Dispatch from Kopua, Tuesday, April 26

After a quiet Sunday of worship, rest, and conversation, we set off yesterday morning for Napier, a nearby city on Hawkes Bay on the eastern coast. I don’t think there is such a thing as a boring drive in this entire country. Driving northward the peaks of the Ruahine range stood proudly with a fresh mantle of snow on their shoulders on our left while we drove on through the green hills of the coastal plain dotted with sheep “stations” with their grazing sheep. Now and then we’d pass through a town lined with palms and plane trees, and golf courses.
There are lots of golf courses in New Zealand, though I’ve not yet played here even though there’s a little country course a few kilometers away at the intersection of the little Monastery road and the highway. These smaller back country courses have a distinct feature that makes them especially attractive to pastors-- sheep graze on the fairways. That’s right, while the greens are fenced off, the wooly creatures wander freely on the course, keeping the fairways nicely mowed. Of course there must be some “obstacles” on the ground to avoid as the golfers walk along. And then there’s the matter of actually hitting one of the little duffers. I’ve asked about that, but no one around here seems at all surprised that sheep wander the fairways, or concerned that an errant golf ball, such as I might easily hit, could hit one. Perhaps sheep, besides being dumb creatures, are also hard headed, and their wool so thick as to protect them from flying golf balls.
Pastors sometimes chalk up their time at golf as more “pastoral work.” I make sure to ask after the spiritual health of all my golfing partners. Well here that’s no mere excuse for pastoral play. Golfing pastors here literally walk among their sheep, and if they hit an errant drive, hopefully they also know their sheep by name so as to warn them of the coming danger. It occurs to me that Bach’s great chorale, “Sheep May Safely Graze” doesn’t hold true on one of these New Zealand back country golf courses.
Napier is a medium sized city with the distinctive feature that the buildings in its center city are mainly designed in the art deco style of the 1930’s. The city was devastated by an earthquake in the late 20’s and rebuilt in what was then the modern design. It’s really quite charming, although you have to walk looking up to notice since most of the stores have redone their street level fronts in a current and nondescript style.
Lots of people were out on the streets but only a few of the stores were open, this being a national holiday, Anzac day. Anzac Day is like our Memorial Day and Armistice Day all rolled into one. It stands for “Australia and New Zealand Army Corps,” and memorializes all those who served in war. For some reason the battle of Gallipoli seems to be a special focus, which seems strange to me since I remember it mainly as Churchill’s big WWI disaster.
We had a very nice lunch in a small trendy café filled with mainly young people (of course everyone seems young to us these days). My age shows through with my intolerance for the loud, insistent techno beat music that seems to be the necessary accompaniment for so many restaurants and bars here. Since Napier is also the center of wine country in this part of New Zealand we also visited a winery and tasting room. This one, the Mission Winery, is the oldest in the area, and the wonderfully restored old building was a seminary of the Marian Order of priests, who, like some other orders, became famous for their wines. Good stuff! We bought a couple of bottles.
One of the wonderful amenities of restaurants in New Zealand is that you can BYO, as it says in the window, bring your own wine. They charge a small “uncorking” fee, but it’s still a lot cheaper than buying a bottle from the restaurant’s cellar. By the way, here’s a wine lovers news flash from New Zealand. Many fine wines here have the good old screw top that used to be the sure-fire way to identify cheap wines. Evidently there’s a shortage of cork, and the good old screw top works just fine.
While tasting the various vintages we chatted with some of the other visitors, one of whom came from Colorado with her friend from Australia. We started to talk about what restaurant we might go to that evening, and they suggested a little out of the way place as the best seafood in town, and we could uncork our newly purchased Pinot Gris there. It turned out to be a nice little place owned by a family of Dutch immigrants who had arrived a few years ago. Not only are they Dutch, they are from Friesland, the northern and fiercely independent part of Holland where my grandfather came from (just ask Anita Blom).
We drove home in the dark, an adventure in this country of left lane driving, and unreliable yellow “no passing” lines. So even at night the driving isn’t boring. You can’t see the scenery but the driver’s antics are endlessly fascinating (that’s the other drivers, of course, no matter what Jeanne says). It was good to turn up the long entrance drive to the monastery and see the white neon-lighted cross high above the church. I haven’t had the heart to tell the monks that I’ve seen exactly the same cross on Baptist churches in the piney woods of east Texas.
We made it back to Kopua just in time for Compline, the last office of the day. Psalm 27 is said at every Compline, and after our drive last night we could thankfully say, “When evildoers assail me to devour my flesh—my adversaries and my foes—they shall stumble and fall.” As I’ve said before, one of the wonderful aspects of staying at monasteries for a time in each place as we travel is that there is really a sense of “coming home” after a day away. Arriving in time for Compline last night, and being blessed before bed, gave us that experience of home away from home again.
Part of the homey quality at Kopua comes from several regulars who worship here. This morning the young family was here again for Lauds and Mass at 6 am. They drive for a half hour to get here, so you can figure what time they must get up. A good Catholic family with five children, the kids are must have arrived one after another, arranged like stair steps from a nine-month old up to a four year old. The father looks fit and healthy, but I must say Mom looks a bit tired. Still, it’s wonderful to have them here almost every day as part of the community, and hearing the occasional quiet murmurs of the incredibly well-behaved children.
I also like to hear the low growling voice of the mentally disabled old man I wrote about earlier, who is a regular part of the community, and who’s parents deeded them the land with the understanding that they care for their son. The monks say he has the mentality of about a twelve-year-old, and while he doesn’t read, he knows all the responses of the Mass, as well as the canticles (the four songs in Luke’s gospel) by heart, and sings them with great deep monotone gusto.
The Mass this morning was celebrated on the feast day of St. Mark. The epistle came from the end of I Peter where he writes, “Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.” That spoke to our hearts as we find ourselves concerned for family members while we’re so far away. But I think it was read on this day because of what follows. Peter sends his greetings to the churches and then continues, “and so does my son Mark.” Was that the same Mark who wrote the gospel? Perhaps, since many scholars think Mark is written from Peter’s point of view. I don’t remember ever noticing that reference to Mark before. Strangely, the gospel reading was from the very end of Mark, the part that’s all bracketed off and that most scholars don’t think was part of the original gospel. It did seem a bit strange in the rather staid atmosphere of a New Zealand Trappist monastery to hear about how the disciples would “speak in new tongues,” and “pick up snakes in their hands.” Maybe it all fits with the neon cross.