Long time no blog… a lot of things have interverned – Easter, the death of a dear friend…

The Insatiable Moon is very much a film about the little people who live on the margins of life and are mostly ignored. It was therefore surprising and gratifying to see that news media in Auckland this week acknowledged the death of a local woman who had become part of the fabric of central city life. Margaret (pictured above – photo by Steve Hardy) was an alcoholic who kept court on a bench in Karangahape Road in Auckland, bumming cash and roundly abusing those who refused to give it. There was something very reassuring about her constant presence on the streets. A Facebook page set up in her honour has attracted more than 7,000 ‘likes’. Her presence did not go unnoticed.

In the same week my friend and one time spiritual director Father Terry Dibble died. I had the chance to say goodbye to him a few days before he died (on Easter Sunday). Yesterday I attended his funeral. Terry was a man who believed in the importance of the little people. He spent his life devoted to the poor and the marginalised, fighting with them and for them. He antagonised the church hierarchy and the police with equal disregard, in his life of resistance against those forces in society that demean the dignity of humanity. He was a crusader for social justice, but not from ideology so much as from love. Terry was the friend of all those that society neglects, and is missed by them all.

These two events cause me to reflect on how easily we are distracted by the rich and famous and beautiful. And how much it costs us in our humanity. No doubt the homeless of London will be ‘shifted’ from anywhere around the route of the royal wedding tomorrow, so as not to distract. But long after the crowds have left, they will still be sleeping rough. I know Terry believed that when we silence the voices of the poor, we silence the voice of God among us.

Haere ra Terry. Haere ra Margaret. May Arthur welcome you home.

Posted in news