Mark Keown

We all wonder how we will react when one of those moments in life comes along. I had one last night. I picked up the girls from the airport after a trip to Timaru. It was midnight when we drove into the car park of our church, which adjoins our house. As we were getting out of the car, my daughter Annie heard a noise coming from the church. I thought, 'not again!' You see, the church has been burgled twice recently and I wondered if it was nos 3. I ran into the church, unlocked it, only to come upon a burglar. It was nos 3. He did a runner, heading to the foyer of the church. I raced after him and had him cornered. Now this was the moment when I could be hero or zero. I should have hit him with one of my famous crash tackles, well famous 20 years ago when donning the orange and green of Pakuranga. I did chase him and did grapple with him. He had a crow bar thing, which I wrestled off him. But then he broke free and headed for the door at the other end of the church. He was to...

Well well. Good start Tiger. He has given up golf for a little while. This sounds like a man who is serious. There is another rumour out there that he spent up to $60,000 a weekend and was supplied with numerous women for his pleasure. It sounds like ancient Rome. An athlete of huge renown on and off the field! Still, it is a good start to put his wife and family first (at last), and seek help. I am sure the notion of "sexual addiction" will now emerge. It is hard to know what to make of sexual addiction. Some write it off as an excuse for lust. Others acknowledge it as an illness. I would imagine that it is truly an issue for some. Anything can become an addiction if we allow it to flourish in our lives and take over. Things like eating and sex are so basic to being human, that undoubtedly they can overtake us. We Christian men have to watch this seriously (and some women I presume). We are all prone to sexual desire. Sexual desire is not a wrong thing, it is a gift of t...

I have to say something. Tiger, Tiger, Tiger! What were you thinking? Well, he wasn't of course. Had he been thinking, he would not have done what he has done. He has allowed desire to over ride his brain. The truth is that Tiger Woods will continue on. He might lose his marriage and a bag of money. But, he will probably go on and become the greatest golfer of all time with the most majors. Most of his sponsors will likely stay with him. He will manage the PR to ensure minimum damage to his brand. He will go on Oprah, he will claim sex addiction, he will engender compassion for his problems. He will possibly even come out smelling of roses. I have heard for example, some saying that he seems human now. He is like us all! Well the truth is, he is not like us all. Yes, he is human; yes we are all prone to failure as I indeed am. But to have God knows how many affairs with a beautiful wife and kids a home, is not something many of us have done, nor would we contemplate doing it. ...

For the last week I have been given orders by the doc to take a week off. I crashed last Saturday, had stomach problems, was rather emotional (unusual for me), and was utterly knackered. Doc said, you are showing signs of stress, take a week completely off. So I have. And I feel a lot better for it. Anywho, one of the perks of such an arrangement is that you have to fill your time. My kids have hassled me for years to finish reading Harry Potter, having got to the first part of Book 4 years ago. So, over the last four days I have raced through books four to seven. It has inspired me to blog… The first thing to say is that it is GOOD! It is, to put it mildly, brilliant! I can see why kids and many adults love it. For me in my youth it was the Narnia series by C.S. Lewis. I loved those books and still love them! Great as those books are, begrudgingly I admit that Potter is even better. Narnia is a bit piecemeal, with the Magician’s Nephew great, the Lion the Witch the Wardrobe stu...