I know everyone said that New Zealand would beat most other places hands down for the sheer beauty of its countryside – they also say that seeing is believing. Well, lordy, I believe! Especially South Island. (Sorry, north island! but you totally know it.) North and South Islands are like twins, one of whom got the brains and the other got the looks. Over time they drifted apart. Northy was industrious and clever and cultured and Southy got by by being drop dead gorgeous.

There are loads of those mountains that look like they’ve been concertina’d together – as if God had been designing bits of the world while driving in the back of his parents’ camper van and when he was making New Zealand they went over a cattle grid.

Or like those Chinese Shar-Pei dogs, wearing a hand me down skin from a far fatter older brother and who’s then run into the wall face first too many times. Not a good look in dogs, but a brilliant look in mountain ranges.

New Zealanders seem to be happy enough and their accent is almost the same as English except for an inability to pronounce a short e so that seven is pronounced sivn, heaven is hivn and Dennis is dinnis.

And it seems obligatory that once in every sentence they say a word which sounds like it’s taken them totally by surprise. The word itself fits in with the meaning of the sentence – it’s just a regular word among other regular words, but the way they say it it sounds as if they’ve no idea where it came from not what it’s doing coming out of their mouth.

But apart from that they seem pretty normal. And they don’t seem to have regional accents. Nor, thinking about it did the Aussies which, considering the massive distances between some Australian cities seems incomprehensible, or, in New Zealandish, incomprihinsibil.

Anyway, to backtrack to our month spent in the new monastic community on North Island….

Having got ourselves, via gallant middle-aged hitch hiking down to Waikanae (small town about an hour north of Wellington, down in the southern end of North Island) we were picked up by John, one of the full time members of community at the River Monastery and driven up the valley to the remote and beautiful Ngatiawa (pronounced Nattyarwa), nestled in the mountains with a river running by although, on the day we arrived there had literally been a river running through it as it had been raining hard for a few days, the rivers were swollen and a pallet had become wedged in a culvert at the top of the property and caused an overflow that washed much of the drive away.

We would be there for 4 weeks and at the outset had very little idea of what went on, who the people were, what we were going to do and whether there’d be any strange rituals we might have to join in with. (We’d come armed with the words to On Ilkley Moor Baht ‘At just in case we got engaged in a cultural sing-off so felt pretty well prepared.)

Ngatiawa is permanent home to about 16 people and temporary home to anywhere from a few to a dozen extras and up to 60 or more for some weekend church groups or camping parties. People are constantly coming for a couple of days or so to reflect, to pray, to talk things through, to have space. And it’s a perfect place for all those things.

In the main building is a large communal kitchen where most of life takes place, a lounge area and a largish hall space which fulfils various uses. The permanent residents either have their own small houses on site or else rooms in the main buildings and there is a variety of other accommodation for those staying short-term. They are self sufficient in many vegetables and fruits and occasionally the number of cows decreases by a factor of one and this tends to be followed shortly by the freezers becoming full. There is an excellent verandah for sitting on, a large prayer labyrinth shared with sheep and a big trampoline which Ella and I had a very unsuccessful attempt at an Olympic-quality synchronised doubles routine.

(The trampoline at Ngagiawa – excellent item for feeling like you’re getting closer to God)

The day is based around and given its rhythm by three services in the small chapel. Morning prayer at 8.15, Midday prayer at noon and Evening prayer at 7.15. The singing is all unaccompanied and there will be 5 or 6 short songs sung at each service, which are intended to be easy to lick up; Taize style chants and Ngatiawa’s own penned hymns and a fair number of Maori songs. There is no talking in the chapel (apart from the liturgy) and shoes are removed at the door – it feels a very special space and the times within (especially the singing and the extended silences) were definite highlights for me.

Apart from the regular pattern of services the large kitchen table is often where stuff happens. Meals will be for between 14 and 30, usually, and those preparing will often have limited idea as to how many will actually be there in the end. Most things are organised on a rota basis and it seems to work incredibly well. The people here are committed to live out a calling of hospitality, “for the lost, the last and the least” but they’ll also take in anyone who thinks they’re outside any of those categories too.

It was so good to be there for a month and to see behind the scenes, as it were. There is a genuine spirit of caring and generous and gracious sharing. Put a request up on the chalk board and it will be answered! “Anyone got a car we could borrow to go into Wellington tomorrow?” Boom – a choice of three. “Anyone fancying putting up fences tomorrow afternoon, help would be appreciated.” And there were volunteers. The magical chalk board always seemed to get results.

Every Thursday evening they have “tea party”, a tradition that stretches back many years – when Ngatiawa welcomes members from a local L’arche community with whom they have strong ties. L’arche is an international federation of homes and small communities in which able bodied and those with intellectual disabilities live, sharing life together and building community.

I had one of those moments in chapel the first Thursday evening when, in the candle pierced darkness, an effort-filled, determination-fuelled, almost strangulated voice began reading the next part of the liturgy and in a shameful slap to the cheek moment I realised my surprise at hearing that one of the ladies with whom I’d shared a meal just minutes before was able to do far more than my ignorant stupidity and lazy pre-judging had assumed. She has cerebral palsy and until you become tuned in to it, her pattern of speech is very difficult to understand.

In chapel I understood the words she was saying because I knew what the words were: they were written down in the liturgy. Conversation with her at the table had been difficult because there were fresh sentences coming from her and I couldn’t find enough words in them that I could understand in order to interpret the whole – (not, I’m ashamed to say, that I tried too hard) but my response to not being able to understand was to lazily assume she had the mental ability of a young child rather than a much more able minded adult whose verbal messages just happen to get hijacked by a bastard disease on the journey between brain and the muscles of her mouth and tongue.

One of the songs we sang that evening is from the L’arche Community song book and has the words: “Broken, all of us broken, all of us loved, all of us loved. Travel, each of us travel, companions together walking the way. Beauty, discovering beauty, lighting the darkness surprising us all.”

I had made wrong assumptions. Bad assumptions. Assumptions which showed more brokenness in me, than in her.

While we were there there were youth groups, church groups, a school 5th and 6th Form and maybe 20 – 30 families, couples or individuals who spent time there too.

I’ve been hoovering round my mind trying to think of things to take the mickey out of about the River Monastery for I occasionally accidentally do that – but there really isn’t anything to latch onto. This, to me, probably speaks more loudly than anything else of the genuineness of the people there.

People who deeply cared for one another and also gave out to those who came in. We need very little to have enough. We all too easily convince ourselves we need more.

Of course, there was a variety of other people who came in and out of our lives over those 4 weeks as they stayed for a night or two. Lots of wonderful people, among them a smattering of the mad and the sad and the lonely and the lost. Some very self-contained and some who were, to put it mildly, pastoral black holes and the people on community tag-teamed looking after them because, well, sometimes you’ve just got to do that.

It was a profound time. For Ella and for me. A profound space and place. At times the curtain between heaven and earth was very very thin.

It will remain a place with which my spirit rests softly and closely.

(The view from our room, a little hut on the hill. Perfect.)