How Fiction Makes Our Brains Better

Great news for people like me - and all Book Club fans!

Just Mercy

An amazing and harrowing book. Bryan Stevenson as a young black lawyer takes on the American "justice" system which proves to be almost unbelievably unjust for people of colour, the poor, juveniles etc. Through his years of passionate work (which continues today) he saves countless lives. In a literal sense he saves people from the death penalty. And in many more cases he saves people from "life in prison until you die". The story of Walter McMillan - an innocent man on death row - provides the main thread throughout the book but intervening chapters cover many other cases. During his years of work he set up the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) which can be found online here.

A very inspiring but challenging book!

I looked up the EJI webpage and watched the five minute clip:
Bryan Stevenson: Ending the Politics of Fear and Anger | Equal Justice Initiative
Although Stevenson is talking about the USA scene the central principles about a politics of fear and anger apply just as much to our own country.

Anchored serenely

Anchored serenely 

in the evening sunlight's glow

but open and available

for the tide's swell

and the rower's direction 

Have we learnt anything?

We recently spent a few days in Wellington - specifically to explore the Peter Jackson installations regarding NZ at war. The Great War exhibition commemorates the role played by NZ in the First World War. It follows the journey of the war year by year. Never having been very interested in war of any kind, I learned a lot. This exhibition is at the War Memorial Museum (behind the Cenotaph and tomb of the unknown soldier).

The final scene of this exhibition shows the words emblazoned on the wall of the recruitment office to inspire young recruits - underneath are soldiers as they stumble home blinded by mustard gas . Older and younger generations grieve together at the graves of those who died.

The other exhibition Gallipoli: The Scale of Our War is at Te Papa.  This web link gives a very good idea of what is included in this exhibition. But nothing compares with seeing it personally. Some of the people featured are "there" in larger-than-life-sized models. (See the size of the doorway on the right to get an idea of scale.)

I wonder what it would be like to be a descendant of one of them walking around and meeting a grandparent or great-grandparent "face to face". Anthea had two great-uncles at Gallipoli - not featured in models but certainly shown and celebrated.

If you visit Pukeahu War Memorial Park (to see The Great War exhibition) you will also see the Australian Memorial which honours the role Australians played in the war. 

So ....

have we learned anything in the last 100years?

Interdependence

At the local art centre there is a display about bees. This poster is at the entrance to it:

In case the print is bit small to see, here are the bullet points again:

• The bee cannot survive without humans, and we cannot survive without the bee.
• More than one third of what we eat relies on pollination AND so do billions of $$$ in export earnings.
• Bees are critically threatened by Varroa and other diseases around the globe - this is NOT reversible.

Dear innocent bee

we are in this together

alone we will die.

Singing in the rain...

We continue to be grateful every day for our lovely house in this beautiful location in Orewa.

Rain or shine God's gifts and beauty are everywhere to be seen - if we are looking!

It wasn't until I looked at this photo on the big screen that I noticed the direct sunlight on our letterbox!

Respond like a floating balloon...

Another powerful quote - this time from an 18th Century classic The Sacrament of the Present Moment by Jeanne-Pierre du Caussade:

"The only condition necessary for this state of self surrender 

is the present moment in which the soul, 

light as a feather, 

fluid as water, 

innocent as a child 

responds to every movement of grace 

like a floating balloon."

Leave a little fallow corner in your heart...

Let mystery have its place in you; do not be always turning up your whole soil with the plowshare of self-examination, but leave a little fallow corner in your heart ready for any seed the winds may bring, and reserve a nook of shadow for the passing bird; keep a place in your heart for the unexpected guests, an altar for an unknown God.

-- from Amiel's Journal, translated by 

Mrs. Humphrey Ward

I read this beautiful quote in a weekly post from Abbey of the Arts. 

I Googled Amiel's Journal but didn't follow up more of what he wrote. 

And speaking of passing birds... on my Wenderholm walk recently I took dozens of photos of Fantails (which I love!) - in the hope of getting moderately good one. But these "passing birds" seemed to playing "Catch me if you can"! The best I could manage was this one - already cropped (photo not bird!!) within an inch of its life!

Beautiful Wenderholm

One of the bonuses of living in Orewa is that Wenderholm regional park is only ten minutes away. For a place to wander and experience the beauty of beach, estuary, magnificent old trees and many walking tracks up the hillside it's hard to beat. Here are a few of my "since moving to Orewa" photos. The first one taken just the other day.

Light and shadows

I went for a brisk walk on the beach this morning. It was one of those changeable days where it could be pelting with rain one minute and beautifully sunny the next. The clouds overhead created sharp lines between light and shadow.

I was reflecting as I walked how life is like that - joy and sadness, celebration and tragedy, passing moods of elation and desolation...

I noticed a police tape across the far end of the beach where I was headed. As I got closer a young Mum with a baby in the pram came towards me and said, "Just letting you know someone has just jumped from the lookout onto the rocks. You might not want to go any closer."

Life and death, beauty and tragedy... I walked back on the path above the beach praying for the family of the person who jumped and very aware of the steps, circumstances and choices that so quickly lead from sunshine to shadow.