Discovering the essence of humanity from stories – seminal moments in a teaching career.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Maria Hayward

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Maria Hayward © 15 March 2026

A brief caveat: these stories include mention of suicide and incest.

I want to share some stories today – stories that derive from my early teaching experiences. Stories that shaped me into a different type of teacher than the nuns and others who taught me.

I learnt something even from just remembering the stories I’m going to share with you today. These are stories about how I, as a teacher, most poignantly and most intensely was able to develop and strengthen my pedagogy; and this learning derived in significant part, from the students themselves. I could tell so many refugee stories, but the following are from my secondary school teaching experience, and one is from my adult teaching role.

20 November is International Day of Remembrance of all those in the transgender community murdered in hate crimes in the previous 12 months. The transgender community have become the target of disinformation and vilification by politicians and the far-right. Perhaps it is time for the rest of us to stand up to transphobia.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Maria Hayward

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Maria Hayward © 16 November 2025

A couple of years ago, on Nov 20^th, my daughter asked me if I wanted to go with her to a special service at St Matthew-in-the-city for “Transgender Day of Remembrance”. We sat nervously, in the candlelit church, and read, in somewhat shock and distress really, as hundreds of names scrolled in a datashow list in front of us. These were the names of 370 transgender persons – almost all women – who had been murdered in the previous 12 months because of their gender identity.

And they were only the names of people from countries willing to report these hate killings, and only of those who were identified as trans at their murder.

I imagine there were many, many hundreds more – not counted.

Speaker & Worship Leader:- Maria Hayward

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Maria Hayward © 3 August 2025

Our theme for today is: “Refugees: people like you and me”, and during the korero time I’ll be giving you a slideshow of Te Āhuru Mōwai, the New Zealand Refugee Reception Centre in Mangere. I hope you’ll see from this picture story and commentary, that, colour, race, religion, attire, language and gender are merely superficial attributes – what connects us – is our shared humanity. We’re all human beings – yet some of us are born luckier than others.

As mentioned previously, our theme for today is: “Refugees: people like you and me”. I’d like to introduce this theme by reading the lyrics from the song you heard in the prelude: Dave Dobbyn’s ‘Welcome Home’ song. Dobbyn felt inspired to write this song after an anti-migrant march in Christchurch. He wrote it in 2005 to welcome migrants to this country – but it seems to fit the welcoming of former refugees even better – people who have been forced out of their home countries, mostly due to war, and then they come to a new, safe land.

Link to slideshow

The World Refugee Day Theme in 2025 is Solidarity with Refugees. There are record numbers of people in the world today who have been forcibly displaced. I hope the slideshow today has helped you feel some solidarity for people, who through no fault of their own, have been forced from their homes. They are people like us. The theme of solidarity urges us to move beyond words and take meaningful steps to support those forced to flee. Refugees don’t seek charity, they just want the opportunity to rebuild their lives, to contribute to their communities, and to live with dignity.

We can create change by advocating for lasting solutions to displacement. In listening to and understanding the stories of refugee journeys, we are reminded that welcoming refugees strengthens societies and builds communities where everyone belongs. Finally, to quote from the UN statement on this year’s theme of Solidarity: “Through collective action — from policy change and community engagement to sharing refugee voices — we affirm that refugees are not forgotten, not alone, and not without hope” (https://www.un.org/observances/refugee-day).

Meditation / Conversation starter

• Have you been in a social or other situation where there has been criticism about refugee settlement programmes?
• What have you learned from the recent UU talks that might perhaps help you to respond more confidently should these questions or comments arise again?

Speaker:- Maria Hayward
Worship Leader:- Ted Zorn

June 20 is World Refugee Day. This is an international day of celebration of the resilience of survivors of war or other conditions that force individuals to flee their home countries. It’s an opportunity to learn about the causes of forced flight, the NZ refugee resettlement programme and the truths and myths about refugees. For us as UU’s it’s also an opportunity to expand our compassion for displaced and oppressed people everywhere.

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Maria Hayward © 15 June 2025

June 20^th is World Refugee Day. It’s a day for remembering the plight of refugees around the world and for celebrating their resilience.

I would like to begin today’s talk with some definitions. A Refugee 101, if you like.

Firstly, I’ll explain the difference between: a refugee, a displaced person and an asylum seeker; and then the difference between a quota refugee and a convention refugee.

Speaker:- Maria Hayward
Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

A more in-depth look at sexist and racist language and a brief examination of affirming language for other minority groups such as refugees, neuro diverse and disabled communities. Reference to UU values will be made (again!)..

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Maria Hayward © 11 May 2025

This is part 2 of the conversation on the language of reverence. You may recall from my first talk on this topic, I suggested that reverence may exist both in the feeling of respect that we have towards others, as well as in the language we choose to adopt. I also suggested that reverence might include the welcoming of Te Reo in our kōrero and in the acceptance of changes in language – such as the change to non-sexist or non-racist terms. And I mentioned that learning about reverence in language needs to mostly be about minority and marginalised groups such as the rainbow community – (they are the most vulnerable and anyway, the majority already know how to revere their own group or tribe).

Speaker:- Maria Hayward
Worship Leader:- Rachel Mackintosh

This talk will discuss the language of reverence – what this means and what non-racist, non-sexist and queer-friendly language might look like. Connections are made to the UU values of transformation, plurality, interdependence, generosity and of course, love.

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Follow this shortcut to the bottom of the page for the various readings, videos, etc. shared in the service.

Maria Hayward © 13 April 2025

Our values and the language of reverence

I’d like to start with the UU value of transformation or change. Language changes or transforms. We invent new words all the time, or we use words differently. A simple example of a word used differently is the word ‘cool’, which mostly doesn’t have anything to do with temperature. ‘Cool’ has stayed in fashion for a long time, but apparently even this word now is dated, and teenagers instead might use: ‘slay’, ‘rizz’ (short for charisma), and there’s the kiwi ‘chur’ which means something like: ok or thank you. Society, too, changes: our understandings may grow – as Unitarians they should, with our continuous search for truth and transformation. As part of this growth process, changes in attitudes occur and language that might once have been acceptable – might become unacceptable.

About 50 years ago, feminism changed language; and so did increasing social diversity in its many forms – but especially with respect to ethnicity and gender identity or orientation. In the 1990’s, this new language was labelled politically correct, or PC, then that was criticised (“PC gone mad” became the catchphrase of people not wanting to be PC). Later, we became ‘woke’, then suddenly it was “too woke to give sushi to kids for school lunches” (as the Hon David Seymour said). And now, Winston Peters – like Donald Trump, is fighting a “war on woke”. Actually, being PC or being woke – and let’s be absolutely clear about this – both were just about being respectful. Woke comes from the African American: “be awake to social injustice, racism and bigotry”. And being politically correct or being woke is being respectful in our thinking and speaking about and to minority or marginalised groups in particular, although obviously not exclusively so. Language can include or exclude people; it can be affirming or hurtful. We choose our words.