Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to travel up to Waitangi with the Karuwhā Trust, where a group of us spent time working in the wharekai and cleaning the wharepaku at Te Tii Marae during Waitangi weekend. Alongside this practical mahi, we were also invited into a time of learning and reflection, engaging deeply with the story of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the layered, often painful history of the land we were standing on.
Although I had learned about Te Tiriti as a child, reengaging with it as an adult, and being where the signing took place stirred something within me that I hadn’t anticipated. It wasn’t just revisiting history; I encountered something older and deeper. I felt the memories of the whenua and the story of the promises that had been broken in our nation’s past.
This experience led me to ask difficult but necessary questions about how we, as people and as a nation, are caring for the land. Through science and observation, I already knew that we’re not doing enough – that climate change is accelerating, that ecosystems are under stress, and that human actions – often as a result of colonisation – have left visible scars on the environment. But being at Waitangi, I felt these realities in a much more embodied way. I sensed that the land itself is grieving, groaning under the weight of both historical injustice and environmental damage. It stirred up a new question within me. How can honouring Te Tiriti involve not only right relationships between peoples, but also right relationships with the whenua?
Our past is layered with complexity and pain, and I believe the land remembers this. I was struck by the realisation that my own brokenness has contributed to that suffering in ways I am yet to fully understand. As I have continued to sit with the grief I experienced at Waitangi – especially in the weeks leading up to Easter, I’m reminded of this passage from Romans 8:19–21:
“For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.”
These verses resonate deeply with what I encountered at Waitangi. They affirm that creation itself longs for restoration, and that our pursuit of shalom must be intimately connected to how we live with and care for the earth.
Over the past two months, I’ve been slowly unpacking my experience at Waitangi and asking myself how I might respond – not just intellectually, but in the way I live and relate to the world around me. For me, that response begins with a renewed commitment to partner with the risen Christ who in his resurrection has begun the work of healing and reconciling all of God’s good creation.
Will I be brave enough to join him?
