tangata who grow in our spiritual life and treat our relationships with Jesus Christ as taonga.

May we be tangata who live out our faith in new ways, constantly being open to hearing from God in unexpected ways.

May God be with us all.

Amine