So here we are, seven days down and just minutes away from a nationwide moment of remembrance.

As I reflect on the week that has been, I’m not going to dwell on the pain and the sorrow and the shock that this could happen here. I am going to congratulate the nation on the love, solidarity and tolerance that has been shown.

I got an interesting text about tolerance the other day. The writer said that tolerance can drive you mad. Tolerance can’t continue forever. Eventually, you have to come to a point where you either accept or reject whatever you’ve been tolerating.

We’ve shown tolerance this week and I think it will result in more people coming to acceptance of the victims' way of life than before. But let’s not kid ourselves that there won’t continue to be people who reject.

Shortly you will hear a Muslim call to prayer on this radio station and around the country. I had a number of emails this morning urging me not to play the call. Brian Tamaki was prepared to stick his head up and urge the call to prayer not to be heard because he says the prayer contains the concept that Allah is the one God and he obviously doesn’t believe that.

I understand his concern but then again the Muslim community are tolerating the slaying of 50 of their people, I’m sure you can handle one prayer. One prayer, that has never happened before and all our gods willing will never happen again.

I think some people might want to walk a mile in a Kiwi Muslim’s sandals. For instance, there’s some new research on how we portray Islam in our media. In 2017, 14,349 stories involving Islam were run across NZ. Almost 13,000 of them included references to terrorism or Islamic jihad.

Imagine that. If you’re a Kiwi Muslim 92 per cent of the time when you see your culture reflected in the country you live in it’s as a bunch of bad buggers. Which they palpably aren’t. Really such tolerance.

Today many women are wearing headscarves as a show of solidarity as well. I had a lot of correspondence over the week from people who were perturbed at the Prime Minister donning a headscarf. I’ve already told you about the one woman I know who wears a hijab. She scoffs at women who say she’s only wearing it because she’s repressed. She calls that attitude womansplaining. She says it’s part of her culture and it’s just practical. By the way, she lives in Wellington and she never has a windy Wellington bad hair day. She also says that in case you haven’t noticed our men cover their head most of the time too.

I reminded of how head covering is in our culture. Schools with hats as uniform. Ironically Diocesan School for Girls in Auckland has a straw hat and navy cap as part of their uniform yet you can’t wear a hijab. But then again, let's remember that the school is part of the Anglican Diocese of Auckland so why would a hijab wearer want to attend that school anyway.

I was reminded by our News Director today that it was not so long ago that any woman who wanted to enter a New Zealand Court could only do so wearing a hat and, of course, any Catholic woman meeting the pope has to cover the hair.

Yet ask any Muslim and they’ll tell you that non-Muslims stare at their headdress as though there’s a spitting snake on their head. Maybe after today’s solidarity, some will become more accepting

Because that’s the thing. At the end of this week. This moving, heartbreaking week. There is no doubt that in ways big and small we have changed.