Parables and Poems
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New
Zealand pastor reveals God by telling stories
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Format
72pp, 240 x 170mm, 130gsm satin
matt, burst bound, matt laminated 280gsm cover. Text includes
many b/w photos and glossary.
Price
NZ$24.95 + postage
Publication info
ISBN 095822756X
Published November
2002
Place your orders now.
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On this page and in this section:
This precious collection
springs from the tradition of revealing God by telling stories.
A Baptist pastor, Simon
Brown shares his spiritual insights into everyday life.
Some stories are direct,
others more subtle, but New Zealanders will identify with all of them.
A child having fun with
God playing imaginary games; sitting round a campfire beside a river;
death, sin, greed, hope, laughter, family and love — all are here.
Evocative images of
people, artwork and places add depth and another dimension to reflect
on.
Parables and Poems
will stir emotional connections with this land and its people.
Extracts
from Parables and Poems
When God was young
When I was six and God was young
we used to play together.
He told me the secrets of life;
like how the baby bird gets in the egg, why wetas take so long to
drown and what really happens if you swallow gum.
God was so much fun. One day he bet me my
playlunch he could teach a frog to talk. No sooner had we shook on it
than 300 frogs jumped out of hiding yelling, "Sucker." I
always lost my bets with God but we shared everything anyway…
These old cronies
I met these old cronies, a woman
with her man,
married for 35 good years.
Huddled to the fire on a stone laden beach, the broth
of yesterday’s fish-heads and wine, steaming.
Small tin boat Sally near their
two-berth blue van,
parked shaded by the rata tree in bloom. And tui.
Their home was brick back at Huntly, both worked
down the open coal mine. Kids long left the huddle.
They’ve been stoking that fire 36
summers.
"Their eldest," she giggled, "was made here."
Old shoulders stayed touched in the fire glow amber,
we talked for a time about fishing and life.…
Visitation
Betty Bunter bent her fork as
she stabbed the blood red steak with force. Not angry. Not fussed.
Just hungry. "Bloody hungry."
"So you’re the pastor of the local church
then?" she belched between loads not really listening for an
answer…
The liturgy of life
River pouring from a teatree spout.
It’s one long cup of tea.
Juicy mist steams on the hills,
home of pigeon and boar.
Sea birds wake to call aloud,
the sun he’s still in bed.
One lone gull steals up the skirts
of dawn, in search of love…
Completing the Trinity
Three persons in the Trinity
the Father, Son, the Holy Ghost
honeymooning and swooning above,
eight squillion years of it,
creators of eternity and time.
The unbroken circle of power, of
love
Alpha and Omega, the All.
Humbled, exalted, completed,
made whole
in the faith-filled yes of a child.
Life beyond the tomb
Must be hard being Jesus today. Ever thought
about that? I mean, sure it was tough when his mates shunned him at
the end. Especially old Judas. That was tough. And the whips with bone
in the ends must have really stung too. I mean he wasn’t a bad guy
who deserved it or anything. Then there’s those bleeding thorns and
cross with blunt nails. Sure that was tough. You’ve got to admit it.
That can’t have been a picnic for Jesus. No siree. And what about
the public trial, mocking and jeering from the crowd. The same crowd
that hugged him a couple of days before and sang songs like Hosanna to
the King, and stuff with cloaks and palms. That must’ve been a bit
of a shocker. His close friends took off leaving Him with no mates,
only enemies. Hung out to dry in the sun like a shot rabbit on a fence
wire. Jeez mate it must’ve been grim. So all in all Jesus’ death
must have been a hell of a time for Jesus. No doubt about it. I really
mean it…
“These poems and stories are strong stuff. Of the earth, earthy,
they are shot through with a sense of wonder, which is an encounter
with the divine. God is here — not in celestial glory — but in the
ordinary and everyday.”
Brian K Smith, Former Principal
Carey Baptist College
“A delightful raconteur, Brown weaves mystery and the mundane as
casually as a man knotting a fishing net. In these stories and poems
he trawls the imagination and brings back a healthy catch to be
enjoyed over a driftwood fire at the edge of the sea. Read and enjoy.”
Mike Riddell, Author
“…we long for indigenous stories to bring meaning, inspire
courage, form personal identity and stretch faith. Simon’s stories
and poems do this. Born out of our landscape and our people they
connect New Zealanders with the concerns of God. ”
Alan Jamieson
Author of A Churchless Faith
 Simon
is married to Anita and together they’ve raised six children in the
small rural community of Glenbrook, south west of Auckland, New Zealand.
Simon has worked as a carpenter, commercial fisherman, cowshed hand,
rouseabout, building contractor, student, labourer, pastor, school
chaplain, youth worker and writer. His interests include most things but
above all, he enjoys mucking around with family, and a few close
friends, trading yarns.
"Brown's manner is one which will be enjoyed enormously by some
readers and not at all by others…"
Poetry That Lifts Our Eyes To The Hills
… Simon Brown, as suggested, presents a completely different
figure. If Holman is known mainly to the relatively few who take
poetry seriously, Brown, a Baptist minister, will be known chiefly to
those who have met him through his church activities, though the brief
biography notes that he also has a wide array of experience ranging
from carpenter and commercial fisherman to youth worker and school
chaplain.
This book, which appears to be his first published collection of
creative writings, was prompted, he says, by a desire to provide
"parables and poems for the increasing number of people who live out
their faith on the margins of church life, with too many questions and
no place to ask them." It is illustrated with somewhat grainy black
and white photographs, mostly his own, a few taken by family members.
The purpose of his brief prose narratives and verses is
uncomplicatedly, if un-dogmatically, didactic (though he might reject
the term).
In his poems as in his short narratives, the message is more
important than the medium. He wants to persuade people to re-think
their ideas about God and the role of religion and spirituality in
daily life, to think also about some social issues, from battery
chicken farming to excess expenditure on armaments. We take God, he
insists, both too seriously and, by implication, not seriously enough,
too often allowing the idea of a sternly retributive Being in the sky
to excuse us from accepting his role in daily life.
Brown's God giggles and plays with a child - narrator, sitting "on
the top of that vast raspberry rainbow digging out vast chunks of red
jelly, chocolate and ice cream," but He also needs to be recognised in
fat, belching Betty with her "unshaven chins."
Brown's manner is one which will be enjoyed enormously by some
readers and not at all by others. The vocabulary and syntax are
ostentatiously vernacular: "Must be hard being Jesus today. Ever
thought about that? I mean, sure it was tough when his mates shunned
him at the end. Especially old Judas. That was tough." And the world
he describes is strangely divided. On the one hand, it is a world of
baches at the beach, boiling billies, campfire contentment. On the
other, it is suburbia at its worst, domestic violence, hypocrisy,
spiralling ambition and deepening debt.
It raises questions about the audience Brown anticipates: how many
New Zealanders today actually know the idyllic rural experiences he
describes? And is all urban life so bad? There's also a rather curious
glossary, explaining words such as "chalice," "Maori," "Tui,"
"Fantail" and "flax." (Holman, by way of contrast, with very few
exceptions, offers no translations for his extensive use of Maori,
simply expecting his readers to understand.) Still, Brown's writing
can be engaging, with clever turns of phrase and some surprising
twists just when his point seems over-obvious, and it will prompt its
readers to think.
Helen Debenham
Anglican Taonga - Eastertide 2004
"…a delightful sense of beauty in the commonplace…"
The author introduces this beautifully designed and produced volume
of poems and stories with these words: "As post-modernism continues
to emerge in Western society, truth, or dogma, is fast being replaced
with a so-called higher ideal - reality. In this emerging culture one's
experiences and stories determine what is real."
Certainly the contents mostly live up to the comments of Alan
Jamieson (Senior Pastor, Central Baptist Church, Wellington) when he
states "...this collection of stories is rich in humour and at once
bluntly realistic yet deeply moving." (p.6)
I found occasional offerings a little tedious (like "When God
was young" pp 9-11) but was soon carried away to a place of truth,
humour and reality as in, for example, "Deep Mission" (p15). I
was challenged by "Visitation" ( p29) and thoroughly enjoyed
and appreciated "Wisdom of a ten year old boy" (p67) which I
quote in full:
Teachers teach
Preachers preach,
do you know what's
going on in the head of each?
serious serious
serious serious
serious serious
serious.
And there's no healing power
in serious.
Simon Brown has a delightful sense of beauty in the commonplace,
truth in the incongruities of life, and the love between people, young
and old, who have few words for aroha, but a myriad of actions.
New Zealand has struggled to produce a genuinely indigenous theology,
and this small book certainly does not achieve that worthy goal; but it
may indicate the direction from which such a theology may one day
emerge. "Crayfish legs and Family Life" (p41) ends with the
following words:
Through the rhythm of the sea, the glow of cinders
and the touch of lover and child, God spoke in a language that needs
no words and met with no resistance."
Amen to that.
The illustrations add to the quality of the work, and if
you get the impression that I liked it.... I did!
Thoroughly recommended for meditation, gift to a friend,
sermon stimulation (don't say that isn't necessary sometimes!) or
resting on the coffee table to be picked up in those fifty-five minute
breaks in the day when the non-news is on TV."
John Patrick
for the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa NZ
January 2003
John Patrick is a former teacher in
Vanuatu, a former Presbyterian Minister,
former Director of Marriage Guidance (Waikato) now living peacefully
in Warkworth.
"This book is liberating…"
An eclectic mix, this book Parables and Poems portrays a distinctly
Kiwi spirituality which stirs emotional connections with God, this land
and it's people. As post-modernism continues to emerge in western
society, truth, or dogma, is fast being replaced with a higher ideal
called, ‘reality’. In this emerging culture ones experiences and
stories determine what’s real. Doctrine is being reformed by story,
and it is through story that reality is being discovered.
In this book, questions are asked of the church, of God and of faith
itself. It's subversive in the sense that it represents a Christian
spirituality which is open ended, all embracing and diverse. This book
is liberating, it takes a fresh, and often, light-hearted approach to
many of the deep spiritual issues facing followers of the Christ
today.
This collection of parables and poems has been written for the
increasing number of people who live out their faith on the margins of
church life with too many questions and no place to ask them. It's
written for those whose quest for spiritual reality has led them to
places where the institutional church simply doesn't feature.
A Baptist pastor in Glenbrook south of Auckland, Simon Brown shares
his spiritual insights into everyday life. Some stories are direct,
others more subtle, but New Zealanders will identify with all of them. A
child having fun with God playing imaginary games; sitting round a
campfire beside a river; death, sin, greed, hope, laughter, family and
love — all are here. Evocative images of people, artwork and places
add depth and another dimension to reflect on.
Parables and Poems will stir emotional connections with this land and
its people.
Simon writes: "I have written this collection to encourage you,
the reader, to write your own stories and tell them as often as you can
in order to refresh the souls of other weary travellers."
Rosemary Neave
Future Newz 4 Summer 2003
- Current church members and those on the fringes
who are looking for a distinctly kiwi spirituality,
ministers/pastors.
- Christian and specialist bookstores
- Public libraries
A Baptist pastor, Simon
Brown shares his spiritual insights into everyday life.
Some stories are direct,
others more subtle.
A child having fun with
God playing imaginary games; sitting round a campfire beside a river;
death, sin, greed, hope, laughter, family and love — all are here.
Evocative images of
people, artwork and places add depth and another dimension to reflect
on.
Parables and Poems
will stir emotional connections with this land and its people.
To buy this book, please use the
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