He Karanga at the Crossroads
He Karanga — Invitation at the Crossroads
The last five years have carried a heaviness many of us can’t quite put into words. It’s been wave upon wave: pandemic, political upheaval, war, economic pressure, climate anxiety, the fraying of social trust. We are living through stacked crises — not just one storm, but many layered on top of each other.
This is the air we’ve been breathing — a kind of ambient trauma, the ache that lingers just beneath the surface of ordinary life. For some, it has worn down hope. For others, it has left a dull disillusionment, frustration, even anger.
We’re not imagining the weight of it. But neither were we designed to carry it all.
Media Multiplication
Our weariness isn’t just from what happens — it’s from how it reaches us. Global media multiplies impact by bringing the whole world’s trauma straight to our phones and our minds. Every crisis, every outrage, every grief lands in our hands, piling up like a storm surge with no ebb, wave on top of wave, mountainous, heavy.
We care. We should care. But human hearts have limits. We were made for whānau and hapori - family and community - for local grounded rhythms and shared life, not to hold the whole world’s pain in real time, every single day.
Global awareness without grounding in wairua (spirit) and place leaves us stretched thin, anxious, and disconcertingly powerless. We end up carrying more than grace has equipped us to carry. We feel like a piece of plastic waste on the vast stormy ocean rather than a tree well planted and deeply rooted in our place, to bear good fruit in season.
The karanga, the divine invitation today, is not to close our eyes, or shut down, but to re-anchor and refocus our lives. To plant our feet on solid ground again. To be here, in God, and together amongst our community. One way or another I feel like I’ve been sharing this over and over for the last five years, and I am risking repeating myself, to reiterate today.
A Crossroad in History
This is not just chaos. It is a crossroad.
History has known such times before — moments when what has been, no longer holds, and what is coming has not yet taken shape. These are thresholds, uncomfortable but holy. Liminal spaces. Nigglingly in between whilst we are still becoming.
The biblical story reveals this rhythm over and over again, also reiterating: exile and return, death and resurrection, endings that clear the soil for new creation to break through. Seemingly nothing spaces where something as yet invisible brews.
When illusions collapse, God often moves creatively — replanting hope in the soil of shocking endings. But if we try to rush past the loss or numb the ache, we miss the doorway. If we stand honestly, trustingly, in the rubble, surprisinglyresurrection finds us there.
“This is what the LORD says:
Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.”
— Jeremiah 6:16
We are standing at such a crossroads now. The invitation is not to deny what’s happening, or cling to brittle optimism, but to discern where the good ancient paths are — the ones that faithfully lead to life. I hear a question, a frustration: All very well, but what do we do?
Seek the Ancient Rhythms Tried and True
No, not nostalgic feel good paths that lead to false comfort, but the living rhythms that have sustained the people of God across time, through painful testing and upheaval. They invite us to reorder our doing to reorder our being:
Sabbath: Ceasing as an act of trust. Sabbath is defiance against the tyranny of technique, constant productivity and availability. It’s the reminder that the world is held in hands stronger and more skilful than ours.
Simplicity: Choosing to travel light — trimming back noise, possessions, and inputs so that our spirit, soul andbody can breathe again.
Prayer and Presence: Turning our eyes back to the One who is not shaken. Sitting still long enough to hear again. To refocus and reconnect with God our source and centre.
Whenua and Creativity: Returning to land, place, and the act of creation — making, painting, walking, growing, gardening — these bring us back into rhythm with how we were designed to live, grounding and healing us.
Whānau / Community: Reweaving the relational nets that have frayed — gathering around tables, praying, listening, sharing story.
Embodied Faith: Exercising, resting, singing, celebrating, grieving, worshipping. Faith lives in bodies as well as minds – our bodies are a Holy Spirit temple.
These are the (ancient) paths that keep our feet steady when the world wobbles.
Hope Within History
Crisis is not new. But neither is God’s response. Throughout history, when societies have frayed, something deeper has sustained the people of God. When the early church faced persecution, it grew in depth and courage. When the medieval world failed, reform and renewal emerged. When the world has faced wars and pandemics, compassion and mission have often blossomed.
The rhythm of death, resurrection, new creation is written into the story of our faith. Hope doesn’t come after the pain; it grows from within it. It rises quietly in those who are willing to accept endings without casting aside hope in the God who brings life out of dust.
This is the hope that holds in Aotearoa too — throughout this land and peoples, where stories of both loss and renewal are woven through our whakapapa. We know what it is to hold onto hope, hold onto one another (as testing as that can be), and rebuild on burnt an broken ground. In the end, bitterness and mourning must yield to renewed hope, for the sake of our babies, including those as yet unborn.
From Disillusionment to Recommissioning
This crossroads moment is not about holding our breath until things get “back to normal.” What was is gone. There’s no going back. This is an invitation — he karanga — to be re-formed for new days ahead. To travel that road we need to fall in step with a different, simple, brave and gracious way of walking with Jesus. God is shaping us to revalue:
Depth over noise
Presence over performance
Wairua over weariness
Aroha over outrage
This, and the like, is how renewal sprouts without fanfare from the ground of loss, a future hope.
The pastor, teacher and grandmother in me also needs offer practical suggestions:
Define offline space. Regular times where ‘noise’ yields to silence, being outside, being here, prayer.
Set apart Sabbath. Not as a break, but as a simple declaration and discipline of trust.
Engage your body. Walk, breathe, rest — ground the soul through the physical.
Create something. Let making, beauty, creative activity restore coherence.
Selective inputs. Prioritise scripture, silence, real stories, real people over endless scroll.
Connect intentionally. Sunday lunch, coffee dates, walks and talks, listen and pray.
Let some things die. Ask what must end so that resurrection life has space to grow.
Conclusion: Standing at the Crossroads
We are not at the end of the story — we are standing at a threshold of new beginnings.
The discombobulation is real. The angst is real. The need to choose is real. But so is God’s gracious invitation. He is calling us back to the ancient paths — the good way, the rhythms of grace that have faithfully carried his people through challenging times.
If we can face the endings with open (though shaky) hands, resurrection will meet us there.
If we can walk the slower way of Jesus, we may yet become a people through whom hope can multiply in the land.
Finally, when I ‘enquired of the Lord’ (freaked out) at the beginning of the pandemic, he clearly spoke a word to anchor me, to define my boundaries and focus my attention. With each new wave of challenge, as I’ve looked for his guidance and help, he has reaffirmed this first and faithful word, and it sure rings true as my standing place in sharing these thoughts today:
“Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” — Psalm 46:10
Then he spoke firmly yet good humouredly, saying: “Remember Jill, I am God and you are not!”
You’re welcome to have that one too if you like, blessings, Jill