Editorial

Note from the Editors

Philosopher and Scientist William James expresses the point of view of this journal when he wrote:

"The fountain head of all religion lies in the mystical experiences of the individual. All our theology, all our ecclesiasticism, are only secondary growths that are superimposed. These experiences belong in the region deeper and more vital and practical than that which our intellect inhabits. They convince us there is a sphere of life larger and more powerful than our usual consciousness. They help us to live, they melt our hearts, and communicate significance and value to everything."
-Excerpted from a letter to Henry William Rankin, dated June 16, 1901

We present some items of general interest, and then articles to do with the theme of this issue: “Worshipping in Spirit and in Truth”, an echo of the Samaritan woman's question as to the right mode of worship, whether it was to be on Mount Gerizim or Mount Zion.

The St. Stephen quotations can be read as if they were the words of a modern mystic, and be found valid for us, or not.

We would like to draw your attention to some interesting and relevant resources. You might also like to check the identity of the production team. Submission of articles, and both positive and negative correspondence welcomed.

General articles

Illustration 1: St John of the Cross
Thomas Merton on St. John of the Cross

"the greatest of all mystical theologians" : Thomas Merton

St. John of the Cross is perhaps as close as anyone to Stephen the Martyr, who has been part of the inspiration of this journal. The notable Catholic mystic, Thomas Merton, writes about St. John <http: //www.cin.org /saints/jcross-merton.html>

[ Storm over Toledo ]
Illustration 2: El Greco: Storm over Toledo

He begins, “If you have never seen El Greco's view of Toledo, you might take a look at it. It will tell you something about St John of the Cross. I say it will tell you something – not very much. St John of the Cross and El Greco were contemporaries, they lived in the same country, they were mystics, though by no means in the same degree.” “El Greco’s view of Toledo is very dramatic. It is full of spiritual implications. It looks like a portrait of the heavenly Jerusalem wearing an iron mask. Yet there is nothing inert about these buildings. The dark city built on its mountain seems to be entirely alive. It surges with life, coordinated by some mysterious, providential upheaval which drives all these masses of stone upward toward heaven, in the clouds of a blue disaster that foreshadows the end of the world.

Somewhere in the middle of the picture must be the building where St. John of the Cross was kept in prison.”

ascent book <http: //www.ccel.org /j/john_of_the_cross/ascent/book1.html>

I no longer live within myself
and I cannot live without God
for if I have neither Him nor myself
what will life be?
It will be a thousand deaths
longing for my true life
and dying because I do not die.

This life that I live
is no life at all,
and so I die continually
until I live with you;
Hear me, my God
I do not desire this life,
I am dying because I do not die.

When I am not with you
what life can I have
except to endure
the bitterest death known?
I pity myself
for I go on and on living
dying because I do not die.

And if I rejoice, Lord
in the hope of seeing you,
yet seeing I can lose you
doubles my sorrow.
Living in such fear
and hoping as I hope,
I die because I do not die.

Lift me from this death,
my God, and give me life;
do not hold me bound
with these so strong bonds;
see how I long to see you;
I am so wholly miserable
that I die because I do not die.

Taken from the Magnificat on Dec 14, St John's feast day.

Further reading

<http: //www.doctorsofthecatholicchurch.com /JC.html>

St. Stephen's Prayer expresses the same ideas very simply:

“Lord, let me forget that I am me,
Let me know that I am with thee,
Let me not separate myself from thee
Because I am me.”

Thoughts on myth, spirit, and our times: an interview with Joseph Campbell
by Tom Collins

[ Joseph Campbell ]
Illustration 3: Joseph Campbell

Joseph Campbell is perhaps the world's foremost scholar of mythology. Among his many books are The Hero with a Thousand Faces, The Masks Of God, Myths To Live By, and his current multi-volume Historical Atlas Of World Mythology. Interviewer Tom Collins is a Los Angeles based writer and editor whose works include Steven Spielberg, Creator of E.T. (Dillon Press, 1983).

Read the Interview
Thoughts on myth, spirit, and our times <http: //www.context.org /ICLIB/IC12/Campbell.htm>

Theme Articles

A new paradigm for cosmology – and for theology? Rev. Dr E.A. Johnston, MA MTh DMin

[ Simon Singh ]
Illustration 4: Simon Singh

A personal response occasioned by Simon Singh’s, Big Bang: the most important scientific discovery of all time, and why you should know about it.

Part of my response to Singh’s book was to read also Martin Rees’ Just Six Numbers, which I learnt of through Singh.

We are the first generation actually to know how all things came to be! Much of what in earlier generations was a matter of conjecture, a mystery and so of faith is now a matter of knowledge. It is only in our lifetime, indeed only in the last twenty years, that scientists have unraveled the way in which all things have come into being. The “theory” of the “Big Bang” has been established as providing an accurate model of the whole of creation, from the moment of its inception to the present day. Nor is it realistic to speak of a time before the Big Bang: for the Big Bang marks the beginning of both time and space, there was nothing before it nor anything outside of it.

Simon Singh’s book, Big Bang: has brought this home to me. It has enabled me to understand at least something more of the theory and how it developed in the scientific community, mainly through insights gained during the latter part of the 20^th Century. He explains that the proving of the “theory” required a “paradigm shift” in the minds of all scientists, a shift that was difficult for many of them to make and fully enter into. It required a change in the fundamental way they understood the whole of cosmology and of everything that flowed from it. The theory shows the whole of creation as one seamless process from the moment of its inception to today, one process ever expanding into tomorrow.

Read the whole article. (7pp. If printed out)
[ A new paradigm for cosmology – and for theology? ]

Lloyd Geering's big problem with St. Paul. His Christianity Without God (2002)
Michael Cocks

[ Lloyd Geering ] In preparing this article on Lloyd Geering, I am very conscious of living in a small country, where we tend to know each other. I am conscious that a number of my friends and acquaintances have much love and admiration for Geering, I think for the reasons that people were grateful to Bishop John Robinson and his Honest to God. Both helped to empower Christians to encounter the Divine on the basis of what can be known and felt in this present age, and not to be dependent solely on the witness of our spiritual ancestors. Furthermore, I do know the obvious, that these friends are human like myself, and have peak experiences, feelings of the numinous, intuitions, loving relationships, value the communality of life to be found in churches, and have a desire for a society imbued with the essence of the teachings of Jesus. I acknowledge Geering's importance, and share some of his views. But I strongly disagree with the philosophy underlying his work, which is such that it prescribes conclusions, and thus precludes research. He also makes statements about fundamental issues, which are easily shown to be incorrect.

I have asked some friends who share his philosophy to check what I have written in this review, and have heeded their comments. I have appended comments from the Rev. Ian Crumpton, where he suggests alternative interpretations of Geering's standpoint, and I hope readers will feel moved to submit comments of their own.

The problem with celebrity

Whether they acknowledge it to be the case or not, fundamentalist, evangelical, liberal, charismatic, catholic and sceptical theologians have their varying selections of biblical passages that they use to confirm and justify their theological positions. This in itself is fine, since there are many theologies to be discovered in the Old and New Testaments, and different personalities may be attracted to the one, or to the other. In the case of Christianity without God, Lloyd Geering is no exception. His view on Christianity is determined by his materialist or naturalistic philosophy, and therefore he does not accept the reality of any dimensions of reality, other than that of space and time, and of course does not believe in the afterlife. So he selects his Bible references accordingly. This is legitimate in itself and there are some scholars of standing who will agree with his stance. In addition there are clergy who are drawn to his point of view, and find that he articulates it in a very acceptable way.

His celebrity, and the honours bestowed upon him by the New Zealand government, however, do pose a problem. Lloyd, already a C.B.E has been given the title Principal Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, equivalent to the designation “Knight Grand Companion” in the NZ honours system. Because he is such a public figure, and because he has been a professor of Old Testament Studies in Otago, and in Religious Studies in Victoria University, Wellington, there is a danger that we might put too much trust in his scholarship and take the information he gives us about the New Testament for Gospel, so to speak.

Briefly: in the interests of depicting Jesus as a humanist, Geering dismisses St. Paul, and most of the gospels, as being either too theistic, or unhistorical. He attaches a large bibliography containing the names of respected scholars in support of his assertions, and it seems impressive. Yet we should compare Canadian Tom Harpur's The Pagan Christ, 2004, where he, as a former Professor of New Testament Studies, a Rhodes Scholar, and with many credentials superior even to that of Lloyd Geering, in the interests of emphasising the mysticism aspect of Christianity, maintains that Jesus never existed, and that the gospels are simply a rewrite of the ancient Egyptian Horus and Isis myths. Harpur also attaches an impressive bibliography listing well-respected scholarly material. In his case, if we investigate, we will find that academic Egyptologists cannot confirm any of his claims except with regard to the iconography associated with Isis and Horus being similar to that of that associated with Virgin and Child. Ultimately we can trace Harpur's many assertions about Horus to Alice Bailey, the Theosophist. Her teachings were based on telepathic communications from a Tibetan monk, and had nothing to do with known historical facts. [See the analysis and Harpur's biography <http://www.tomharpur.com/Biography.asp>]

Both Geering and Harpur misrepresent St. Paul, Geering in the interests of denying the resurrection, and Harpur in the interests of denying the very existence of Jesus.

It is striking how Geering and Harpur, with such show of scholarship can give such contradictory and dogmatic pictures of Jesus, each seeking to establish a new kind of Christianity.

Lloyd Geering makes very clear that his philosophy is naturalistic or materialist, with no ifs or buts. He is clear that there is no afterlife, no dimensions of reality beyond those of space and time. The consequences of this stance are that:

He ignores the work of important quantum physicists that paints a picture of reality very different from that of the mechanist physics of the 1890s. As QM physics is the science that explores the basic nature of reality, including consciousness in its purview, theologians and philosophers who disregard it (and there are many) can be accused of playing word games involving very questionable premisses. Let us agree that QM physics is a product of the human mind, and, as in all sciences and all theology, there are varying schools of thought. We can favour one school or another, certainly, and QM physics like all sciences, is indeed an ongoing process. But disregarding it, just leaves theologians and philosophers airing their prejudices.
As a matter of doctrine, he rejects sight unseen, all accounts of what is at present called “the paranormal,” regardless of the academic stature and integrity of the physicists and other scientists and other people reporting and discussing such experience. A sounder and more humble policy would have been to have held open the possibility that those who do not accept his doctrine are neither superstitious, self-deceived, nor lacking academic rigour.
His mechanist doctrine leads him to reject the writings of St Paul, which do indeed date from the time when people who knew Jesus were still alive. In Galatians Paul writes that three years after his own vision of the risen Jesus, he stayed two weeks with Peter in Jerusalem, and met James the brother of Jesus. As Paul based his whole missionary work on the basis of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, he will have discussed these matters with Peter and James. Paul says that Jesus appeared to Peter, and the apostles, and to 500 others, and lastly to himself. But Geering ignores this. His doctrine does not allow Paul and Peter even to think they had seen the risen Jesus. Instead he maintains that the supposedly false story of the resurrection arose a whole generation after the time of Paul.
In p126 of his Christianity without God, Lloyd Geering writes that Jesus “was no doctrinaire atheist and yet he was almost exclusively concerned with the human condition rather than with God.” This picture of Jesus is obtained by rejecting Paul's testimony, and most of the material in the gospels. So much is rejected of the gospels and of the writings of Paul, that we could be led to suspect that Geering is more led by his desire for a new and humanistic Christianity than by scholarly concerns. (Even so, we can feel a certain sympathy for such a desire since the aspect of Jesus as a social and religious reformer has often been obscured in liturgy and later theology.)

Overseas readers may recognise that Geering has much in common with the British theologian
Don Cupitt. <http: //www.fountain.btinternet.co.uk /philosophy/doncupit.html>

For both Geering and Cupitt, there is no wider order of mind/consciousness beyond the human physical brain. If the word “God” is used, it refers to a personified ideal of human religious values, and so they consider that we need a new type of Christianity - a Christian Buddhism - in order to explore this new understanding of the word “God.” The aim of this new Christianity is both to help individual development and to operate as a collective agency for progressive social change. If one cannot accept any such wider order of mind, then to try to develop such a “new Christianity” might be legitimate. But we might well ask whether it is legitimate to be quite so cavalier in one's treatment of Biblical texts, and of alternative understandings

Read the whole article:
[ Lloyd Geering's big problem with St. Paul ]

The Rev. Ian Crumpton, Presbyterian minister, comments

“Quite a bit of modern scholarship is focused on recovering the Wisdom Literature, and Geering is locating Jesus in that practical minded tradition.”

Read the whole letter:
[ The Rev. Ian Crumpton ]

St. Stephen on The Point of Unfolding

September 10, 1973

Speak of the unfolding, and the point of unfolding [in each of us]:

How can I best describe the seed in the ground,
which will grow into a great tree?
Each stage of the unfolding is essential for the tree.
The object of unfolding is the tree. Each stage in itself is of the greatest importance at the time of that stage.
Is it your wish to know the stage of unfoldingunfolding, point of
at which you have arrived?

Would a seed, as the first sprout reaches from the ground, from inside the earth, and sees the light and feels the heat of the sun for the first time, not say to itself, “Is this the object, or is there a further purpose?”
Would it not maybe recognise or perhaps associate with other trees, from what it can sense, what it can feel of the vibrations that come to it, and say, this is what I wish to achieve, this is what I feel I should achieve.

The concept of unfolding is [in] the now of this moment.
The importance of knowing what was before for that seedseed,
is only of relative importance for the understanding
of what is now:
not what it may be, nor what it shall be,
nor understanding the desires or the instincts.

The salmon that returns to the same spot
from which it had come away as a fingerling,
that is the object. Each mile of the journey is of importance.

Is there something that you can ask through my mind that will help me to make this clearer, Jeremy? Feel and probe...

Jeremy has nothing to say yet.

[ kamani tree ]
Illustration 5: Kamani tree, Hawaii

Has this in itself fetched a question, or are there other questions that will help me make it clearer? Feel my difficulty, if you please. How can a leaf tell, through the branch, the seed that is yet to come, of the unfolding after it arrives, and it is fallen to the ground?

Even though the leaf knows, what comparison concept can it use to explain to the seed yet to come, except,
when as the seed begins to come, to tell it that it is a seed,
and as the seed begins to grow to say,
“Do not worry seed, you are progressing well.”
When the seed is due to fall, to say to the seed,
“You will live again, do not worry, you shall unfold”
Can you see my problem?

You can say to the seed, “You shall one day, be as the tree.”
Believe this, for each thing that happens to you
is for that object.
Each belief that you have ever heard, and ever seen,
or can ever conceive, has the same object.
Each seed has been told this object even before it was a seed.

To explain whilst things are happening, what is happening,
becomes a simple task for the leaf
that has been through these experiences
and then finds itself only a part.

The concept, even though experienced, and the unfolding,
even though the leaf came about through this unfolding,
is hardly explainable.

But the leaf does know that it is a part of the tree,
that it was a part of the seed,
that it did unfold, as the coming seed will unfold.

In this way only can I help, to say
“Think of yourself as this seed.
The stage of the seed is immaterial.
Unfolding you may be, as the case with what I am,
and what I am connected to, has unfolded in a manner,
has unfolded not to become the tree, but to produce the seed, which produces the tree.”

To read more of Stephen, see previous issues, and open:
The Stephen Home Page <http: //homepages.ihug.co.nz /~cocks/>

Communications from our readers

From the Revd Judy Ryland, Macau.

I am a missionary in Macau SAR (China, a ferry ride from Hong Kong to put me on the map). I am an ordained Deacon in the Anglican Church with a BTh. I am Clergy in Charge of the Morrison Protestant Chapel in Macau. It is the only English speaking church in Macau.

I was born in Bristol UK and migrated to Australia when I was 28. I have been in Australia thirty years, one year in Mainland China and one year in Macau. I will be backpacking for two weeks around Malaysia on my return to Australia for two weeks before returning to Macau.

I teach English at an all Chinese Anglican School part time, will be Chaplain to the Anglican English speaking school, Hospital chaplain for any English speakers in addition to being in charge of the Morrison Chapel.

[ The Morrison Chapel ]
Illustration 6: The Morrison Chapel

You may know or not know that Dr Robert Morrison was the first person to transcribe the Bible from English to Chinese, first English Chinese dictionary and Chinese Grammar. He worked with the East India Company as a translator and was highly regarded in Asia and Britain. The Chapel also claims to have had the first ordained woman priest, a beautiful Chinese lady back in the 1930's.

Living in this part of the world it is difficult to access much theological information and your articles look just the kind of material I am interested in to challenge the mind. My congregation represents individuals from around the globe and for many English is their second language.

There is a Theological College in Hong Kong but the ferry ride is expensive and so my trips are fairly limited. Also time is another factor. Like many older woman we do the full time hours but earn an honorarium. Still I am loving the experience and serving the Lord here and I am deeply grateful for the opportunities this adventure God has led me too. I am also blessed that one of my two sons is working for his company for two years in Beijing so I get surprise visits from him when he can make it this way. My other son may be going to work in Japan shortly so Asia may become a family affair.

From an Anglican Clergyman in Australia

Please unsubscribe me now.

"Let no-one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, who practices divination or sorcery, interprets omens, engages in witchcraft, or casts spells, or who is a medium or spiritist or who consults the dead. Anyone who does these things is detestable to the LORD..." (Deuteronomy 18:10-12)

I wish to have nothing to do with you. The power of what I believe does not come from the talking dead, or from mediums or conversations with dead people, but with a relationship with the living Lord Jesus Christ, our ONLY mediator between us and God, and the Word of God which speak to us through his Spirit. By the very infatuation you have for conversations with dead people before the last great DAY of resurrection, you lead people away from the power of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus and suggest we need more than him. This is detestable in the sight of God and is nothing less than evil.

[“And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit which he has given us. Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit which confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit which does not confess Jesus is not of God.” 1 John 3:24b-4:6 It would be good if all Christians could acknowledge that they quote only the Bible passages with which they agree. One can doubt that the correspondent would quote and act on e.g. Deuteronomy 21.21. Editor.]

The Rev. John A. Simpson, Australia

Many thanks for the e-mail edition of The Ground of Faith. Yes!! I want to subscribe to future editions. This is what I've been waiting for for a long time.

Two poems from Anthony Buckley, London, UK

Remembrance Day 1994

On this soft day, over green mown lawns,
Ancient soldiers process by cenotaphs to men they knew long ago:
The valiant dead, in the soil beneath their feet.
Are their tears for loss or for the joyous triumph of Good?

Must that French field be forever England?
When the padre says those fallen warriors live now by other, happier, fields,
Don't our eyes fall, disbelieving, to that rain-drenched earth,
Finding more sweet beauty in the cherished songs of glorious sacrifice?

Can we imagine nothing more noble, nothing more beautiful;
Would resurrection detract from what we feel on this day?
Are we wrong to be happy for those men blasted into the other world?
The padre says they now live more-happily than we!

The tears of old men are human tears, soaking down to join
The mortal bones of broken comrades beneath God's earth.
Let them fall.

CRASH

On that lucky youthful day,
I crashed my car,
Wrote it away -
And nearly me with it.

Evening it was
And halfway to Wales
Racing into the evening
Atop the Somerset dales
Then the bend hit me.
And the wall held me
From plunging into the valley.

And - midway - Time stopped.
Time ceased...
No longer in the death-carriages;
Body and vehicle deceased,
I was outside, elsewhere
With all the time out the world:
Time enough to see my life,
a memory of me: innocent child
Bare-legged and fishing in a pool.
Time enough to feel the love
Behind it all:
Broad, broad - so big!
Understanding, non-judging - so wide.

And then back to the screaming tyres,
The wall part-tumbling,
Saving me from more than a cut knee
...but I was in ecstasy.

They give me other reasons, say it wasn't true.
I only say, "I was there, not you",
That intellect and love were holding me -
And it's all right to die.

So what lesson have I learned from this they ask,
(If only not to drive so fast!)
Drive faster - but towards that Love,
Drive slower, savouring Goodness.

From the Rev. Jorie Manfield-Ryan, Australia

Gliding with Miss Lucy

Open wide the day with eyes
tracing the thermal-driven journey
of the glider dipping towards the horizon
climbing altered air to meet
the sacrament of morning.

Sometimes the sky is hung
with stars especially in the light
and people rush to trap them one, two, three,
pockets open, lined with expectation.
I am lost in wonder and settle down
on the hill to wait until one falls.

The farm is benign and snoring, lazy after lunch
and me a candidate for contemplation,
conversing with Miss Lucy, a cranky ewe
with hanging dugs from over-zealous lambing.

How can she answer me
never having been seduced
by soaring dreams, harness tight,
helmet on her woolly head?

She snaps at the grass
and juice froths at the corners
of her mouth.

A star doesn’t fall of course,
but somehow the horizon
fuses creation and a summer afternoon,
dissolves its boundaries,
coming nearer to the infinite.

Miss Lucy stares with an ambivalent eye
as I loop the world.
There is no life but this.

Three

On the road to the headland,
I lie in the grass to rest for a while
and watch the mountain grow.
An ant navigates my arm
with subtle understanding.
Coming constantly closer
the details are blurred.
There are no shadows,
only the valley and the mountain,
an ant on my skin.

Old Fuller sucks and spits.
Outside the pub, he thumps
his favourite words together
and throws them to the air.
We let them fall. Dissatisfied
he turns and pees against the wall.
We believe and find the shape to match his wreckage.
In front of him, wings brown with nicotine,
an angel walks. We bow our heads
and Fuller smirks.

The spirit moves
in the steam of early morning tea
tipped into a saucer, the swirling centred
and cooled with my father's breath.
In the coldest of places, I hug my knees,
coming home from the early caves,
from the illusion of truth beyond
all truths, content with silence,
watching smoke from camp fires
greet the mist.
Sweet Three, I am your guest.

Son et Lumière

This night has strange stars
a place off my beaten track
foggy clues, clumsy
and unseen, predictions
shaded by the fear of being lost again.

There is a hint of thunder. Some reality
of storm or indigestion? The forecast
offers no protection. I go for order,
an assertive list of boundaries. A voice calls
but I am busy counting constellations
as logic. Counting loud
to drown the rumbling.

A whisper breaks the dark:
deep music of these far off sparks?
Each star winks, wild parabolas
pouring out the light
to shine me home.

Prof. Elliott Benjamin (USA) writes

At the request of one of the editors of The Ground Of Faith journal, I would like to now share with you the motivations and behind the scenes story of my previous Spirituality And Cults article. My story is told in much more detail in my Modern Religions book (c.f. [1]), as the chapters of my book have been the chapters of my life.

Read [ this article ].

Experience

Flight 811 Aeroplane Disaster (Christchurch Press)

Publication: Press Date: 31 Jan 2004 Page: E 5
Headline: These parents inspire
Author: BOWRON Jane
Section: FEATURES Sub Section: ENTERTAINMENT

In a small country where any hero is heralded almost to death, the somewhat overlooked courageous acts of Kiwi couple Kevin and Susan Campbell (featured on Wednesday night's aeroplane disaster series, Mayday) seems a little odd.

If ever there was a real life story waiting for a motion picture to be made from it, the gripping account of the 1989 United Airlines Flight 811 aeroplane disaster is it.

The story of the disaster and the devastating effects of a defective luggage door lock that blew a hole in 811, sucking out five rows of seats into the all-too-thin air and killing nine passengers made terrifying and gripping viewing. But the post-crash actions of the parents of Lee Campbell were truly inspiring.

Among the missing presumed dead was Lee Campbell, on his way home from Los Angeles to New Zealand, destination Auckland. With the greatest of composure his mother, Susan, recounted the evening she went to bed looking forward to seeing her son the next day, but woke during the night to see Lee standing by her bedside smiling down at her. The following day when the Campbells heard the first reports of the disaster on the radio Susan Campbell knew her son was dead.

How the Campbells coped with their grief, resolving tacitly to find out what happened to Lee on Flight 811, gave new meaning to the words dogged and determined.

Immediately they flew to the scene of the crime to see where Lee was seated and began their own painstaking investigation. Invited to a preliminary hearing by the National Transportation Safety Board, the Campbells were allowed to take away only press releases.

But after officials left the meeting room, the couple quietly recounted how, without saying a word to each other and moving with the speed of the Artful Dodger, they uplifted boxes of papers sitting near the top table. As they made their swift exit clutching the vital and withheld information, officials swept back through an adjacent door, missing the action. Such gutsy rebellion against a powerful foreign authority displayed by two unassuming middle-class Kiwis made one want to cheer. For any viewer with qualms about such a brazen show of anarchy, an aviation lawyer and survivor of 811 supported their action. He was aboard to get away from the grim scenario of accidents and crashes, and explained the conflicting role of the NTSB: to both promote the aviation industry and investigate safety.

The NTSB tried to blame ramp attendants and talked with ear-grating jargon about the doors suffering from some "sort of abuse".

The Campbells bought a car and criss- crossed America, visiting others

involved in the aviation disaster. As Susan Campbell reeled off the names of locations visited, including Seattle, Washington, Kentucky, Miami, San Diego and San Francisco, the enormity of their task hit home.

Kevin Campbell, a trained engineer, knocked up a copy of the lock found on Boeing 747 planes and demonstrated with shattering logic why the accident happened on 811 and would continue to happen to other planes still flying.

This display of DIY-ism by a griefstricken but utterly focused parent made one again cheer for the Kiwi battler taking on the big boy corporate and the air "safety" board.

It would be churlish not to mention the heroic actions of the captain who managed to fly his badly damaged plane and land it with great skill on the tarmac at Honolulu airport. It was the captain's critical directive for passengers to keep their seat belts on during mild turbulence that saved the lives of the remaining souls on board.

But it was the Campbells whom air passengers today must thank for the

changes made to the critically flawed design of doors and locks, thus saving thousands of lives.

Others would have drowned under a litany of lies, sunk into a depression and been unable to function, let alone conduct the kind of investigation that would leave experienced sleuths gasping.

They stuck together, and although their dignified heroism has been lost to the daily inky smudge of yesterday's news, perhaps their inspiring story retold in dramatic and vivid documentary form can go someway toward giving them their dues.