The crimson glow on the sky and harbour progressed to orange and deep purple before it faded to a promise of rain.

That sunrise was my prayer for the morning.

It perfectly described the fire of Pentecost that, paradoxically, sets us alight and then refreshes our dryness.

Perhaps you also saw that sunrise, and you dissolved into wordless prayer.

If you, like me, spend your days paddling through a swimming pool of words, you will treasure these moments.

They are precious.

And since "theology" literally means knowledge of God, I call these moments, "Theology of Nature."

Have you ever touched the bark of a large tree, expecting to feel the rough texture, and instead, have come in contact with a surge of God-life?

What happens inside you when you pick up a shell, a flower or the feather of a bird, and hold it close to your eyes as you did when you were a child?

Do you feel wonder? Blessing?

And did those feelings mingle to form silent prayer?

Not long ago, the neighbours' two children were at our back door, each carrying a hen's egg in a cupped hand.

The eggs, still warm from the hen house, were a gift that felt like Eucharist as they were quietly transferred to my hands.

Nothing was said, but God was everywhere.

Smiling, the children scampered off and an old woman stood in the doorway, holding two warm eggs, one white and one a caramel colour.

I could hear Jesus saying, "Except you become as little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven."

For me, the operative word in that quote is "become."

We do not stay as little children.

In becoming, we turn full circle and arrive at a place of eloquent simplicity that has life experience behind it.

Having worked with words most of my life, I now find that some nouns elude me.

This can be inconvenient, but it also reminds me that words fragment the Oneness of God's creation.

Naming things creates separation.

This is not an error. It is a process we go through, and it is recognised by all religions.

In Buddhism, it is said that when we are young, a tree is simply a tree.

As we grow, we learn the parts of a tree: roots, trunk, branches, leaves.

We define further to talk about xylem, phloem, cambium layer, chlorophyll, photosynthesis and so on.

Eventually, a tree is simply a tree again, but now we know what it is like to be a tree.

I'm aware that when I forget words like xylem and phloem, God is in the space.

Our mystical poets have always known the sacred Oneness beyond our divided thinking.

Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote: "The world is charged with the grandeur of God." Then he adds, "There is the dearest freshness deep down things…"

That dearest freshness is deep in our liturgy if we look for it. It is also in every shell, flower, feather and sunrise.

Jesus called it the kingdom of God.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

We have all experienced this way of growth in some form or other.

We need to be emptied in order to be filled.

Ignatian teacher Margaret Silf writes in her book "The Way of Wisdom" that when the ground gets hard, it needs to be broken by the plough before new growth can happen.

That image works for me.

But what happens when the plough upturns a nation?

A world?

Before Covid19 we experienced this movement with the Christchurch massacre. We were stunned. How could something like this happen in our country?

Then we reacted with a flood of love that took us to unprecedented newness.

From that horrifying crucifixion came a resurrection that brought growth to us and to the world.

So how does that relate to Covid 19?

Admittedly, we are still in the tomb where the pandemic is concerned.

We wait with uncertainty.

But if I put my head out to look over the past year, I see indicators of new growth.

Here is my blessing list. I hope you can pause a moment to reflect on yours.

Covid 19 is a leveller. It does not distinguish between countries, cultures, rank or class. The teaching in that is a blessing.

We have been blessed by wise and caring leaders who have been tireless in their efforts to control a dangerous situation. There was no Covid textbook. They had to create systems of protection for us, systems that worked.

We continue to be grateful.

There were blessings in lock-down. As a nation, we seemed to come closer in separation. We were aware of our neighbours and seeds of kindness grew and flowered in surprising ways.

Lockdown brought time for reflection, a time to come home to ourselves and our values.

We became more responsible.

We felt more real.

During the lockdown, we could smile as animals and birds roamed free while we sat in cages.

The world seemed cleaner and fresher without us.

I remembered Mark Twain's words, "Man is the highest creation. Now, I wonder who found that out?"

And I felt the blessing of humility.

It has certainly been an extraordinary year.

No matter how we view the effect of the pandemic, we know that we are not the same as we were in November 2019.

The economy may not be in good shape, but we are. We have grown in many ways.

Please, God, may that growth continue.

• Joy Cowley is a wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and retreat facilitator.

Due to COVID-19, the country is still under physical distancing restrictions, so only a few people were permitted on the site.

In a first for the project team live streaming was required so that the moment could be shared more widely. Read more

Last Thursday, TVNZ reported that the boat was blessed by the Catholic Church (sic), before being christened by Miuccia Prada, head designer of the fashion label and the wife of the team's boss.

Should New Zealanders get the impression that all 1.3 billion Catholics are putting their weight behind the Italian team it should be pointed out that it was His Excellency Monsignor Arrigo Miglio, Archbishop of Cagliari, who performed the blessing, not the whole Catholic church.

Maybe Team New Zealand should also invoke divine help from the Bishop of Auckland.

Source

• tvnz.co.nz
• lunarossachallenge.com

Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabruck said it was possible to see strengths as well as weaknesses in both gay relationships and in those of cohabiting heterosexuals.

He said that the Catholic Church could not accept same-sex marriage.

But the bishop said the Church was bound not to discriminate against homosexuals, as noted in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Therefore it should do more to support those who were in stable unions.

He said: "With prayer and a private form of blessing you will be able to accompany their way."

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