New Zealand reflections

New Zealand. I told several Kiwis the story of meeting a man on a plane about a decade ago who spoke of the tremendous beauty of the islands, and that since then it was on my 'dream list' to travel to New Zealand. If you would have told me a year ago that I'd have that particular dream come true within the next year, I would have chuckled... but one of the zillions of twists and turns over these past 14 months landed me there.

Most of the days I spent at the house of my wonderful Rotarian host, Madelene-- a nuturing, humorous, supportive, intelligent, and adventurous lady. From my guest room, I gazed out onto the bay in speechless humility, and again, counted blessings. I was there to speak at a Rotary District Conference, which I achieved last Sunday to a crowd of two hundred some Rotarians who hadn't heard much about the World Peace Fellowship to date. It's always a gift to hear feedback from people afterwards as different people relate to your words in different ways.

I spent a total of ten days in New Zealand, a few in Wellington and most in Picton. It was a much needed respite from the intensity of study in conflict, violence, war, misunderstanding, power and greed, and in my Rotary presentation was the opportunity to reflect a bit on my life. Though I didn't have quite enough time to reflect beyond the realization that my soul longs for more time to reflect:) To the point of having to remind myself which country I wake up to, I'm simply moving too fast. I find scarce time to engage in deep-reaching conversations with friends, as we all duck off to our computers. But we have so much to process together... Tonight a discussion about humanitarian emergencies with a reality check on the variety of ways what seemingly is 'positive' may truly leave more damage in its wake. Competition between NGOs in an everwidening field of aid... how to prevent market forces from overshadowing the value base of assistance work?

Exhaustion amidst the tension and confusion of attempting to answer 'what is expected of me in this moment of all that is holy?'