Dominican Sister Mary Horn lives at Teschemakers, North Otago and is a renowned painter and organic gardener.

When I go home from Oamaru, I leave the Pacific Ocean and turn towards the mountains. I can see both the Kakanui Ranges and the St Marys Range. The road meanders towards them past a limestone outcrop, up and down towards the creek and the one-lane bridge. It's one lane, not just one way, for it is possible to travel in either direction depending on what I wish to do. Before I get to my home, I pass one other house. It's on the other side of the creek — looking back I can see it from my dwelling.

Journeys, to arrive home, make me think of the spiritual journeys we make on our way home to the God who is often unknown. Finding this unknown means moving towards the mountains or doing a U-turn back to the Pacific. Catherine of Siena often used the sea as a metaphor for God. In one dialogue, God says to her: "Only the sea itself can fully contain itself. In the same way I, the sea of peace, am the only one who can fully contain and value myself. I share with each of you according to your capacity. I fill you and do not leave you empty."

I, too, am drawn to the sea but it is the mountains that speak the most to me. They are a challenge and the road disappears quickly into their valleys and heights. I think of the many times I've travelled a spiritual road to have it disappear in a turn into a valley I was unable to traverse, or a little afraid that the crossing would take me somewhere unexpected and frightening. When I did venture it was difficult but rewarding.

These new one-lane bridges make us stop and consider. I encounter travellers heading in the other direction — should I be going with them or against them? This time in our lives, when the whole world has had to stop and deliberate, is an interesting one for us all. Will we just go back to what was before? Maybe our Church structure will take a turn — from the sea to the mountains, or, from the mountains to the sea.

A few nights ago I looked across the little valley with the creek and saw to my astonishment that the house I pass on my way home had disappeared into a mist along the creek. Yet there was no fog near me. It was a strange image because when I looked upwards there were stars shining above where I knew the house to be. God is not only in the sea and the mountains but in the stars of hope shining above the fog of life. "I fill you and do not leave you empty."

Tui Motu Magazine. Issue 250 July 2020: 26