At a recent retreat for Tikanga Pakeha bishops, we were introduced to this poem. I shared it recently at Ministry Leaders’ Family Camp, and wanted to offer it again now for us all to reflect on as we enter the second half of Lent.

It’s a good poem for Lent. It speaks to the uncertainty of the season as we take the opportunity with the Spirit to wrestle over the habits and familiar ways of being that perhaps separate aspects of ourselves from God. It speaks I think too to the habits of us as a church at large as we look ahead to the future and learn what it might mean for us to breathe underwater. And it has resonance too as we continue pray for and support communities so badly affected by Cyclone Gabrielle and wonder what it means to be God’s people in the face of climate change.

I begin the first part of my sabbatical this week; enjoying God’s creation around Rakiura Stewart Island. I look forward to seeing you all again for the Holy Week journey, and encourage you to grab a carload and come along to one of the Chrism services as we recommit together to our covenant relationship with God and with each other, and journey with Jesus to the cross.

+Justin

“I built my house by the sea.
Not on the sands, mind you;
not on the shifting sand.
And I built it of rock.
A strong house
by a strong sea.
And we got well acquainted, the sea and I.
Good neighbours.
Not that we spoke much.
We met in silences.
Respectful, keeping our distance,
but looking our thoughts across the fence of sand.
Always, the fence of sand our barrier,
always, the sand between.
And then one day,
-and I still don’t know how it happened -
the sea came.
Without warning.
Without welcome, even
Not sudden and swift, but a shifting across the sand like wine,
less like the flow of water than the flow of blood.
Slow, but coming.
Slow, but flowing like an open wound.
And I thought of flight and I thought of drowning and I thought of death.
And while I thought the sea crept higher, till it reached my door.
And I knew, then, there was neither flight, nor death, nor drowning.
That when the sea comes calling, you stop being neighbours,
Well acquainted, friendly-at-a-distance neighbours,
And you give your house for a coral castle,
And you learn to breathe underwater.”

— Breathing Under Water (Sr. Carol Bialock, RSCJ)