by tashmcgill | Dec 29, 2008 | Uncategorized, worship
listen my children and grandchildren
listen to the cry of our ancestors
who travelled in their mighty canoes
over windy seas under the gaze of the moon
listen to their cry, their song, their prayer
to God our Father, who has given us his treasure
whakarongona = listen
tamariki = children
mokopuna = grandchildren
tupuna = ancestors
aue = cry
wakanui = canoe
hau moana = windy sea
waiata = song
karakia = prayer
taonga = treasure
My Treasures.
I have some women in my life who are wise women. They are like me, medicine people. They are teachers, healers, helpers, lovers, artists, writers, mothers. They weave stories and bring people together. They are marked with this waiata – this song, that echoes when people meet with them or know them. They are treasures and I kneel at their feet because they have so much to teach me. I find kindness and kinship at their feet. They make my heart take flight in song.
Waiata
how beautiful are they
how beautiful are they
the feet of those who travel
they journey distant lands
they traverse weary hearts
they weave their stories of light
how beautiful, how radiant
those hearts under the light
of Father-in-the-Sky
who sends his Treasures, in light
so they may tell their stories bright
my treasure weaves her stories well
through my heart and life so i know
and see the starlight of Father-in-the-Sky
I kneel at her feet, this precious one
to hear the voice of one who lives
so much in the light, under the light, always in the light.
there is no sadness that overwhelms
there is no bitterness that quenches truth
there is no darkness that can stand in the light of my treasure
what precious, endless worth
for you, my treasure
how beautiful are they
how beautiful are they
those who weave their stories of light
and make a way, they make a way
also for me, i follow on to
Father-in-the-Sky.
by tashmcgill | Dec 15, 2008 | forgiveness, god ideas, Uncategorized, worship
If I could choose one phrase to describe the history and story of the Israelites at this time, I would say theirs is a Story of Ascension and a Wrestle with Hope.
There is a small collection of songs that are set apart in the history of the Israelites. These songs are my songs too, tales of despair that rises to hope, recognition of shame that leads to restoration – and always, in the closing stanzas, God is glorified, made known, shown as merciful and good.
These psalms are short (sweet relief immediately following the epic ps 119), able to be memorised and they were sung as the people ascended the steps into the Temple for sacrifice, worship and ritual.
1. The Ascension
The Climbing of Stairs, the memory of rhythm, of rising, of systematically and methodically going back to the place of worship and the Glory of God. The rising up from lowliness. As we approach God, we are raised up from the earth into the kingdom of heaven. Light is always above us. Many of these psalms journey from darkness to light just as we climb closer to the sun as we ascend the heights.
The rhythm of hope that beats through the psalms of ascent is the rhythm of returning. Year upon year, time after time, recalling to God his great promises of mercy, his great deeds of deliverance and redeemption throughout their history they would remind God of his promises as they approached the holy of holies.
So we rise, those of us who have been prostrate, laid down in the darkness. Blackened with soot and desperation. Those of us that have words too honest for keeping, they burn on our tongues. And we climb, onwards and onwards, recalling the songs of our own history, recalling God’s promises to mind, declaring again his merciful hand with us. We climb and ascend once again towards the Light, only to grow evermore conscious of these two truths…. the unfailing and unstoppable force of redeeming love, as we watch the curtain of our own hearts be torn again from top to bottom….. and the ever persistant hope that is birthed in us again, even as we climb.
clenched fist against my chest
desperate words of hope confess
i am empty for the sight you
some say that it’s a gift
to see what i see and to know
but i see the truth it is
a gift like this is only for my father’s table
a gift like this means nothing
if not for you, my father’s hand guides me
where to go, i only know his direction
how is it here in my broken shame
i still know your voice and i lean in
compulsively drawn to the truth i know
i will walk this way where my brother goes
and i take the cup as it is to me
the sorrow of knowing you keep me in this life
for where i want to be you know
in my father’s home, is the life i long to know
for to make what i can from these hands
threading my words for another man’s praise
oh i need not your praise for the work of my hands
is only for my father’s display and all other causes
a plain facsimile, mean nothing to me
i put my life in your hands
make your Glory in me, be seen.
Oh i’ve learned what pleases you more than most
and my gift is the gift of sight
i recognise your art in life.
by tashmcgill | Nov 21, 2008 | Uncategorized
“RECONCILIATION, n. A suspension of hostilities. An armed truce for the purpose of digging up the dead.” – Ambrose Bierce
“Reconciliation is to understand both sides; to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, and then go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side. The practice of peace and reconciliation is one of the most vital and artistic of human actions.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
Reconciliation is being wholly accepted and wholly accepting in the midst of your agreeance and disagreeance. For me, in my personal journey, it’s become about being acknowledged, seen, heard.
The validity of my voice has never felt so threatened. So many people know this story – the anticipation that the words being held back on the tongue are words that could change the world.
Silence does not become my spirit. It leads me to loneliness – I have never been more lonely than when I do not share my voice. Using this voice – in conversation, in song, in writing, in speaking – it’s so tremulous within me that I am lonely if I do not open my voice.. and myself to the world. I become lonely, because the essence of who I am is shut away and hidden if I am silent. Actions speak louder than words, but words are my gift.
I am reconciling to myself, acknowledging her again – her strength, her softness, her heart. Her accessibility, her pain, her joy, her delight, her secrets, her story. I am acknowledging her with people who need to be reminded, and I’m beginning to look for the safe places.. with the people who see and acknowledge her.
Song Of The Moment: More Than Ordinary.
by Kasey Chambers
I used to make the fire
Now I’m running out of flame
The closer I get the more regrets
And I won’t change everything
To have you back again
But I can’t keep everything the same
They say it won’t get harder
I’m gonna be OK
But it’s just like me going against the break
And while I tie to your shoestrings
And I’m breaking from the strain
Those damn thongs hold on like chains
Yeah those damn things hold on like chains
Was I ever really more than ordinary
Did you ever see me like I saw you
Was I ever really more than ordinary
Did you ever need me like I need you now
I need you now
If I was a liar, I had a few more friends
The chances are my heart would never mend
Even know my conscience would go
Running back again
Doesn’t really hurt to pretend
No, it doesn’t really hurt to pretend
Was I ever really more than ordinary
Did you ever see me like I saw you
Was I ever really more than ordinary
Did you ever need me like I need you now
I need you now…
by tashmcgill | Nov 12, 2008 | Uncategorized
The world is changing.
Nothing that once made sense is coherent anymore.
Words are losing weight in the twilight of my own cognition.
Knowledge is a semblance of skill and sorrows accumulated by glories and shame.
The edges are limitless.
Born into this chaos was my grief.
Born into this Unknowing was my great disbelief.
Before the chaos I had form and structure, a pathway that was clear and distinct, a way that could have been constructed out of the cement and basalt of life. Life with it’s grey, contrary nature, it’s sharp, firm edges and solid matter. Then the road would have been straight forward, with well–engineered cambers, electrified tunnels and markings as white and luminous as the moon. That would have been a road worthy of remarkable praise. Instead, I am on a dusty, dark bit-metal scar winding into a small town on the edge of nothing.
And nothing is exactly where I am right now.
_____________________________________________________________________________
It’s a small room, with an even smaller bathroom. Old wallpaper with rich mustard medallions and paisley weaves interlocking, and pristine enamel window frames. The panes are small and square, mottled and smoky grey, bundled together in sets of four. Four, four, four, four, window frame, mustard paisley, window frame, four, four, four, four. I count over and over. I like the rhythm of the count while I pull back the shower curtain and twist the taps into submission. Twist, crack, squeak, thud, pop then whoosh as the water is sucked up through what must be ancient pipes, comes rushing and falling through the showerhead. The walls of the shower cubby are linoleum, cracked and peeling.
The rhythm of anything functioning as it should is soothing in the midst of chaos.
Before it all, I never paid attention to the thudding momentum of a water pump, or a refrigerator fan. Even the click of the lightbulb on and off as you open and close the door has a pretty little sway to it. Life at the end of this metal road, in the nothing, is rhythmic and calm and empty enough that the silence consumes me. The peace in measuring out precise routines and motions restores solace in my soul.
by tashmcgill | Nov 12, 2008 | Uncategorized
Ivan was the man about town – the one they’d call when they found a pile of bones or a suspicious looking piece of dirt. They’d phone through with that anxious tone in their voice, desperately hoping that he’d be available to look at whatever it was straight away. Mostly they wanted him to simply identify that potential pa sites were in fact natural landscapes and that the bones belonged to cows.
Every town has an Ivan. A boorishly intelligent, belligerent rebel so unfortunately useful that the town is stuck with him, precluding the nickname, “Our Archaeologist.” The knowledge that his hometown has finally claimed him does something quiet in Ivan’s spirit, particularly on days when the rugged West Coast is showing her colour. After all, his life’s work has become the landscape of her hills and the stories of her people, all the way back before the Pakeha ever set eyes upon her.
It’s because of his fascination with the district that Ivan became an archaeologist, just so he could return home after the years of study in the North, bringing reference libraries and an old set of digging tools in an appropriately aged army kit bag. No one needed to know the bag itself had been claimed from the bargain bins at the army surplus mere hours before leaving the city for the last time. After all, he had the signed piece of paper in his hand and his first offer of work on the new bypass site. He had every intention of being an traditional archaeologist, one of those types that was really in it to tell the stories of the people that had ‘been before’.
The longer it went on though, the more he saw all the places where the ‘been before’ had lived and understood the scope of the work, the more Ivan changed and the more he stayed the same.
“It’s so easy to get caught between the two worlds,” he said to Eva, who lived very much in the present. “I’m neither Pakeha or Maori, while I’m telling the stories of one in the face of the other. I’m elbow deep every day in the mess and sewage of history.”
He walked to the fridge with a swagger in each inch of his legs, hips thrust forward in the balancing posture of someone too tall for their body. Fingers wrapped around the green longnecks, he threw the twist caps to the floor and thrust one into Eva’s outstretched hand. He strutted between the balcony ranch slider and the kitchen door frame. The itch under his skin rattled around his wrist, until he finally rubbed his fingernails furiously along the side of his arm.
Eva’s eyes dropped on to his nails, still quick deep in clay and grime. She reached for him and caught the back of his thigh with her hand, an unusual gesture of affection. She was deeply reserved but his manner today seemed surly like the gathering clouds, causing her to want to connect with him. Her touch stilled his pacing but the tension stayed tight throughout the muscle, as if he was garnering the strength to leap forward.
Eva sighed, letting her thumb press slow circles into his flesh. Some days he appeared to her still like a caged bird, not yet knowing that his wings were clipped. His desire to leap into the air and flap his now castrate wings still unsettled her.
Ivan and Eva is one of the multiple writing projects currently underway.