Rev Helene Mann

Rev Helene Mann, who died unexpectedly two days ago in Dunedin Hospital, always announced herself, when she came into the shop I managed (OC Books), as 'your favourite customer'.   And in many ways she was.  From a purely retail point of view, she could be guaranteed to buy at least one book on each visit, but would more likely buy several.   But it wasn't just her book-buying that made her visits interesting: it was her conversation.  Invariably we would discuss something of interest: books, theology, Celtic Christianity (one of her favourite subjects and one she studied, and one she introduced me to), her enthusiasm for Pelagius, Anglicanism and a host of other subjects.

Like many of my customers, she became a friend.  We'd meet on the street and talk, or meet at a conference and talk.  It was never just a case of retailer and customer, but much more.  She was one of the many people I missed when I left the shop, although we occasionally had a chance meeting afterwards, including just the other day when my wife and I met her in South Dunedin.   She didn't look well (and hadn't done for some time), but was still bustling her way forward, trying to keep up with the many tasks she took on.

She was short, but made up for it in seemingly boundless energy, even when her health knocked her back.  She was intellectually sharp, and though we crossed swords very occasionally, in general our relationship was one of humour and the enjoyment of catching up again.   I will miss seeing her - as I'm sure hundreds of others will.   May she rest in the peace of her Creator, and enjoy His company eternally.

PS - 14.1.12
Just been informed by Jim Mann, Helene's husband, that he read this post after his relatives in Wales informed him of it (!)  Such is the nature of the Internet. 

The Insatiable Moon

The Insatiable Moon is a film that needs to be seen twice. First time around you're trying to take in the way things work in this particular world, and how the story all fits together. A second viewing gives you more time to reflect.

Arthur (played by Rawiri Paratene) believes he's the 'second son of God.' He lives in a boarding house with a bunch of other people with mental health issues, and is by far the most outgoing and positive of them all. The story explores whether his ability to discern other people's inner turmoils, his belief that God is benevolent to his children, his prophetic words and other insights, are truly charismatic gifts, or merely part of his brain dysfunctions. It challenges us to believe in miracles, in the need for a true belief in God and not just a religious one, and of course, most of all, it challenges us to see people with mental health issues as people loved by God.

The 'villains' of the piece might be a bit too black and white, but they're mostly minor characters: the really interesting people in this movie are those who have a sense of the spiritual and are willing to follow it even if it causes them pain, or requires them to change long-held attitudes.

The scene towards the end, when the suburb of Ponsonby rallies for and against having a boarding house for people with mental health problems in its midst, is the climax, but the more important scene comes earlier, at the funeral of one of the boarding house residents. This is where Arthur comes into his own as a prophetic voice, a man who speaks the words of (first) Son of God.

The other interesting character is the man - Bob - who runs the boarding house: foul-mouthed and short-fused, he nevertheless cares deeply for the men he feeds and cleans up for (seemingly single-handed). This is a vocation for him, rather than a job, although it's unlikely he regards himself as a spiritual man. The 'spiritual' man in the story, the Anglican priest, is at odds with himself and his spiritual life, and seems rather wet by comparison with Bob. It's not that he's meant to represent institutional religion; that would be too simplistic. Rather he's a man in the wrong job, and wisely, by the end of the movie, he's realised it.

Mike Riddell, the author of the original book and the scriptwriter for the movie, doesn't give us all the answers - although he teases us with possible answers at times. His seven years of effort (along with a host of other supporters, including his wife, who directed the movie after the original director had to pull out) in getting this movie off the ground have borne good fruit.

Dull as ditchwater

They're playing some motets by Philippe de Monte on Concert FM at the moment, and once again it makes me wonder: would this kind of music really have been sung in such a precious fashion originally?
What we hear is the style of singing that's become prevalent in the Anglican high church, which is where most of this sort of music is now sung (if it's sung at all). There they've got into a long tradition of singing in a kind of unemotional, almost bodiless way - gutless might be a good word. Even with the introduction of women into these choirs, the 'tone' hasn't changed. It's still deathly serious, perfectly beautiful in a museum-like way, as though these composers never had flesh and blood.
I'd love to hear these things sung with some energy, some verve, some life. After all, I know singers who've been in these choirs, and that's not how they sing other kinds of music
We watched a programme on Christmas from an Anglican perspective after midnight on Christmas Day, and even the modern music that the choir sang was treated with this super-delux reverential style. Boring.

Another Dawn Treader review

Alan Firth, of St John's Anglican Church, has once again written a very favourable review of a Narnia production. Alan has supported the shows since the beginning (I think), not only by attending but also by writing them up for the Church website.
I particularly liked this paragraph in the review:
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, scripted and directed by Erina Caradus, is structured almost like a cinema film, with rapid cuts between scenes but no breaks in the action. The set design and stage management is complex and very effective. Fine painted backdrops set the scene on many of the islands, while a mobile and versatile Dawn Treader set fills much of the stage for the shipboard scenes. (The ship's crew double as stagehands, to the extent that handling the ship is sometimes indistinguishable from handling the scenery.)

It just occurs to me that Eustace says at one point, 'I bet there isn't any tax here'. He's such a fussy character, going on about British Consuls, and depositions and other such nonsense. Yet the one thing he never mentions is his lack of a passport...curious that!

Finding Anglia

I’ve written elsewhere about Anglian worms, but the word Anglian gets tacked onto all manner of things related to the region of Anglia. I tend to mistake Anglian on first reading as Anglican (Anglican worms is a nice concept, somehow), but that’s because I’ve had a lot of dealings with Anglicans in the last few years. So where is Anglia? I thought I’d better check it out as it’s obviously a word I need to know more about. Here’s a quote from the Anglian Region environment info page: The Anglian Region covers more than 27,000 square kilometres, from the Thames Estuary in the south to Humber Estuary in the North, and from the East Anglian Coast to Daventry in the West and the main urban areas are Norwich, Peterborough, Ipswich, Chelmsford, Cambridge Northampton and Lincoln. That’ll be why I’m always coming across it, as I’ve spent a lot of time in the Norfolk region recently. Anglian is also the name of a long-standing company that does home improvements. I won’t tell my wife: she might want to go and visit them, being a home improvement addict. Our house has been ‘improved’ umpteen times since we moved in nearly thirty years ago. Her brother (who actually lives in East Anglia) is much the same: completing something in a house is merely an excuse for starting some other improvement. And his daughter has inherited her father’s enthusiasm for improving things: she’s added a conservatory onto the kitchen area, a wonderful bright room that sits in the middle of the garden area. (Her cousin, on the other hand, has built on a conservatory in order to remove some of the garden!) None of this has anything to do with the arts, of course - it’s just another one of those posts that’s squeezed itself in surreptitiously. It’s only claim to connecting to the arts, is that the words, home improvement, are music to some people’s ears….