Child adoption
I have no problem with Vaughan Francis' quotes from dictionaries.
What I am upset about are his "stupid" ideas about child adoption.
For his information, you start the adopted child's education at day one. As the child gets older, with love and patience, you keep enlarging the child's understanding of his/her world and his/her place in it so the child learns everyone is not the same, nor do they have to be.
A child knows whether they are loved or not and education from day one is not going to put anyone into a tail spin because of a couple of simple questions.
As for the question "am I not normal" - it would probably never be asked by the child as the child already has had the answer which has been explained to them with love over the years.
- Margaret Mulhare, Ruatangara
Universal view
With regard to the current debate concerning ownership of rivers and the associated values expressed therein, I tend towards a desire to present a universal perspective.
God's creation includes many people and many cultures on the Earth. As Tangata Whenua of Aotearoa, Maori are well placed (by God) to ensure that this land and its waterways remain intact and free from exploitation whether through political expedience or by industrial pollution.
The real issue that pivots around the word "ownership" has been fuzzed and argued about from perspectives that are entrenched in ignorance of historical and spiritual realities. "Ownership" in the sense of owning and driving a car is well understood however the Earth and its people share a common heritage of dependence upon Earth's resources for the nurturing and sustaining of life.
Aotearoa is not a separate planet. There is a treaty that has been signed by Maori chiefs and by European settlers that calls for a universal understanding of people's relationship to the Earth.
Cutting away pieces of Aotearoa with the hatchet of arbitrary government policy can only result in an Earth spinning too fast for any human being to experience any sense of integrity.
Remember that generations of human beings lived here as part of God's creation before Europeans even thought about discovering the Pacific.
They may not have been perfect relative to the laws of Moses but God did not send a church minister to fulfil Mosaic Law.
God sent Christ. Integrity is not the same as perfection. Integrity responds with humility to what has been promised.
- Anthony Warren, Whangarei
Setting us free
Re generic engineering.
The word generic from the New Collins English Dictionary means: Applicable or referring to a whole class or group, the generic name being Morehu of Adam and Eve and all the sacred house of Israel tuturu established here in Aotearoa Land of the Long White Cloud.
Morehu is our chosen name based upon whom we are as one people, under the creator God and the sacred house of Israel. This in turn separates us from man's structures of race, colour or creed and sets us free from inequalities upon Earth that have plagued us since time immemorial.
This is God's own country, I make no bones about that.
- Jane Tana, Whangarei