sustain:if:able kiwi

Out of the Box stories and Psalm 23 in worship

Out of the Box uses story and play for personal and community wellbeing. The telling of stories creates relational spaces to breathe, trust, listen, feel, wonder, play and love. There are 49 wisdom stories, that include Bible stories, along with life, nature, history and art.

OutoftheBox stories can be used in a range of settings, including schools, care homes, workplaces, community groups, families, therapeutic settings, chaplaincy, spiritual accompaniment and faith communities.

I experimented and used the Out of the Box Psalm 23 story in a congregational setting this week. I’ve used Godly play before but this was the first time with OutoftheBox. It was also the first time for the congregation, who are small in number and mostly elderly. But warm in spirit and usually up for things being a bit different. I was delighted with the feedback. Three commments stand out

• People said they liked that the objects made the story real
• People said that they liked that it allowed them to be childlike
• People engaged, particularly around what it meant to have enemies shown love and mercy

Delivery wise, because the lectionary reading was Psalm 23, I had chosen to be rostered on for the Old Testament reading. I said I was going to use OutoftheBox and briefly introduced it as a way of sharing story.

The church has solid wooden pews, so I brought along a camping table and placed it in the centre of aisle. That ensured the story could be told at eye height. There was a delightful shuffle of people in their seats as I brought out the first object and people moved so they could see.

Because it was new, and I wasn’t sure how if or how long people would share for around the wondering questions, I also had a short sermon, based on the John 10:11-18 reading. It worked really well because I began by talking about how we can play with the objects in OutoftheBox and that the Gospel reading was playing also with Psalm 23, placing Jesus as the shepherd etc. Given we had just experienced that – as we had moved the enemy sheep during the OutoftheBox – it seemed to create lots of connections.

Then during the prayers for others, I invited people to select an object from OutoftheBox. I had three from the Psalm 23 story – leaves, water, shadows.  We began the prayers for others by holding the object and praying for ourselves or others who might need rest, restoration and comfort. It provided an avenue for further engagement and working with the feelings surfaced by the story.

The Convert: theological film review

Monthly I write a film review for Touchstone (the New Zealand Methodist magazine). Stretching back to 2005, some 175 plus films later, here is the review for April 2024.

The Convert
A film review by Dr Steve Taylor

The Convert works as a historical drama of importance for all who live in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Aotearoa in the 1830s was a period of time during which te reo Māori was central and hapu were powerful. Māori chiefs defined trade, shaped politics and enacted justice.

A few Pākeha clutched the edges of the Land of the Long White Cloud. Some brought Christianity. Others brought guns, mixed with visions of a European good life. These Pākeha intrusions inflamed the tribal conflicts that beset Aotearoa through the 1830s. As lay preacher Thomas Munroe notes so astutely, he sailed from a land steeped in blood, only to step ashore on another land also soaked in blood.

The film, directed by Lee Tamahori (Once Were Warriors and Mahana), draws from Wulf, a debut novel by Hamish Clayton. Bradford Haami, Laidlaw College lecturer and Māori historian, provides cultural advice. Extended sequences of The Convert are set in Māori pa. These include several delightful scenes that illuminate the role of tohunga, waka voyaging and Māori perceptions of Pākeha. The result is a rich immersion in Māori worldview.

Several strong performances carry the film. Guy Pearce (previous roles in L.A. Confidential and Memento) plays as Thomas Munroe, challenging stereotypes of missionaries as pious destroyers of culture. Tioreore Ngatai-Melbourne (previous roles in Cousins and Whina) plays Rangimai, who as a grieving widow offers quiet karakia, dignified courage and assertive actions to showcase the place of wahine toa (strong women) in Māori culture.

Birds are also a feature of The Convert. They express another dimension of Māori filmmaking, given that for Māori, ngā manu are tohu of the future. In an opening sequence, a marauding karearea (falcon) savages a lone kāhu (hawk). Turiwhatu (dotterel) skip across a beach scene, while in a joyous moment of cross-cultural encounter, Rangimai and Charlotte (played by Jacqueline McKenzie) mimic tui call. In a closing sequence, a flock of birds offer a sense of kotahitanga. Flying together, they illustrate a movie that turns from solo violence to collective action.

These shifts required profound transformations. The Convert bears witness to the multiple conversions that occurred in pre-colonial New Zealand. Politically, iwi were reforming to ensure a collective identity. Individually, emerging leaders were transforming the practices of utu.

Utu is often defined as revenge. Yet the term emerges from an indigenous worldview that values balance and applauds those who uphold harmony in relationships. While a wrong must be put right, how restoration happens can vary greatly. Utu can include the possibilities of gift exchange to create and restore social bonds.

The transformations around utu evidenced in The Convert offer significant theological resources. Māori Christian historian Hirini Kaa, in his groundbreaking Te Hāhi Mihinare: The Māori Anglican Church, demonstrated how Māori creatively responded to Christianity, drawing on rongopai (gospel) to enhance maungārongo (peace) and seek rangimarie (harmony). Approaching Easter, The Convert resonates with Christian themes of peace and reconciliation.

Whakarongo mai, Ki te kupu o te manu rongo
(Listen, to the words of the bird of peace )

Rev Dr Steve Taylor is the author of “First Expressions” (2019) and writes widely in theology and popular culture, including regularly at www.emergentkiwi.org.nz.

stashes as research methods in researching making

I’m writing!!

As I planned the 2024 year, I set aside April and May to progress analysis and writing on the Ordinary Knitters research project. Since Ordinaryknitters began, I have been privileged to interview 43 people from 4 countries who knitted for a public project, collected over the last few years.

There are knitters who cared for their community by making Christmas angels. Other knitters cared for creation by knitting climate scarves, encouraged peace-stitches through “French knitting” peace loom installations or personalised their place through knitting remembrance poppies. Each person making as a way of connecting their Christian faith in public ways with the wider world.

To understand these experiences of making, I’m using reflexive thematic analysis. Reflexive thematic analysis values three things. First, the intuitions and interests of the researcher. Second, the unfolding nature of analysis. Third, the ways in which the particularity of one experience can illuminate the particularity of another experience.

I see reflexive thematic analysis as a way of making. I’m sifting through a rich stash of wool. My stash is unique, shaped by the active role my interests and networks have played in gathering the wool. I compare balls of wool, believing that fresh and new connections can emerge as different colours and textures (interview quotes and stories) are laid alongside each other. As I make, the unique colours of each ball will remain. In all I do, gathering, comparing, knitting, my craft as a maker will be visible. Yet the whole will be greater than the individual parts.

Practically, I undertake reflexive thematic analysis not with an existing set of themes to look for. Rather, I read “reflexively.” I start with the first interview and read it noting what I think are key words (codes).

I try to cluster these key words (codes) around big ideas (themes). I read further interviews. As I do, I work in “pencil” (reflexively) because the key words (codes) and conversation (themes) shift as I read. The experience of one knitter invites more codes, or a reworking of a theme, to better cluster a range of unique experiences. These reflexive changes require me to reread the earlier interviews. As a result, experiences from a range of interview are informing the experiences of another interviews.

I track the shifts in reflexivity by using mind maps and tables. These make visible my unfolding analysis. The mindmaps and tables allow me to keep track of my decisions and reflect (reflexively) on my assumptions.

This approach, of reflexive thematic analysis – assumes that I as a researcher have an interest and a set of values (why else would I be asking for an interview) which I bring to the interview and the analysis. This approach assumes that naming my interests and the way I make decisions will decrease the chance of imposing my research agenda on those being interviewed. It also assumes that insights emerge over time, particularly as the uniqueness of each interview is brought into conversation with the uniqueness of other interviews.

I love the making of reflexive thematic analysis.