What a Weekend!

Man, I was so pleased to fall into bed last night! It has been a bussssy three days! It goes something like this:

> Friday - Writing my final essay on the incarnation, making up for time lost sitting in the Immigration office on Thursday...it was due in by 11.55pm Friday (by email) - I mailed it in early at 10.15pm...I really enjoyed the learning that came out of this and gained a whole new appreciation for the significance of Christ's humanity and divinity.

> Same night our friend Dawn, and her friend Bridgit arrive from the US via Australia - that results in an obligatory early morning bed time! Lots of rerun stories concerning racoons, slow sisters and acting like Sabre...

> Saturday includes meeting a couple new at church in the morning (that was fun), conducting a wedding & going to the reception in the afternoon (a cool couple, very much in love) and then heading to the final All Black v Lions game in the evening, live on the BIG screen at the cinema! Someone gave us tickets - nice huh? Hot dogs and beer in the price. I'm not sure if Kristen enjoyed it - she did tell me that she enjoyed the 10 minute nap she took at one stage...

> Sunday morning starts at 5.30am heading to the airport to pick up Scott and Brian also visiting from the US (I have been to the airport 5 times in the past 2 weeks)

> I'm on team at ECW, which is a mixed experience - the team is making progress but sometimes I despair at their ability to concentrate long enough to execute what we practice...

> Then its ECW worship practice which goes well apart from someone taking my keys home which mean I can't get the car home for Kristen who is going to some ballet recital or something - so I get a lift home and then take her over in my car...the blood pressure is rising...

> Then I head out to deepest darkest Mangere to serve Communion to the newly married couple (at the last minute the church they were using wouldn't let them take communion as part of the ceremony unless they included everyone). I have Rhys with me which is fun. I can't find the house. I knock at one wrong address, finally find the right one, and there's no one there. Still, its a scenic hour taking in the sights and sounds of rusted out wrecks, large metal gates, bizarre colour schemes and more dogs than you can shake a stick at...

> I sit down for 20 minutes to watch the Warriors lose by 2 points and then head to cession. We do a Worship Stations thingie which is way cool and seems to touch many people - good numbers too. Dawn and Bridgit come. Praying that God reached them in some way.

> Drop Scott and Brian at where they're staying. Come home have some dinner. Catch a bit of the Green Room, Frank's show, watch a bit of Aussie v England cricket and then crash.

As I said, a busy time - nothing deep or profound learned. Sorry if you read this thinking there might be! Its just me unwinding...

Back to terrorism, you can read Frank's take on the emergence of police states in the US and Britain. In my comment I cite this article which puts the British situation into some perspective? For my part a police state is not about the removal of freedoms per se but about the underlying political system. You don't have a true police state until you lose the ability to change the government. But it is valid to debate the tension between lawas that protect freedoms and laws that protect society from external (internal?) threats. In the words of Spock aptly post scripted by James Tiberius Kirk: "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...or the one." Now there's an out of context quote!

Jonesbad