::@:: Reality of Dreams ::@::

Well, that’s Roots over for another year and as always it was a fun, challenging, restful weekend. This years theme was the Trinity, a complicated subject which, certainly in the venue I attended (Studio 1) was looked at from the view of how should the theology of the Trinity affect us, and the way that we live. It was an interesting time filled with challenges about how we interrupt the bible and we should interact with it (inspired by a man called Grubber – I think). Its hard to do a “review” of a weekend sch as this as I only saw a fraction of it, I only experienced my venue and even then because eof the spiritual nature of these events it comes down to a personal experience.

Having said that there were a couple of highlights for me:
- seeing Hitchhickers Guide to the Galaxy with Chris, his dad and others
- the bowl of fruit which shattered in a meeting because A Hundred Hours were rocking the place (I kid thee not, the bowl just broke, probably because of the bass)
- the around 20 people who gave their lives to Christ that night in Studio 1 (and of course any who did so elsewhere)
- the regular Sunday lunch with Dawn, and Chris (and John and Kat who came along later)

There was one thing I didn’t like, one person actually, Commissioner Shaw “The Claw” Clifton. I am sorry but I am sure he is a nice person but I don’t think he makes a good TC (Territorial Commander, the leader of the UK area of the Salvation Army) . He is focused on numbers not dedication, and solidership not discipleship. I believe he lacks compassion and is not the best choice for TC we could have had… anyway, that’s my view.

Back to Roots, the one real issue I had this year was that the seminars which happened in-between the main sessions did not grab me as being that interesting this year. I am sure they were good and very worth while, just none really grabbed me. Of course maybe if I saw them at another time they would have. The evening activities again fell under this category, I went to the Arts Party which was alright, the String Quartet was brilliant, Sarah Grace was funny as usual, the pianist was not my cup of tea and the dance group were contemporary… so I have no idea what they were doing. I was going to go to the Praise Party but the evening session at my place was quite heavy as we had a speaker from the Human Trafficking campaign and a video of a young girl telling how she was repeatedly raped by a (presumably) UK citizen in the Philippines (I think).

That was one thing I have taken from the weekend, the evil of human trafficking and the horrendous figures of the amount of women and children sold, caught, or lured into lives as slaves, prostitutes, pieces of flesh to be abused by people in the west, in the UK no less. Even more terrifying is the knowledge that UK citizens are also being trafficked. This evil must be stopped and I urge you to visit Alove’s page on the issue, here, and see what you can do (and not just bury your head in the sand, or say it doesn’t concern you) even if its just giving something, or making sure the problem is known. I will more than likely be mentioning more about this and other Social Action stuff as time goes by, I decided it was time I used this blog when I can to promote the ideas of Social Action and highlight some of the issues and problems that this world faces.

Anyway, overall Roots was again an excellent time and I had some really good times of fun, fellowship, and challenge. Roll on 2006, its about the Resurrection, and is called “Metamorphosis, the weekend that changed the world” (or something like that). Laters People.