February 11, 2007

Glynn Cardy

Epiphany 6

One of the interesting things about sitting in international conferences is realising you know more than one spiritual language. My spirituality has not only been shaped by the English Anglican tradition and its evolving manifestations but also by Maori understandings of life and faith. Often in international debates those of us thus schooled see issues with a 'double vision'.

The prophet Jeremiah in encouraging trust in God paints a picture of a tree growing beside a stream and being fed by the same. Here in Aotearoa New Zealand our cultural history and landscape encourages us to expand the metaphor. Outside the rear of our church are two large trees – an English oak and a native Pohutukawa. Our environment nurtures the trees, and the trees in turn nurture others, especially birds. Both trees also influence, shade and protect each other. Trusting in God means learning to appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of both 'trees'; and being patient when they brush up against one another.

This morning I want to name some of the aspects of Maori spirituality that have shaped and influenced me. In doing so I am interpreting aspects of a spiritual tradition that is essentially not my own. So I do it tentatively, conscious that it is my interpretation and not definitive.

English spirituality usually begins with the individual and then expands out to encompass family, then community, and then environment. Maori spirituality works the other way round. It begins with the land, then the community and family, and lastly with the individual within it.

The word for land is whenua. It is also the word for afterbirth. Traditionally your placenta was buried in the land belonging to your tribe. This land is an individual's turangawaewae – one's place to stand. It is the basis of one's mana or spiritual power. The intimacy with the land is also expressed in its mythical name: Papatuanuku, earth mother.

Depending on the location of a particular tribe this intimacy with the land can also be expressed in terms of connection with a mountain or river. The people along the Whanganui River, for example, talk of their interdependence with the river in a proverb, “I am the river, and the river is in me.”

Unlike the common notion that land belongs to people, Maori understand people as belonging to the land. The idea of selling or polluting one's ancestral land has therefore the same appeal as selling or polluting one's mother. The materialist approach to land of 'take, use, and go', is countered by the spiritual approach of 'give, nurture, and stay'. When a tribe has given land, for example when Ngati Whatua gifted nearly half the Auckland isthmus to Governor Hobson and the settlers, it is for the purpose of building relationship, for the good of both donor and recipient.

Maori spirituality is therefore, first and foremost, rooted in an intimate connection with the land and environment. It gives rise to an ethic of treating the earth and all that is sustained by her, gently and with respect. It is a mistake therefore to assume that the loss of land, as has happened repeatedly through the processes of colonization and neo-colonization, is primarily an economic loss. It is a spiritual loss.

It is also a mistake to assume that spirituality is a sort of holy exercise that one does on Sundays disconnected from the rest of the week and the rest of life. As with the best of the English tradition, spirituality is the holy art of weaving the connections between community and individuals, play and work, the happy and the hapless, the sacred and the secular.

There is a saying that Maori don't meet to worship but worship when they meet. Although it is very much a generalisation, it points to the understanding of Wairua Tapu, the sacred spirit, permeating all of life. So when a meeting is about to start – whether it be on a marae, a school, or in home, or place of work – it begins with prayer. The karakia acknowledges that in all we do the spiritual is present. It acknowledges too that we are part of something bigger than ourselves.

One of the most well known Maori proverbs is 'He aha te mea nui? He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.' 'What is the most important thing? It is people, it is people, it is people.' It goes to the heart of Maori understandings of community. The purpose and priority is the good of the people. The English notion therefore of striving for individual excellence and personal fulfilment is tempered by the Maori notion that the purpose of such excellence and fulfilment is to serve the needs of the community.

Manaakitanga is the exercise of hospitality. It is symbolically enacted at every powhiri [welcoming ceremony]. The karanga [call], like the korero [speeches] that follow, acknowledge firstly the dead. The dead are part of the living, and shape us. By ritually respecting them and not ignoring them, we draw out their goodwill and remove the poison from any bad memories.

The korero acknowledges the whakapapa [genealogy], that is the linkages between past and present, between the hosts and the guests, and the simple truth that originally humanity was all one family and fundamentally still is. The korero also might introduce some of the concerns the hosts and the guests have. Waiata [song], hongi [pressing noses], and kai [food] follow. Music, physical touch, and the sharing of food are all spiritual tools for the building of community.

The poet James K. Baxter, once penned the following words about the discipline, difficulty and calling of hospitality [Manaakitanga]:

Feed the hungry;

Give drink to the thirsty;

Give clothes to those who lack them;

Give hospitality to strangers;

Look after the sick;

Bail people out of jail, visit them in jail, and look after them when they come out;

Go to neighbours funerals;

Tell other ignorant people what you in your ignorance think you know;

Help the doubtful clarify their minds and make their own decisions;

Console the sad;

Reprove sinners, but gently, my friends, gently;

Forgive what seems to be harm done to yourself;

Put up with difficult people;

Pray for whatever has life, including the spirits of the dead.

Lastly, I want to say a little more about mana. Earlier I interpreted it as 'spiritual power'. It means a lot more than that, but there is no simple English translation. It includes self-worth, self-respect, status and identity.

The spiritual work of community is to build one another's mana. The purpose say of a Church community, like us, is to build each individual's mana. When arguments arise and hurts are voiced, the task of us all is to find solutions that build the mana of the other. Mana is more important than personal prestige and aggrandizement. As the proverb says, 'waiho ma te tangata e mihi' 'Let someone else acknowledge your virtues.' Let us be that someone else to one another.

Maori spirituality shapes and tempers English spirituality, and vice versa. They are two strong trees in our land. However as time has gone on both have affected each other for the good. As often happens with artists and novelists the spirituality of both cultures permeates their work. The spirituality of both permeates too our theology and liturgy, enriching us.

Nau te rourou, naku te rourou ka ora te iwi. With what you bring and with what I bring [with the vision of both] the people will prosper.