Love Many. Trust Few.

One of the things that comes when you are growing into yourself, is an awareness of your vulnerabilities and your strengths. It’s strange that the two can be closely intertwined but they are.

My Vulnerability:

I have been exposed to narcissism all my life. Narcissism is an extreme selfishness - but can often be manifested in many different ways. Sometimes the narcissist is obvious - the charismatic leader who draws people to themselves, but where everything is engineered to feed their great need for the world to revolve around them. Sometimes the narcissist is not so obvious - you might think of them as a giving person - unselfish - but their unselfishness feeds their need to be needed, and they often control those who revolve in their world. 

Narcissism is a personality disorder. Most likely the person you know with this is not even aware they have it. Narcissism also means that the person who has it has most likely had some terrible hurt in their lives and this is their way of coping.

My narcissism radar is on high alert these days. It’s easy to see a narcissist behind every lamp post so I have to be careful who I label with this in my mind, as it sets a prejudice, and I do not want that, but in my journey to healing from having my life impacted by narcissism, I have been pondering over something that a wise person said to me recently. And that is that once you have had a narcissist in your life, you can spot it a mile away.  This wise lady told me that she never allows herself to get involved with a narcissist. Ever. Not even in the smallest way. You run. You protect yourself. You set the boundary.

My Strength:

My strength - and that is my intuition. That ‘still, small voice’ that sends out little alarms. I am still learning to use it - I am trying to embrace it. It’s always been there, but I’ve never had the confidence in it before. Now, I do.

We who have the Myers-Briggs personality type of INFJ (Introvert/Intuitive/Feeling/Justice), have this thing called the ‘INFJ Door Slam’. To me this is setting boundaries which I no longer allow people to cross over to manipulate me. It goes completely against how I have behaved up until this age. I have always been open, friendly, welcoming and accepting of people - a little naive perhaps, but through the last few years as I have learned about my vulnerabilities and strengths, I realise that this is not altogether healthy. People can and will take advantage of that. Manipulators can and will take advantage of that, which is why it’s important to recognise your vulnerabilities and then to use your strengths to counteract that.

Narcissism radar and INFJ door slam - I welcome you. It’s a new day for me. I’m no longer a door mat. I am learning to be confident in myself and to choose who I welcome into my life.

A Plebeian's Experience at the New Zealand Oprah Show

I remember when Oprah Winfrey started screening on television in New Zealand. We used to discuss her shows in the school playground during our lunch breaks. Fresh 15 year olds solving the problems of dysfunctional adults. It was really among the first of those kind of shows to come to New Zealand and we were all fascinated by Oprah.

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Over the years, on and off, as I left school, went overseas, worked, lived my life, Oprah came in and out of my life as time allowed.

And then I went to Chicago.

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Sometimes when we'd drive downtown, I'd look up at those tall buildings and wonder which one belonged to Oprah. I'd keep an eye out for her studio. I never saw it, and I never saw her. I didn't even watch her show during that time. There were no televisions where I was living. I never even went to one of her shows even though for one short year we lived in the same city.

But time passes and Oprah came back into my life again when I was married and had small children and was having trouble with breast-feeding. So I'd sit down in my living room with my small baby, turn on the television and watch lunchtime Oprah, while feeding my baby.

And oh the things I learned. The little seeds I gathered. Oprah was very influential in my early mid-life years. Sometimes lonely years as I'd left many friends behind in America, my husband and I moved clear to the other side of the country and lived on a rural lifestyle block. I was just emerging out of the cult that we had become involved with and it was a crucial time for me of re-adjusting my views of the world. Re-adjusting my life and little whispers of new ideas and questions that Oprah raised on her show began to wander restlessly in my mind. She reached out from the television screen and met my heart.

We share the same Myers Briggs personality type... except she's an extrovert and I'm an introvert. INFJ for me. ENFJ for Oprah. But Oprah just has this way of being real, whatever your personality type is. She instinctively meets you where you are and knows, with an authenticity that is at times, uncanny.

So when the opportunity came to go and see her in Auckland, I was waiting in line when booking opened.

Going to see Oprah has to be one of the highlights of this year for me.

Whatever you think of Oprah (and there have been some cynical reviews written about her show, and sure, the music was a bit cheezy at times, but I wasn't there for the music), you have to admire her for what she has done with her life. For where she has come from and what she has achieved, and her generous big heartedness to others. Her good intentions of wanting to help others. She is a woman among women and no matter whether you find her inspiring or not, or you roll your eyes at her words of hope and encouragment, she demands respect for that reason alone.

A friend and I got two of the cheapest tickets we could - the rich and entitled paid thousands for the best seats in the house - but most of us mere plebeians had to settle for seats way up the back of the arena. And it was still good. We were way up the back, but we were looking full on to the stage. And they had music playing with a DJ before Oprah came out. The camera would zoom in on random people in the audience who would cheer, dance or pull faces. I love Kiwis.

Oprah said she felt a contentment in New Zealand that she hasn't felt anywhere else in any other country. Maybe she was flattering us, but maybe there is some truth to that too. I think New Zealanders are generally down-to-earth and real about life and we don't really go in for a lot of fluff.

What she had to say that night came at a crucial time in my life. I know I was meant to be there.
Sometimes things like this happen in your life and you know they happened for a reason. That night was one of those moments.

Oprah shared one of her favourite poems with us. She said the name of this author twice, and I locked it away in my memory because I wanted to be sure to find it when I got home. Thank you Oprah, for saying his name twice.

When I read this poem, I think over my life - I remember my happy childhood and my turbulent romances of my teen years. I remember the years of my early adulthood that were stolen from me by a manipulative and powerful man from Chicago.
And I think it's kind of ironic that two people from Chicago could have two such opposing influence over me. One for evil. One for good.

And then I recall Oprah's words to us on Wednesday night.



"Everything that has happened to you, was also happening for you".

Oprah talked a lot that night about co-authoring our lives with God. If I take anything away from her show, it is those words. It is the wisdom in those words. When you have come from my experience of having someone tell you that God is a dictator and that he has a plan for your life whether you like that plan or not, these words have the power to bring great healing and clarification.

She talked about the importance of meeting with God everyday. Talking over as you would with a close friend, your plans and decisions. Sometimes during the evening, it almost felt a little like we were at a revival meeting. She unashamedly talked about her relationship with God.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience. To deny that, is to deny our purpose for being here.

Oprah kept stressing, over and over, that God has a plan for every single person. That we are not a mistake. That we are not insignificant. That it doesn't matter where we come from or what we have done. That God has given us a unique passion, a job to do, a life-fulfilment, a legacy to enjoy and to leave behind.

I know what it is I want to do with my life. I think I've always known, but this past year I have allowed other things to crowd out those little whispers. Oprah told us a story of her personal assistant who wanted a filing cabinet for her 8th birthday. I thought 'what did I want for my 8th birthday?" I know exactly what it was I wanted for my 8th birthday. I wanted blank notebooks to write my stories inside. And the desire is still the same all these years later. It's not the notebook or the pens, it's the desire to write and to do something good with the writing.

I came away from Oprah with a determination to use this summer break to really sit back and think about how to make each day count in the pursuit of my dreams, the pursuit of my intentions. To again, re-adjust the path of my life. I was inspired by her words, her passion, her experience and her wisdom. She has been a great influence in my life at various times over the years and Wednesday night was no exception.

To co-author with God - the things he has in store for my life.

That's what I love about that poem by Derek Walcott. That one day I will come back to meet my old self, and we will smile at each other.

photo credit: P1110007 via photopin (license)

photo credit: Chicago (ILL) Willis Tower ( Ex. SEARS Tower ) 1974, N-E side " the loop " + notes via photopin (license)

Are We Raising A Generation of Narcissists?

If you only had one choice, would you rather your children were kind or smart?

Take a moment and really consider that question.

In today's world, being smart gets you everywhere.
But where does being kind get you?

My daughter came home from school yesterday and told me she didn't have anyone to play with.

When I asked her about two girls she was friendly with at kindergarten 2 years ago, who are in her class, if she had gone to play with them, she said they told her she could only play with them if she gave them food from her lunchbox!

Now, I know I am the most awesome lunch-making-mother - thank you very much (snort) - but this did seem a little extreme to take it as far as being friendly to my girl!

Children can be cruel!

Because I am the Myers-Briggs personality type of INFJ - I am constantly trying to define my world. I lie awake at night thinking deep thoughts about the problems of the world and how to resolve them.

But unkindness is something I find very hard to tolerate and to fathom. On any level.
And it's a hard one to excuse, whether you're a child, a teenager, or an adult.
Kindness is always an option.

I had a mother who was acutely aware of this issue and she always reminded to be friendly to those who didn't have friends, be kind to the under-dog; and this is something I am trying to pass on to my children. But lately I have been realising that this is not something that many people value anymore. In our world of elitist schools and one-upmanship and where self is god, the majority of parents are opting to choose whatever it is that will get their child ahead - both academically and socially, regardless of who they have to trample on to get there.
And here I am over here just hoping my kids enjoy their childhood.

Last year, my youngest daughter gave up her place in the school cross-country - even though she was the fastest runner in her class - to hold hands and run with a girl who was crying and didn't want to participate. They came in last, but I could not have been more proud of my girl.

How do you combat a generation of selfish parents raising selfish children? And yes, I place the blame squarely on the parents. Children reflect what they are being taught at home.
How can one person make a difference in a society where the values of kindness and unselfishness and open-hearted friendship are unpopular?

I'm still working on the answers to that - I'll let you know if I ever discover them.
Let me know if you do too.

I see it in the generation of some of my own extended family members who are young adults. But we forgive the young - they're enthusiastic, they're selfish, they're learning about themselves, they're finding themselves... but seriously, I'm starting to question those excuses... what happened to good, old-fashioned community spirit and family ties? What happened to the ideals of putting other people before yourself? What happened to the golden rule of loving your neighbour as much as you love yourself?

Let's talk about the popularity at the moment for random acts of kindness. When we read about it our heart swells with emotion. There's nothing wrong with that and helping our kids to be part of it, but it seems that the random acts of kindness movement has become more of a corporate idea, rather than translating that idea onto a personal level. Give to charities rather than give to the poor, friendless neighbour two doors down who struggles to pay their grocery bill every week.

Instead of asking your kids to donate used toys to a charity, how about asking a classmate over to play who doesn't have a lot of friends.
Instead of making cookies to share with the whole class, how about sharing a kind word with the girl who sits next to you.
Instead of going for your daily walk with a friend in the morning after the kids have gone to school, how about asking a new mum who just joined your school to join in with you.

Little thoughts of kindness that bridge gaps of need in the community.
In our pursuit of personal success we've forgotten how to do that.

Kindness has become more of a concept than an act. It needs to be personalised for children for them to really learn that, not broadly stroked in largesse.

If we don't teach them these things as children -  they won't carry it through into their adulthood.

I still believe that kindness is one of the most important qualities a person can have.
That open-hearted friendship is the pathway to a full and happier life (let's ban cliques)!
I still believe that unselfishness makes you a happier person overall.

But, it's a dying art.

The Characteristics of a Sexual Groomer

"It was in an evil hour that you ever came here!" 

from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.

When I think back over my life, and what happened to me when I was 20, when I met Bill Gothard, I think of this quote from the character of Rosa Dartle in David Copperfield. 

With my good, acute memory that never allows me to forget, I can put myself back in that room, that hour, the one that changed the course of my life, and I now think of it as an evil hour. It brought harm to me, to my family, and to my friends.

My predator issued a new-ish statement this morning on his website, and for a brief moment I thought about issuing my own retaliatory statement here on my blog in response to his very personal attack towards me and the other women who bravely shared the secrets he was hoping we would keep. He continues to deceive in his veiled sentences with their double meanings and the pious use of God's language, in his attempt to make everyone believe he is still a holy man.

But it is futile to try and argue with a narcissist, in what could end up being an endless slinging match of she said/he said. So, instead of focussing on the personal element this is to me, I am choosing to use this opportunity to bring awareness to how a sexual predator works. Even in Bill's new statement and the 'testimonies' from the eight women that accompany it, I am very concerned to still clearly see the elements of grooming in his letter and in some of their letters. 

Let me lay it out here - there is a clear process of sexual grooming that a predator uses. Every woman I have spoken with who has experienced some form of sexual harassment or abuse agrees that these are predominant aspects of a groomer. At some point in this process, your groomer will start touching you - at first it will be very mild, very innocent, very grandfatherly. As it was for me; a pat on the hand, a side-hug, a special 'look' that exchanges between you. If you have been selected by the predator, this will progress to full bodily hugs, to holding hands, to rubbing his leg up and down your leg, to caressing your hand and your fingers, to putting his face close to yours. This can progress to further violation.

This is the method that seldom fails when a predator selects their target.

Maybe you can see them also.

Kindness
Predators are good listeners. They will spend hours talking with you, paying attention to your words and your story. They will ask questions, they will empathize. And they are sincere. So very sincere. You will feel grateful to them, and humbled that they have shown such interest in you.

Special
A predator will make you feel special and favoured by them. They will use words like this:
"I have probably spent more one on one time with you than any other young woman you would know."
They will make you feel that you are the only person in the world that makes them happy. They will tell you that you give them energy. 
If you have a faith of any kind, they will use God's name to reinforce that. They will say things like, "God has brought you here," or "I have been waiting for God to bring someone like you to me/this ministry," or "what a blessing from God you are to me."

Secrets
At this point in the relationship they will feel safe enough to start probing for your secrets. If you open up to them, trusting them because they have been kind to you and you believe you are special to them, you will share your secrets. My groomer would say things like, "can I ask you a personal question?" This would be followed by questions along the lines of, "have you ever done something you're ashamed about," or "are you a virgin?'  With the initial, qualifying question making it feel like you have a choice whether to answer or not, lulls you into believing it is safe to share.

They may even share a secret or two with you from their life. It is unlikely they will share anything too personal - remembering that a narcissist/sociopath has denied their authentic self and is living a double-life. Any secret they share will be innocuous. My groomer shared a 'secret' with me when he admitted that he sometimes felt nervous speaking in front of thousands of people. I felt privileged that he would share that with me and nobody else, but what is that secret compared with 'are you a virgin?'

Gifts
To cement this growing relationship your predator will start giving you things. It depends on the circumstances you are in at the time, but for me, I was given a bedroom makeover, clothing, gifts of money, phone calls to my family overseas paid for by my groomer. The gifts are a way of reinforcing to you that they have been kind to you, that you are special to them, that you share a secret bond.

Fear
Fear can come in many forms when you are in a relationship with a groomer. But ultimately this step is designed to make you fear that one day the relationship will come to an end. Your groomer will start dropping subtle nuances about this. His fear will seem very real to you but it is designed to make you worry about losing them. 
This will make you work harder to please them.

Isolation
The next step is to isolate you from family and friends. If this cannot be done physically, it will be mentally. Your groomer will start confiding in you about other people and their faults. They will use words like 'trust'. My groomer said things like, "other girls will want to be your friend just to get close to me." This made me look on my peers with mistrust, believing they had alterior motives to befriending me. It also devalues my worth in my own eyes. It says, I am not worthy of being a friend. They don't really like me, they like him."

Soul ties
By now you and your predator think as one person. 
Well, you believe you do. 
He is the center of your world.

Absolute Loyalty
Do not listen to others who tell you they have concerns about your relationship with this person. 
They don't know him! They don't know how sincere and kind and special he is. They don't know his generous heart and his vulnerability. 

When you find yourself thinking this, you have fallen into his web of lies and deceit. 
Your groomer has won your heart, he has won your trust, he has won your mind.

In my case, I was fortunate enough that I had an intervention in the form of the USA Immigration Service - God bless their honest red tape!

If my story and the lost twenty years of loyalty to my groomer has any redeeming fact, I hope that it has this - to bring greater awareness to the process of predatory grooming. 

Let us cast light into the corners of those shadows. Let us drive out the evil lurking in our churches and schools and homes and communities and our lives.

In your hour of evil, 

when the shadow darkens your door,

remember my story, and remember my words of warning.

The Duggars and Bill Gothard. Is God Cleaning the House?

If you're not tired yet of reading hundreds of blog posts about the Duggars, here's another one.

I have thought long and hard about posting on this controversy on my personal blog. It is not easy for me to do that, but with all the news that has come out lately about the Duggar sexual molestation scandal I felt that I had a right to weigh in on this and voice my opinions, because even though I do not know the Duggar family personally, we have many mutual friends, because the Duggars and I have a mutual personal connection, and that connection is Bill Gothard.

I have waded through dozens of blog posts and news articles with varying opinions and some have made me want to stand up and cheer and applaud, and others have left me shaking my head and burying my face in my hands for shame.

I never thought the day would come where I would be thankful for whoever it is that chooses the television programmes for New Zealand, but for whatever reason 19 Kids and Counting is relatively unknown in this country, so I don't have to see it flash across my tv screen bringing with it the triggers of my experiences with the cult that the Duggars are in, nor specifically my experiences with the man who ran the cult. If you are not familiar with my story, here is the link again. Some of us even pleaded with the Duggar family to make a public statement about Bill Gothard.

I am not a teacher or a person who is a great studier. I don't spend hours and hours looking up Bible verses and figuring out the root meanings of the words, but since the beginning of all this controversy in the christian world - from Doug Phillips to Bill Gothard to the Duggar Family, I have had a deep belief that God is cleaning house. (1 Peter 4v17).

God is cleaning house.

I have always thought that the Duggars seemed like nice people. Misguided as we all were when we were involved in ATI and IBLP. Conned by what other people have termed the 'greatest threat to modern day christianity' - Patriarchy and fundamentalism. Bill Gothard and his powerful personality and persuasion. He influenced a whole generation of christians. He sounded good, it sounded right, but it wasn't. His version of God took us far, far away from the real God.

I have been stunned at how many christians are saying that what the Duggars are going through is persecution. Persecution! You are kidding me, right? Persecution is what the christians in Iraq are going through. Or the christians in North Korea. They are persecuted because they are christians. Not because they are sexual predators.

The Duggars brand of 'persecution' is self inflicted. They invited the media into their home. They've been in bed with publicity and television cameras and newspaper headlines for years. What is more astonishing is that they knew they had this skeleton in their family closet, and they still went ahead with the reality tv programme. Either they are incredibly naive, self-serving or they were ill-informed.

Many people say that the world is being hard on them because they are christians and they stood for what is right and moral and good. But many of these people don't understand that the brand of christianity that the Duggars follow is a performance brand. I know this because I worked for Bill Gothard for many years and followed the same brand. The basis of his teaching was that if you lived a certain way - that is, kept sin out as much as humanly possible, then God will bless you, your life will be successful and you will never have to deal with hard things, like sexual abuse in your family.

See how that worked out for the Duggars.

I imagine they were left reeling in shock when this happened to their family. Nobody wants that. So the Bill Gothard way is to try harder. Make the girls less tempting by covering up their bodies as much as possible. Side hugs only. No kissing. The list goes on and on. It's why they were so rigid with their courtship/dating stance. It's why they homeschool. It's why they have so many children. It's why the girls dress the way they do. Please God. Please God. Please God and He might not let anything bad happen. He will bless you.
Ugh.
A different God.

My heart breaks for those sweet, beautiful Duggar girls. I even had some sympathy for their brother, because I know what they have grown up in - repression and shame. They have not been allowed to grow and develop normally. Yes, our world is full of sin and evil, and yes, children should be sheltered when they are young, but christianity is not about hiding ourselves away from the world. We can't. We are in it. We are no different to any other person walking the face of this planet. The only difference is that we found Jesus who will cover our sins with His blood when we stand before God because we acknowledged our ability to be evil and we asked him to protect us from dying eternally because of it. That's it. That's all it is.

But my husband, who has worked with criminals for over 30 years in law enforcement, and many of those criminals are sex offenders, did not have much sympathy. It is not normal for a 14 year old boy to grope his sister. It's not even normal for him to do it once to one sister. But it seems this was done over a period of time and to at least five. It is normal for boys and girls to experiment, to be curious, but it is not normal for them to do what Josh Duggar did.

And what happened - he got shipped off to one of Bill Gothard's training centers, where he teaches that sometimes the victim is the one to blame.

What can we do about the Duggars?

I think it is a time for christians to show them love. To show them the real love of God. I think it is a time when we can reach out to them and say, 'hey, we love you, we are praying for you." This has to be a dreadful time for them. It will not hurt us to show compassion.

But it is also not a time to defend them, or to cry persecution.

It's a time to look inward. To our churches, to our belief structure, to find out if the God we have been following is the real God, or a man-made one. Is the basis of our faith one of performance or one of grace?

The conversation is healthy all while being heart-wrenching.

I do believe the time has come to clean up the house.

They're Changing Flags...

I quite like our New Zealand flag. I have no objection to it.
The union jack gives testament to our historic ties to England, and the four stars of the Southern Cross represent our place on the planet.

But there are winds of change afoot, and a new flag is being discussed and will be voted on soon.

How do you feel about a flag change?

I have no strong feelings either way. I like the current flag. I like it's historic significance, but I also think it says a lot about our small country that we are discussing a change. Does this mean we're feeling independent enough to assert our growing autonomy?

In thinking about this debate, I keep coming back to the Canadian flag. It is arguably, one of the most recognisable flags in the world and was chosen as the official flag in 1965. Previously, it also emblazoned the majestic Union Jack. In using just red and white and a large Maple leaf, we all know which country this flag belongs to. It's simple, but it stands out. I would hope that New Zealand would adopt similar guides. Simple and bold.

Whatever the reason, the changing of the flag has generated a lot of debate and quite a bit of creativity. Any New Zealander is free to submit ideas for a new flag, and I have been perusing some of them and decided to list a few of my favourites.

1. Design by Martin Caie from Auckland

PROS.
I like this one a lot, because it is simple, keeps traditional colours and stands out.
CONS:
It's a little too similar to the flag of the State of Texas.

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Or this variation, but I do not like black in a flag, for the reasons that it is dreadfully dull - I like colour - and because of the current association of black with the IS flag.

This design by Ryan Maxwell from Auckland

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2. Designed by Martin Hermans from Auckland

PROS: This is actually one of my favourite designs. It keeps the traditional royal blue, the Southern Cross and changes the union jack slightly to also represent our Maori heritage.

CONS: Not much of a change from the original?

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3. Designed by Kyle Lockwood from Auckland

PROS: This is currently my favourite. I like the traditional colours, the inclusion of the Southern Cross and the large white silver fern which has special significance to us kiwis. It just kind of has that official look too, if you know what I mean.

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4. Designed by Simon Aiken from International

PROS: My husband likes this one - he thinks it's original and quirky. Me, not so much, but I appreciate the design originality. It incorporates the Southern Cross, the red, white and blue, has a nod to Maori tukituki (slightly stretching it there), and is forward thinking in the digital code.
CONS: Not really visually identifiable as kiwi.

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5. Designed by Andrew Sims from Auckland
PROS: I really, really like this flag. It would be instantly recognisable. Probably in my top favourites.

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There are dozens of flag designs that have been submitted, and you can view them all here. What I think would be a good idea for the government to do once the final designs are chosen for the vote, is to make the flags up and fly them from a mast, as that would give us a better idea of how it would look at official occasions. What do you think?

Which one do you like?

Feeling Helpless In The Face of Such Evil

Caution: Some of the external links contain graphic images.

Do you feel a little bit guilty this Christmas? I have been feeling that way.

I felt guilty that I was out shopping for material possessions for my children while the heads of my little brothers and sisters in Christ were being cut off in Iraq because they said they loved Jesus.

I felt guilty that I was baking sugar cookies on the day that two innocent people lost their lives in a hostage situation in Sydney by a crazed religious fanatic.

I felt guilty that I am planning my holiday at the beach while 132 children in Pakistan will never have the joy of a holiday again.

These are just the headlines from the last few days, my friends. What atrocities are being wrought all over our sad, sad world. What unspeakable things are being done to innocent people. I find it intolerable. I find it unbearable. I think that I cannot take any more cruelty reaching my ears. People blame religion. People blame politics. People blame history. But really, it is just dark and evil hearts who have no love, no mercy, no empathy. People who have allowed the hate and the evil to consume their souls.

And I started thinking about what I can do. What can I do to help these innocents. What can I do to help them?

My instinct wants to rush into their countries and find these poor dear ones and bring them home to New Zealand. To my beautiful land of peace and freedom. I want my Prime Minister to do the impossible - to set a shield of protection around our shores, to make us invisible to the outside world. To stop the evil coming here.  To push back those dark, looming, billowing clouds of wickedness.

But a shield of protection will not keep the evil out. Evil is in the heart of man. We who live here have been privileged to grow up in a peaceful society, to follow our dreams, to lay our heads down in rest at night in peace. But the cost of this peace is not cheap. We have bled for it. We have sacrificed our sons of this land to have this peace.

Those men of old in those old wars weren't fighting for a flag. They weren't fighting for a government. They were fighting for their mothers who loved them. They were fighting for their sisters and their daughters so they could live without fear. They were fighting for their fathers and their sons and their brothers and their fellow country men and women who could live in beauty and have love and dream their dreams and live them out without fear. They were fighting so the people they loved could lay their heads down and sleep at night in peace.

Sometimes I get irritated with the frivolous news reports in the paper or on television when there is such evil in the world. It seems insulting to the suffering to have to read about Kim Kardashian's bottom, and where you can buy the latest outfit that the Duchess of Cambridge is wearing, and some new, exciting movie that is coming out. But I realized that actually, these silly little things are so desperately important. We have to keep it going. This is what makes freedom beautiful. That we can talk about fluff. That we have the luxury to indulge ourselves in such worthless things.

That we can write letters to the editor. That we can moan and complain about our local government and our national government. Oh what a privilege to complain about it. Oh what a privilege to be able to fight for justice and stand up for the poor and the hurting, and to keep our leaders accountable.  Oh what a privilege to shun the evil and embrace the good. This is what liberty is. Always fighting for the good. Never resting. Always pushing back evil.

And now it is our turn to fight for the beauty of freedom.  The answer to our fight may not lie in the might of guns and ships and fighter planes - these may be necessary, but it is not our decision to make. But there is a way each one of us can fight the evil. We who feel helpless in the face of such evil. We can help push back that cloud of blackness that threatens to envelop us.

We can fight for the beauty of life by living it.

And living it means making deliberate, conscious choices to be kind in the little things. Smiling at strangers. Being loving with our words and our actions. Helping our neighbour even if they are different to me. Celebrating our festivities. Thinking less of ourselves and more about other people. Immersing our children in Christmas celebrations and holidays at the beach. Wrapping up my toys and chocolates. Decorating my Christmas tree and singing carols in the street. Let's fight back the darkness with light. Let's fight back with what we know - freedom. Let's fight back with love.

I want to finish this with a quote from a favourite book from my childhood. It is one that had a deep impact on me - whenever I hear of war, I always think of this. It is from Rilla of Ingleside by LM Montgomery (of Anne of Green Gables fame). For me, it is one of the best books (even though it is fiction) of what it must have been like to live through a war, to have your way of life threatened. I hope it encourages you too, in these dark days. It is an excerpt from a letter written by a soldier to his sister.


"Rilla, the Piper will pipe me 'west' tomorrow. I feel sure of this. And Rilla, I'm not afraid. When you hear the news, remember that. I've won my own freedom here–freedom from all fear. I shall never be afraid of anything again–not of death–nor of life, if after all, I am to go on living. And life, I think, would be the harder of the two to face–for it could never be beautiful for me again. There would always be such horrible things to remember–things that would make life ugly and painful always for me. I could never forget them. But whether it's life or death, I'm not afraid, Rilla-my-Rilla, and I am not sorry that I came. I'm satisfied. I'll never write the poems I once dreamed of writing–but I've helped to make Canada safe for the poets of the future–for the workers of the future–ay, and the dreamers, too–for if no man dreams, there will be nothing for the workers to fulfil–the future, not of Canada only but of the world–when the 'red rain' of Langemarck and Verdun shall have brought forth a golden harvest–not in a year or two, as some foolishly think, but a generation later, when the seed sown now shall have had time to germinate and grow. Yes, I'm glad I came, Rilla. It isn't only the fate of the little sea-born island I love that is in the balance–nor of Canada nor of England. It's the fate of mankind. That is what we're fighting for. And we shall win–never for a moment doubt that, Rilla. For it isn't only the living who are fighting–the dead are fighting too. Such an army cannot be defeated."

Perfect is Boring

Sometimes I think the words Perfection and Fear should go hand in hand.

There's a revolution happening among some of my friends. There's a revolution happening with me. Years ago we were involved with a christian organisation that taught that if you made the right choices in every area of your life, you would gain true success in life. Success in marriage, career, family, finances, that it would even make you closer to God, favoured by God.

But I've been learning these last few months that the mirage of a perfect person and a perfect life is as fragile and hallucinogenic as shifting sands. It's there right before you, within your grasp, shimmering and beguiling and always, always out of reach.
And I don't believe God ever intended it to be that way for any of us.

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Because life is not really perfect, is it?

I don't have to be perfect to be happy.
My life doesn't have to be perfect to be fulfilled.
I don't have to make perfect choices to be successful.

We've all been there. We're afraid to make the wrong choices. We're afraid to anger God. We're afraid to spoil our reputation. We're afraid that someone might say, "she's complicated" or "she has issues" or "needy."

Ugly words. Words with stigma.

Ok, so I'm not deliberately going to go out there and make a mess of my life, and deliberately choose the wrong choice, just so I can get life experience. No! God forbid!
I don't think anyone chooses to be knocked down, or in difficulties. No. What I'm saying is that sometimes, even with the best of intentions we're going to do the wrong thing. But it's the lesson learned that counts, and it's what we do with that lesson.

We want to appear perfect. We want everyone to think we have it all together.
Our perfect Christmas cards, our perfect hair. Our perfect figure. Our perfect homes. Our perfect, prestigious job. Our perfect lives. Our perfect choices. We want to show the world that we are successful, and that success has come to us because we made the right choices about everything.

In the christian world, these issues of perfection are even more exacerbated. In the church, where, of all places, it shouldn't be prevalent. We go to God because we know we're not perfect. He is our safe place. He's always there for us when we make the wrong choice, and we realise all over again our vulnerability, our failure, our humanness.

Nobody can achieve perfection. Nobody.
We all have something to cope with in life.... our own cross to bear, because life is not perfect, and it never will be. Sometimes these bad things come to us through no fault of our own, but sometimes you have to accept that you are going to make wrong choices, you are going to make mistakes, you are going to be foolish. But from that comes beauty and an interesting life, a person with depth and courage and wisdom.

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If you could go back to your childhood self, what would you say? What advice would you give, knowing that whatever you said would stay with you through to your adult years?

I would like to go back and tell myself that it's ok to make the wrong choice sometimes.
That from the wrong choice would come Wisdom. Experience. Personal growth.

Trying to achieve perfection without the lessons along the way is fruitless and will probably end you up in therapy.

The richness of life, the value of lessons learned comes through sometimes getting it wrong. We shouldn't be afraid to be wrong. To be a fool.

Perfect is Boring.

photo credit: bobrayner via photopin cc

photo credit: peasap via photopin cc

How To Put Your Children Off Drinking Alcohol.... Forever!

Some of my family and friends know that I don't drink alcohol.
So there. If you didn't know that about me, you do now.
In New Zealand, it is a serious social sin to not drink. It annoys the heck out of me that our culture is this way, but there's nothing I can do to change it.
It has always amazed me that very few people have actually ever asked me why I don't drink. I once told a friend it was because I was a recovering alcoholic. I'm not, but the look on their face was priceless!

So let me tell you why I don't drink, and what happened over the weekend that has probably put my kids off drinking too. Forever.

I could probably list about 5 reasons why I don't drink, but the one over-powering reason is that I can't stand the smell of it, and this is why....

When I was a young teenager, we used to go up north to Waipu Cove every New Year's. And it wasn't for a holiday. It was an organised trip with my father who worked for a christian outreach ministry and we would normally join with a couple of the larger churches in Auckland who would send a group of their young people to help.

We set up tents on the beach with coffee and milo and tea and biscuits, and we would go down every evening and wait for the drunks to come along. Absolutely blotto and either raucous or crazy mad, and we'd try and sober them up with coffee and a place to sit and chat. Or a safe place to crash unconscious.

So I have this overpowering memory of drunk, rough, unkempt men (and some women) staggering into the tents, throwing up on their feet; teetering over to talk and breathing out their alcohol-ridden breath into my face, and the memory of that stench has stayed with me all my life. So I cannot stand the smell of alcohol. Even if I wanted to drink it, I couldn't get past the stench.

So, it was interesting this last weekend when we were at the bach, to see how my children responded to a similar thing.

It was early in the evening on Saturday night and I was out on the deck watching the children as they played on the beach. They had been having a go with the kite, but had given up and were fishing for shrimp and jellyfish in the rock pools.

I must have got distracted, because the next thing is a couple of the kids came running up breathless, saying there was a drunk man on the beach with a very bad injury on his leg.

It happened at the time that Rob, my husband was away on his daily run around the road that winds along the bays, and while there were cousins and the caretaker close by, they were a stiff run up the hill, and it was obviously something that the children wanted me to deal with straight away.

So, I went down with them and through the little gate that gives access to the beach, and there, lying under a Pohutukawa tree, on the rocks was a tall, skinny man with a large and very bloodied gash running up his shin, and he was talking to himself in a mumbled jumble.

A couple of men, who were passing by on the track over to the next beach had stopped to talk to him.

"What's up with him?" I asked the older of the two men. An englishman, judging by his accent.

"I've tried to tell him he needs to go to hospital, but he's not making any sense. He told me he's proud of his wound." The man shrugged.
"I've been trying to whistle up to his mates on the track."

The drunk man looked around and slurring, said, "don't ever get drunk."
Wise words.

At this point, with all the kids a few feet behind me, the drunk man staggered up, it took him a few goes, a couple of times he fell down before he managed to stand on his feet, and unzipping his trousers peed on the tree. Then he fell down again, absolutely prostrate and absolutely oblivious to the hard landing he had on the stones, and went unconscious for a few seconds.

Then he woke up and tried to move, and vomited.

As this was happening, I could hear some men coming down the track and their language was... shall we say.... uneducated.  *&*#%;^ this and *$#@&*; that, and if there was anything intelligible in all of that, I couldn't make out what it was. And they sounded angry.

I've seen angry drunk. And I've seen silly drunk. The man on the beach was silly drunk, but I wasn't going to take any risks with these other guys, so I quickly ushered the kids in behind the gate. And locked it. We returned to the house and watched from up there.

The men tried to get their 'friend' to follow them. Swearing at him for being so stupid. And then they left. Left him there lying on the stones.

A few minutes later we watched as he staggered up and tried to follow them up the hill. He fell quite a few times, veering off the track and landing face-first into the tall grass, slipping on the steep hillside, trying to put one foot in front of the other, failing. Falling. Trying again. And then we lost sight of him.

By this time, Rob had returned.
"Should we call the police? Or the ambulance." I asked.
Seriously, I was thinking that if he could barely make it up the hill, there would be no way he'd make it down the other side which is very, very steep and a fall would land him on some very sharp rocks below.

Rob, who has worked in the justice department and with varying degrees of criminals all his working life, said that on a Saturday night the police won't do anything about a lone, harmless drunk. He's just one of probably hundreds in Auckland that night and they were probably too busy dealing with more serious incidents, so there was nothing we could do.

One of the kids said, "Drunk people make me feel scared."
I had to agree. I'm glad he was the silly-drunk, but even the silly-drunks can be unpredictable.
I expect it will be a memory that will stay with them. It's not the first drunk we've encountered out there, and I'm sure he won't be the last either. Last summer Rob had to fish one of them out of the sea by towing him back with the kayak. He had jumped off the rocks, swum out a little ways and then realised he was in trouble.

In the morning we did see the group of drunks walking back across the beach, including the injured man. They were a very quiet, grumpy-looking group of people. But I am truly amazed that man survived the trip down the other-side of the hill.

Dear Mr. Prime Minister - You Are Annoying My Fellow Countrymen

That title is a generalisation.
A blatant generalisation.
Maybe Mr. Key isn't annoying all my fellow kiwis with his GCSB bill.

But tit-for-tat, Mr. Key.
You made a generalisation about us.
You said we would care more about the Snapper quota cuts than we would about the Spying bill.

I don't. I don't even like fishing.
Yes, I'm a New Zealander and I'm admitting to not liking fishing.

I am far more concerned about your proposed invasion into my privacy than I am about fish. This is not a law to protect us. This is a law against our democracy. A law against our freedom of speech and the right we have always had as New Zealanders to live our lives in freedom and without fear.

I have always voted for the National Party. I think I may even be a member. But guess what, Mr. Key - put this bill through and after the next elections you can look up my vote (I'm sure your spying bill's legislation will give you the right to do that), and you will find that I didn't vote for you or your party.

I think the honeymoon might be over Mr. Key. I liked you right from the beginning. You seemed like one of us. You seemed to love New Zealand and enjoy your job. You expressed the desire to keep our country great. It is a great country Mr. Key. One of the few great little places left on the Earth where we can live in freedom and without fear. Where we know our neighbours and our neighbours know us.

Do you want to destroy that? Do you want to take that away from us? Do you want to destroy the New Zealand you grew up in, that you love, that we all love. Because with this bill, our trust in the goodness and kindness of our fellow countrymen will slowly erode. If we can't trust the people who protect us, who can we trust?

I say it again, Mr. Key. This bill is not for our protection. Don't be deceived that we believe you on that one. We know that it is a law against our freedom. Our democracy. Our freedom of speech.
Our way of life.

So, Mr. Key, I am writing this blog post while I can. While I still have the freedom to express myself without fear of being labelled an activist or a terrorist or anti-government.


Here are a few other annoyed New Zealanders Fighting For Our Freedom

Join the Facebook Group
Sign the Petition
Email Peter Dunn the MP: peter.dunne@parliament.govt.nz

Sophie Slim 
The Simple Life
GreatFun4Kids
The Daily Blog

I Saw A Beggar on the Streets of Auckland

I have not grown up so sheltered from the realities of the world that I have never seen a beggar before. But I did see one in the suburbs of Auckland on Saturday and he asked me for money. It's not like I haven't seen the homeless either, in Wellington or Auckland. I know they are there. They've been there for years. But there is a difference between the homeless and a beggar.

I had been spending the day at a BlogCamp and we were given an hour for lunch. It wasn't much time for me to run down the stairs and out onto the street passing a few shops and cafes before I rounded the corner to visit with some dear friends of ours who only lived a few houses away.

As I came down the stairs and turned the corner, I nearly tripped over a man - quite a young man too, I'd say in his 30's or 40's, sitting up against the brick building with a little bowl in front of his crossed legs.

                                                photo credit: Jessicastjohn via photopin        


"Please Ma'am. Have you got anything for me?"

I slowed down my run and looked at him. I looked him in the eyes. He had creases across the top of his forehead and dark brown, tired-looking eyes.
"I'm sorry. I can't help you. I don't have anything on me."

I really didn't. I don't carry cash anymore, and I think I was kind of in shock that this was happening in Auckland.

This short encounter brought back many memories for me. In my younger days I spent quite a bit of time in South East Asia, and beggars were just a part of everyday life. We were always being told, "don't give them money." There were reasons for this in Asia, and one day I found out why.

We were in Indonesia - in a city near the top of the island of Sulawesi. In some of the villages up there white skin had never been seen before, so we were noticed instantly, wherever we went. I was with some friends and we had just stepped out of the car when an old woman came up to us and asked for money. We gave the usual denial and tried to walk away, but she was persistent and started hitting me on my shoulder, so in an attempt to calm her down, I stopped to hear what she wanted to say, which was another request for money, getting more and more violent. Over and over, shouting in my ear, and all the while punching me in my upper arm. "You give me money!" Then suddenly she was joined by all these other women and a few men, all shouting at us and trying to hit us or grab onto our clothes. A moment's hesitation, a moment of mercy, and we were surrounded.

We did manage to get away, but I've never forgotten it, and it was a huge lesson for me. The experienced travellers don't give you this advice about beggars to be mean.

But to see beggars in Indonesia, or Thailand or Malaysia is one thing. You expect it. But to see one in Auckland was surprising. For me, anyway. I know that everyone's circumstance is different, but in a country like New Zealand, where we have one of the best and most generous social welfare systems (in  my opinion), I really don't understand why someone has to sit on a suburban street and ask for money from people passing by. It's sad. I wondered what that man's story was? What had happened in his life that had brought him so low that begging became his only option? He's been haunting me since I came home.

When I returned from my visit with my friends, he had gone. Just a short 30 minutes later and the man had disappeared.

What would you have done?


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Living In A Bubble

Some days I feel like I've been living in a bubble for the last 40 years.
Let me explain....

I grew up in a small town where everyone knew each other and everyone looked out for each other. People were kind. People invited you over to their house for lunch. It wasn't just a 'come over for a casual BBQ and let me tell you what's going on in my life," but it was more the attitude of "I want to get to know you. I want to know what your life is like."

And I thought the world was still like that. I honestly did. Because I'm like that myself. I hate impersonal get-togethers with meaningless conversations about the weather or your job or your kids or your clothes. It frustrates me that noone wants to sit down for a few hours and have in-depth conversation. It's all rush-rush, scratch the surface kind of companionship. 

Does anyone else get what I mean? And I feel like I'm just waking up to the fact that the world isn't like that anymore, and that people aren't like that anymore either. It's all about "Look what I've got. Look what I do. Look what I have. You are privileged to know me."

Seriously, is it just me, or has the world changed? Does it just mean that I've finally grown up and the bloom is being brushed off the surface of my world, or is the world in general self-absorbed?

What triggered off these thoughts for me this morning was running into an old family friend who I have invited over and over to come to things we are doing or dinner or lunch or a party etc, etc, and they have always found excuses to not come. This last time they didn't even phone (after they said they would) to cancel. So this morning, after seeing them, I graciously shrugged it off and said, "Oh there'll be another time," and then they told me how they're so busy renovating a house etc, etc. Should I take that as a hint, or are people just so wrapped up in themselves that they don't know how to be polite anymore.
I honestly don't think they intend to be rude, but more and more it seems to me that the art of cordiality and politeness and just courtesy in general is fading into the past.

Also, as it happens, I texted an old friend this morning - someone who I have called one of my closest friends - because it has been awhile since we last talked - and the text I get back was all about the exciting things that are happening. And I am happy for them, really I am. But as I put the phone back into my bag it suddenly struck me that this person never asked how I was, how we were doing, what we were doing. This supposedly close friend hasn't got a clue as to what is going on in my life. What does that say? About them? About me?

I had a little of the bloom rubbed off my world last year. The kind of thing that happens where you start questioning a lot of things. Alot of friendships. Alot of decisions that you have made.

I kind of withdrew into myself for a little bit, until I wrote it all out (as I am doing here - really it's wonderfully therapeutic), and as I have slowly triumphed over that and come out the other end I look back and realise that there are people who I thought were my good friends. People I have shared fun times with, and deep thoughts and secrets and conversation, and I have not heard from them in over a year. Unless I make the contact first.

Because we have lived in many different places in New Zealand, alot of my good friends are scattered all over the place, but that's ok, because they were the kind of friendships that you can just pick up where you left off. Some of my friends have been through difficult times and I have been there for them, but at the end of my difficult time, it slowly dawned on me that I hadn't heard from them. At all. It was like an 'a-ha' moment.

There's a sadness in that, for me. And a slight creeping into my soul of cynacism. I don't want to look on the world with cynical or bitter eyes. I want to hold on to the romance and beauty and naivety of my youth and my outlook on the world. But it's hard in the light of these modern times, and in the slow dawning that it is a rare thing - an extremely rare thing - to find a man or a woman who is not self-absorbed.

It is a lesson to me, that in spite of the knockbacks, not to become just another soul-less person who takes what they can and not give anything back. It's hard to be like that in the world of hard-knocks. It's a fight.

It's a worthwhile fight, but there is a price to pay.

And so today, I feel a kinship with Lizzie from Pride and Prejudice, or should that be Jane Austen. For her to write such a thing, she must have felt it, known it, experienced it....

"The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense."