I don’t consider it Christmas until I have watched It’s a Wonderful Life. I ticked that off last Sunday. So, for me, it’s now Christmas.
I don’t know when it became one of my treasured Christmas traditions, but I can’t remember when it wasn’t. When my kids were teenagers, there was lots of eye-rolling when I insisted that watching it was a family event. Something about it appealed to my Unitarian heart, and I wanted to inoculate theirs. They would ask me when I would find a new tradition. My answer was, “When I stop tearing up at the end.”
Anjum Rahman, Founder and Project Co-Lead of Inclusive Aotearoa Collective Tāhono, who must be the best known Muslim leader in the country, due to her frequent interviews on TV. She has also advocated for religious studies and the end of Christian religious instruction (Bible in Schools).
Peter Lineham religious history prof, is equally well known. Not so well known is he is a Christian who once described himself as a liberal evangelical.
Shakespeare had it wrong. When Juliet tells Romeo, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” she is arguing that it does not matter that Romeo is from her family’s rival house Montague. The reference states that the names of things do not affect what they really are. I disagree. Nothing could be further from the truth.
There’s a lot of talk of gratitude with thanksgiving and Christmas approaching. Gratitude is a good thing! There’s plenty of scientific and spiritual support for the benefits of gratitude.
However, I’m going to take a slightly unusual approach and talk about the relationship between gratitude and self-control.
Self-control is also timely, with New Year’s resolution around the corner. We’ll talk a little more about self-control before explaining how gratitude influences self-control.
But before we do that – a little thought exercise.
Kia ora tatou katoa. Nga mihi nga mihi nui. Nga mihi ki a koe, Ted. Thanks for the introduction. And te whare e tu nei. Tena koe. I acknowledged the house in which we are standing or sitting. Ted has kindly mentioned the book, Histories of Hate. And so I have had a long connection in studying the far right. And so earlier this year, as Ted has indicated, the Prime Minister and Cabinet appointed me as a co-director of He Whenua Taurikura. He Whenua, land, Taurikura, peace, so land of peace. And what we’re tasked with doing is bringing together the best research and knowledge that we can to avoid ever having to encounter an event like the March 2019 again. We’re just getting underway. We had a hui here in Auckland two weeks ago, in which we brought together communities, government departments and experts and we looked at the research that is available, but also the gaps that exist. Coincidentally, this book, Histories of Hate, was written before this appointment. But Paul Morris, who some of you might know who’s involved with religious diversity initiatives in New Zealand and is a member of the Jewish community, he and I wrote the chapter on what’s happening in countries like New Zealand at the moment. And so I just want to share some thoughts of what we’re seeing.
Morena Everyone. I am Lynn Farhi. It is great to be here this morning. As some of you know I have a love of art and creativity in all its forms. Today for brevity’s sake I will just speak about Art and its therapeutic uses. I have used Art therapeutically for the last 14 years in hospice volunteer work and in school chaplaincy. And I thought in light of the Unitarian principle to search for truth and meaning, it may add a tool to some of your toolkits.
The image of an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff is a common one in politics. Left-wing and right wing politicians both use it for different policies.
Left wing politicians use it to say: let’s not be tough on criminals, let’s spend money on fixing the social background that made them that way.
Right wing politicians use it to say: let’s not throw money at unemployed people; let’s spend it on getting people back into their jobs. The national party raised this in a speech last week.
I think, there is a place for both. Sometimes we need to look to the long term, and we call it a fence at the top of the cliff.
Sometimes we need compassion now and we want an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff.
When I signed up to lead today’s service, I figured it would be easy to come up with things to say. I mean, after all, there’s no shortage of writings and opinions around the Church’s appropriation and subjugation of non-Christian customs and occasions.
“Without foresight or vision the people will be lost.”
This past week a colleague of mine who lives in Taranaki mentioned the town of Patea, which he described as being “nothing since the freezing works closed”.
For 100 years from 1883, the local freezing works had been the heart of the Patea economy. In 1982, the works closed. That’s 40 years ago – 40 years of “nothing”.
The freezing works closed without a vision or a plan for what else could be at the heart of the local economy.
Forty years on, the damage from that lack of foresight can still be felt.
A couple of days ago I heard about a friend who was 80 years old and said he had aged more in the past year than the previous 10 years. He had a heart attack and prostate problem in the same year.
I had a similar experience this month. I went to my GP for my routine checkup, but I took a longer than usual list of questions: five of them. Two of these were old issues, up to about eight years ago, but had got so used to them I didn’t bother reporting them any longer.
