In the last couple of weeks two images have stuck with me. One is this painting depicting the pain associated with post-natal depression – Never Morning Wore to Evening but Some Heart Did Break (Walter Langley). While I can’t begin to understand this fully, I do always find my heart softens to those mothers who battle with it. It seems so common and so unfair. A post from my friend Thalia included this painting and her own candid reflections here and here and here are so helpful..
Then in Kerikeri on Friday, I was leafing through a book on NZ history at the Stone Cottage and this cartoon was sitting there and grabbed me. It is called Roll of Honour (Gordon Calman – 1917) and the link to the National Library describes it depicting “a sorrowful woman with her head bowed drawn in the shape of a map of New Zealand. She holds a Roll of Honour”. It reminds me so much of the ‘mother’s anzac poem’ which I posted some months ago and the deep sadness that overcame so many women whose men did not come home.
Look at the two bowed heads – one from depression and the other in grief…
How critical it is that we have an accurate self-understanding and then in preaching-sermons and building-community we make a special effort to consider and include those who are unlike the ‘self’.
nice chatting
Paul
About Me

the art of unpacking
After a childhood in India, a theological training in the USA and a pastoral ministry in Southland (New Zealand), I spent twenty years in theological education in New Zealand — first at Laidlaw College and then at Carey Baptist College, where I served as principal. In 2009 I began working with Langham Partnership and since 2013 I have been the Programme Director (Langham Preaching). Through it all I've cherished the experience of the 'gracious hand of God upon me' and I've relished the opportunity to 'unpack', or exegete, all that I encounter in my walk through life with Jesus.
Recent Posts
Just when I thought that it could not be possible to have another first-hand account of the impact of John Stott’s life (d. 2011), along comes this book by his close friend, John Wyatt. I am always ready to learn more about John Stott, but also about friendship. It fascinates me. It keeps coming up…
Reading stories to grandchildren over Christmas reminded me again of how powerful they can be. They are so compact and simple in presentation, and yet so clever in construction. There are just so many features at work in an effective story. It is some years since I taught narrative preaching, but when I did I’d…
Apart from the eight years in which we were based overseas, Barby has been working at the Refugee Resettlement Center in Auckland since 2002. This year she is a ‘release teacher’, spending one day each week in three different classrooms, with three different age groups. Impressive—and demanding. One day is spent with 11-13 year olds—from…
Thank you, Paul.
tkr
Hi Paul, thanks for this.
Mental Illness, grief and loss, all part of the lives of the 1:5 in our population.
Jim Wallis challenges me with this – 'Only those willing to stand close enough to listen will ever hear those closest to the problem'.