The seeds of faith

In this  post, I'm going to show you some of the churches we have attended in our area. They have been a haven to us. 

We all know that evil is loose in our world and we know all too well it's power. We have been blessed with faith though, and a world-wide community that sustains us as we come to worship. And we know that evil will not triumph in the end. 

This is our church in Glen Eden. You see Father Matthew Clerkin, a Franciscan Friar who is Irish, about to enter the church.  One interesting fact about the difference in time zones around the world is that as St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Bark River, Michigan is beginning Mass at 5 pm on Saturday, Our Lady of Lourdes in Glen Eden, New Zealand, is beginning the 9 am Mass on Sunday that we most often attend.* I've often wondered as we start singing our opening hymn, if the same might be sung in Bark River. It is possible. 
*This is during our NZ winter/American summer, due to daylight savings changes. 

This is a good place to put down some roots

This is Saint Benedict's, located in Auckland that we attended for a time before we found the churches closer to home. Very interesting architecture inside. 

 I don't know anything at all about architecture, or load types, or stresses, or statics and strengths of materials, or who knows what else, but it seems to me that those bits of wood up there, where all the beams meet, holding the whole section of roof and walls stable, have got to have some very interesting math describing them. Especially the front one. 

Great choir loft. 

This is Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Puhoi. We visited it on our anniversary in 2013. The roof was originally shingled in kauri pine. When the new roof was put on, all that wood was saved and used to make crosses. We bought a few of these historic crosses when we were there. I checked again just before publishing this post and found that the crosses have all been sold. I wish I had purchased more of them when I had the chance.

As you can see, this is St. Michael's. It's in Rotorua. We've come here over a couple of years when Allie has run in various races there. 

It's interesting the St. Michael is the patron saint of this Parish. (you can see his statue in an alcove to the right of the altar, stabbing the devil.)
You can smell fire and brimstone (sulfur) all over town. 
http://fostersoe.blogspot.co.nz/2014/12/rotorua-nicknamed-sulfur-city-pohutu.html

This is Holy Cross in Henderson. We attended here for quite a while. As it happens, Father Paul, who we first knew here at Holy Cross, has now been transferred to Glen Eden.     

And, speakiing of seeds of faith and putting down roots...

Recently, Jeanne was having a talk with the owner of Sokol's, one of our favorite produce stores. The owner is quite a nice guy who gave us a bunch of old white plastic grape trays which Jeanne, with her boundless creativity, made into a large, very lightweight outdoor enclosure for the guinea girls. 

She was telling the owner about various vegetables that she is now growing here, common stuff like pickling cukes, and thin, French fillet beans, that she grew in Michigan for many years. This guy said he had never heard of either of them and told Jeanne that she was much more knowledgable than he is. I don't doubt that. 

That conversation got me thinking about Jeanne's garden back in Wilson, which lead to thoughts about planting and then finally to seeds. Especially, heirloom seeds. Jeanne has grown quite a few of the very old, standard (non-hybridized) seeds in her Michigan garden over the years. Everything from corn to tomatoes, cukes, and pumpkins.   During the years that she was growing these original varieties, I learned about a repository for ancient and original seeds located in the Arctic. They are kept there to safeguard them for future generations to know, and to grow and to again pass on into the future.  

You might wonder why I have now branched my post today from talk about churches (Catholic) to talk about seeds?  They're not really related, are they?  Well, I think they are in a way.

I think that our Catholic Church is the repository of the ancient and pure truth (the seed) of faith in Christ and in eternal life. The Church is protecting and propogating what was taught by the Founder. His truth is like an heirloom seed. 

A couple of friends of mine have told me that their church is 'fundamentalist.' They say it with pride. I admire their zeal, but personally, I think that our Catholic Church is the original fundamentalist church. Christ started it after all and it has worked ever since to maintain His teachings, as He taught them. 

"The Word Became Flesh." A seed becomes a plant. Despite my extremely limited understanding of the infinite Divine Mysteries, I still think that I can make a comparison there, so combining a post about our church and heirloom seeds makes sense to me.    -djf

Cruising the Kaipara, part two

Jeanne and I had fish and chips. Allie had a toastie of some sort, Arram had a meat pie and Amiri ordered nachos. Both boys had enormous hot chocolates, the ladies had coffees, and I stuck with just water. 

After we ate, we noticed that the boat was gone. Jeanne thought that they may have gone fishing. 

After the ladies joined us at the playground, I excused myself and walked down the beach.. I wanted to know what made Shelley Beach special.  

 The tide was out. I've learned in the past that I don't enjoy walking a mud-flat. Whatever your shoe size is, walking on a mud-flat at low tide will give you size 15 feet before too long. 

 However, along the edge of it, you can find all sorts of treasures. I love sea-fans like this one. Even after 4+ years here in NZ, I still marvel at being able to bend over and pick up such a wonder of nature. 

Here are a few more of my take today. The most common shell on Shelley Beach is the cockle. There are piles of them.  Ten of millions I'm sure on this stretch of beach. Found a couple of nice scallop shells too.

A couple of hundred yards down the beach brought me to sand stone cliffs.  

 Around the corner from the first headland were more cliffs.

 A close-up of one of the fallen rocks. 

I went around a couple of headlands but had to get back.

A telephoto view across the flats to a rock outcropping, open water, and the other side of the harbour. It's fairly narrow at this point. When we leave the Jetty, we will go north into the wider harbour. 

"Avast there mateys, the ship, she be leavin' with the tide. Get thee aboard and be quick about it, or the Cap'n'll have the hide offen yea."

 "Aye, and it's a scurvy-lookin' crew at best. Still, methinks the sea will make men of them afore the voyage is done..."

"Shivver me timbers, keep a close watch from the crow's nest will yea? "

The lad looks to have a keen eye and a willing heart... 

Unfortunately, a short time after this picture was taken, the wind stole his cap. 

Hours on watch and any sailor starts to dream of home port and the comforts to be found there. 

 The First Mate joins the some of the crew up top.

 Moby Dick is not expected on this voyage. However, we Are on the look-out for the rare and endangered Maui Dolphin. Also called the popoto, it's the smallest sub-species of dolphin and it's believed that less than 100 of them remain. They are less than 6 feet long and have a distinctive rounded dorsal fin. 

None were spotted. 

Ashore, a giant sculpture stands on a multi-millionaires estate. 

This bunch of sailors must have shore leave coming. They are flying.... 

These Kiwis are more my speed. 

 We old salts know when to put our feet up. 

Too bad I don't have a pipe I can puff on and knock against the rail. 

Leaving the Harbour where we learned so much. 

Our Captain has done it. Brought us back to the very river from which we left. 

Good-bye birds, eels and mangroves. 

No longer land-lubbers, the ship's crew flexes their sea-legs and heads home.  

Cruising the Kaipara, part one

If you travel north and west of Auckland, up to Helensville, you can take a cruise down the Kaipara River and out into the Harbour of the same name.  Allie treated us to just such a cruise one Sunday recently. It was a 5 hour round-trip, with two hours spent having lunch at a cafe called The Jetty, and enjoying the playground and beach nearby.  

On the map below, which was displayed on board our boat, the Kewpie Too, The Kaipara River enters the harbour from its southernmost point. 

At first glance, the Kaipara River looks muddy and inhospitable. Mucky.  Along both banks are mangrove trees and the dominant colors are dark green, brown, grey, black, and a mixture of all of them. However, life abounds in this area, and we learned a lot of interesting facts during our narrated tour. 

Do you remember a post about Te Atatu Peninsula? Also a mangrove habitat.

http://fostersoe.blogspot.co.nz/2015/12/te-atatu-peninsula-and-mangrove-mudflats.html

I wasn't very impressed with the mangroves on Te Atatu. They smelled rather rank.

The mangroves that we sailed through on this cruise smelled earthy and very organic, but they smelled healthier to me than did the swamps at Te Atatu. 

Well, let's get started with some pictures...

Here she comes. We liked the colors of red, white and blue! 

 Some last-minute discussion about provisioning going on here I think.

Heading down river.  I thought briefly about Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn as we started out. No hippos though, swarms of flies or rapids. And our boat sure beat Bogie's little steamer.  

'First Class Passengers Only' on the upper deck. Just kidding. All passengers on board were invited up top where the view was the best. (and the wind the stongest)

However, it was reached by two narrow, almost vertical stairways that weeded out most of the senior members of the passengers. (I did make it)  

This is the view down one of the hatches from the upper deck. 

Cormorants (many people call them shags) along the muddy banks with mangroves behind them. These trees are much smaller than those you'd find in the tropics. Remember, we're at the southern edge of their range.  

All along the river, these 'creeks' run up into the swamps. They are full of eels. Fishermen put out traps periodically and send most of the catch to Asia. 

After catching them, the eels are cooled while still in water to just above the freezing point, which puts them into hibernation. The water is then drained away and the eels, since they need almost no oxygen in this state and can live for up to 20 hours, are flown to markets,  mostly in Asia. Upon arrival, they are reintroduced into gradually warmer water and revived. These live eels from NZ command a high price in such markets.  

They can have them, I'm not a fan of eels. 

Our Captain at the wheel, his hand on the throttle, full attention on the river.  Coffee cup poised nearby. 

Oysters along the shore. This was a huge Maori food gathering location. In fact, the name Kaipara was given to the harbour and river by a Maori chief who was visitng here. 

This is a suction dredge that works out in the harbour, sucking up the white sand that makes up the harbour seafloor.  

Very different than the black sand that is deposited on many of the west coast beaches, this is collected because of its color and uniformity of grain size. Used in lots of landscaping jobs. 

Seafaring men are a hardy lot that need plenty of nourishment. The voyage was just starting but these lads have settled down to fueling up their engines. Rice crackers today take the place of ship's biscuit. 

That's the Captain's First Mate there in the galley, ready to serve up hot drinks or pies as needed. Business looked slow today as most of the passengers were elderly and most came with thermoses and snacks of their own. 

'Land-ho,' (Shelley Beach) in the distance. We have made the crossing from the mouth of the Kaipara River to this, our stopping place for lunch, fairly quickly. The Captain explained that because of the rain, he would show us around the harbour after lunch, instead of before, as is the normal routine. 

While the upper deck was fun for a while, this weather was wet enough to send even the heartiest among us into the shelter of the cabin. I was just hoping that it would not be pouring as we made ourselves down the long jetty that the cafe is named for.

 The fishermen were all busy reeling in their lines as we approached. 

The Captain had informed us that the tide varies by 14 feet here. The water was dropping all during our excursion. 

We made it. The short walk in from the boat wasn't too bad. This picture and the following were taken after lunch and after the rain had moved through.

Allie and Jeanne were sipping flat-whites after lunch but the boys were anxious to get at the playground. I went along. 

They met some other kids on the playgound who has also been on the boat. 

Kiwis love to decorate walls with murals. I've shown you many examples in the past. This is on the mens' changing room. 

That's the Jetty Cafe. Love it. 

End of part one. 

Part two takes us around the harbour. The skies have cleared, the Captain opens up the throttle, and we explore. Come along...         djf