New Zealand – When two cultures meet

Esther is Maori and Tom is of Irish and Scottish descent. Their story turns on its head the principle that there can be no real communication between very different cultures.

Son of an Irish mother and a Scottish father, Tom was 26 years old when he arrived in New Zealand. While the Maori people were the first inhabitants of New Zealand, after numerous successive waves of migration it has become a multicultural country. Tom arrived with one of the low-cost flights that the British and New Zealand governments offered to young people willing to stay for at least two years overseas. Esther, on the other hand, is Maori and the oldest of 13 children. The two of them met at a disco and it was love at first sight.
“I never noticed that we came from two different cultures,” Tom remembers. “And I didn’t really think about the fact that he was white,” Esther adds. “When I saw her I simply fell in love,” says Tom.

The complications came later, when they announced to their families that they wanted to get married.
His mother reminded him that he would not be able to take her to England because she isn’t white.
Even Esther’s grandmother was not quite sure about Tom. She had already chosen another man for Esther, as she had done before for her own daughter, Esther’s mother. The traditions in the Maori community are strong and difficult to disregard. However, after the initial shock, Tom’s parents learnt to love their Maori daughter-in-law and Tom was welcomed into Esther’s large family. By mutual consent, the children were baptised and educated in the Catholic Church – where Esther belonged and where Tom felt the desire to belong.

The first contact with the Focolare took place in 1982 through Father Durning, a Scottish priest who was Tom’s catechist and a missionary to the Maori community. Having been invited to spend a weekend with the women focolarine, Esther and Tom set off with their children. They felt a bit of trepidation…
“I was trying to read the Bible – Tom recalls – but I got nothing out of it. Instead, I was struck by a phrase that one of them had said: “Try to see the presence of Jesus in whoever passes you by.” I said to her that if she knew my job at the railways, she would have agreed with me that it just wasn’t possible! I explained that it was such a difficult environment – but she insisted. So I did try it, and my faith became stronger. I had found what I was looking for – a way of living my faith in my daily life.”

At their first Mariapolis Esther and Tom found themselves listening to people who shared personal experiences and events “interpreted” in the light of the Gospel – and these stories struck a chord with them. But theirs was not a simple story to tell because Tom had started drinking, a habit that had begun at work.
Tom explains what happened next.

“One evening, while I was about to have a beer, Esther asked me what I was doing. I understood that I could not continue to live like this; I had a wife and four children. Alcoholism was destroying our family, so I decided I had to stop.”
But the life of a family like theirs is never boring and as soon as one challenge was over, another one immediately presented itself. And that’s what happened – after an accident, Tom was forced to leave his job and they decided to swap roles. “Esther went to work and I stayed home to look after the children,” says Tom. “I had to learn to do many things as well as the difficult ‘art’ of loving at home. To our friends, our choice seemed totally against the current. We can’t say that everything went smoothly, but even with our ups and downs, we always found ourselves united. Even when we have different points of view, or when I get fixed on an idea, I remember that Chiara Lubich taught us to always be the first to love, to apologize and never to lose the courage to keep on loving.”

As Esther says, “For 46 years the spirituality of unity has become our daily lifestyle. I understand that God has given us a beautiful life. He has set us high goals and given us the faithfulness we need to reach them. So, for now, we keep going ahead.”

Gustavo E. Clariá