Tēnā koe, Taranaki

I sit 39,000ft high. Seat belt buckled low as it hugs my hips, my legs stretch out as I slide my way into the row of emergency seating. The blues in my eyes reflect the deep ocean hues as I lose myself in the expanse below. In my hands contains a world of unexplored taonga. Unexplored to my mind but imminent with mauri, it breathes new life into my bones. The more I open my mind to things that have been cultured closed in a Western worldview of New Zealand, I learn things I never knew I never knew. Huia come home, a book graced by the fingers of Jay Ruka is a story, an account, a beautiful description of Christianity merging itself on a equal playing field with Te Ao Māori; these words have graced me in its warm embrace.

Chapter 11 looks at land and the love of money. My mind wired intrinsically with kaitiakitanga paired with an entrepreneurial way of life, I anticipate a meaty chapter of learning a new applicable way of thinking. I understand some history of our lands and the blood that’s left gaping scars in our landscape, but this chapter unpacks more pockets of history that I have not yet learned of. My knowledge of the history of Taranaki is lacking, the land confiscation is something I have knowledge of but not something I can confidently call my own. I read on to ‘The Taking of Taranaki’ which recounts the tale of conflict between the people of Parihaka and the Crowns Treasurer, Julius Vogels. Not surprised but still taken aback by the process of how European mindset raped the land, I pause to take a moment to reflect and digest the information.

Looking below, I see a deep blue of waves gently, slowly caressing the coast. My gaze continues west. There below is a perfectly formed maunga. Standing tall, standing it’s ground, is Taranaki.

I hear the hum of the airplane engine, but the air is still around me. My moment in time stems back to that time and my gut feels heavy. My eyes search the whenua below me. It is an agricultural takeover. The only bush I see is the carefully placed trees in people’s fenced backyards. Green. The colour of growth or the colour of greed?

My heart is laden with the cries of tangata whenua who were stripped of their tino rangatiratanga and it makes me reflect more on how through years of misunderstanding we too have lost purity in heart towards others in society and our relationship with our creator, Mana Atua, God Almighty.

Being someone conscious of relationships, but also being sure of myself, this kaupapa has really been challenging me on what this means in regards to how we rekindle what was lost and regain that land in terms of the hearts of the people of this nation. How then do we realign as one people made whole and running back into the arms of our Heavenly Father?

Seeing Taranaki has challenged me. To read is one thing, to see is another. To do and to act is now what matters. My hope and prayer in this is that our actions now in today will rebuild this nation into a land that God can look down on with joy in His heart.

Tīhei mauri ora. Kia ora.