If sporting heroes were just the tip of the Kiwi iceberg

So the All Blacks lost to the British and Irish Lions last weekend , and Emirates Team New Zealand won the Auld Mug. So what! Even a self-confessed sports nut like me knows that, as Kipling wrote: it’s great if you can meet with Triumph and Disaster, And treat those two impostors just the same;

It was fun to watch the crowds in Auckland salute the crew and rejoice. It was worrying to see and hear some responses to an All Black defeat.

Their coach himself pointed out that real pressure is not losing a big game in rugby, but struggling vainly to save a life with CPR and supporting the bereaved family.

We love our sport and take great pride in our achievements over a wide range of activities, small in numbers though we are.

It’s great that we do, as it makes bonds of nationhood among our people whose roots lie in many cultures, and great too that we salute our successes with a taonga of the Maori culture the haka.

I have joined through television the people revelling in their delight at the yachtsmen’s success.

At the same time, however, is this the best key of national achievement? As Kai Lung might say about our focus on sport, however entrancing it is to wander unchecked through a garden of bright images, are we not enticing your mind from another subject of almost equal importance?

Wouldn’t it be an even greater source of justified pride if we could lead the world in dealing with trends in suicide, narrowing the gap between rich and poor, and raising all our children with an appropriate amour-propre, skills, ambition and confidence to become valued self-supporting contributors to society?

Once we led the world in creating a society where a lad raised in state housing might become prime minister, or a wheelchair athlete win a gold medal against able-bodied archers.

True such successes hid a darker side, abuse of those in state care, the stripping of assets and the taonga of Te Reo from Maori, the humiliation and adoptions forced on unmarried mothers and their offspring, and the persecution of the nonheterosexual. Today we attempt to face and deal with these issues, in a way our predecessors failed to do.

How much time, energy and resources could we devote to making what we love to call God’s own really a country in which God could delight where keen as most of us are on our sport, we are equally as keen to ensure that every child reaches its potential in skills and creativity, can earn a living wage, and raise a healthy family too.

John Lennon imagined a world with no religion, nations or personal possessions. Could we rather imagine a world where every nation and religion both desires and delights in all its people reaching their full potential.

The tragedy of our history and times is that all too often a travesty of nationhood or religion prevails where many are marginalised and the tools of nationhood or religion are abused. At their heart all the great religions desire fullness of life for humanity within the whole creation.

The excesses and tyranny that have harmed and still harm so many innocents derive from the distortion of these faiths. Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism are not at their heart a call to particularist wars but a concern for creation’s relationship with the creator. What a shame that power struggles and fear betray the central truths.

So what? Can we dream of a nation where both sporting prowess and a care for humanity and all creation are equally prized.

As we enjoy the glow of our yachtsmen’s success have we space to rejoice equally at all the good people who are trying to win all workers a living wage, house all our people in warm dry quarters, find new ways to combat disease, equip all our young people to face adulthood with justified hope, care and strengthen all those trapped on the margins, teach us to resolve differences without bullying and violence and delight in the rich tapestry of human culture and gifts which comprise our population.

We acknowledge the good sorts on TV, the councils acknowledge those in our communities who meet specific needs, but imagine if those who exercise such care for the least of our brothers and sisters were the same household names as a Peter Burling or Beauden Barrett.

I hope and dream so. What about you?