A few weeks ago I brought my nephew to the airport early in the morning. We took the bus there. After I assured myself that he had been checked in alright, I caught the bus back home. While the bus to the airport was quite full, only one other passengers was on the bus in the other direction—and she got off two stops later. Because it was quite early in the morning I drifted off to a waking dream. Somehow the many decisions that made this bus the way to travel flashed before my eyes. I thought of the gravel roads between orchards that had been upgraded to sealed roads, the engineers who had reserved a railway corridor west of the city of Christchurch, and the engineers who sat in smoke-filled committee rooms to decide that it would not be needed after all; I seemed to hear the voices that clamoured for a highway instead and saw the bulldozers build a four-lane road dividing the growing airport precinct from the city. I thought of vested interests talking to politicians at fine functions, of impatient motorists wanting a quicker way to avoid the city centre, of environmentalists protesting wider roads. The hopes of the Draft Central City Recovery Plan from 2011 came to mind. If that had been followed, I may not have been travelling by bus, but rather would have caught a tram-train from the airport to Fendalton, before transferring to another train to Papanui. But the earthquake recovery minister and other vested interests made sure that vision did not come to pass. The journey was interrupted briefly as the bus stopped at the new traffic lights at the intersection of Breens Road and Harewood Road. The recent acrimonious politics about this road came to mind. As the bus purred closer to Papanui my mind focused on the effort required to ensure that—like this bus—many buses in Christchurch were now electric.

All these matters were not my decisions; they were made by other people, who often had very different visions for the city. There was foresight, there was small-mindedness, there was resistance to change, there were new visions, there were popular trends, there was immediate need, there was self-interest, there was concern for the common good. All that wrapped up in a simple bus journey. And then I began to think in theological terms: how much of that was sin? How much of that justice? How much of that goodness? What did God think of our efforts to build a city? Somehow in all this mess of human action there was enough to allow me to catch a bus from the airport to home. And then I missed my bus stop. I pushed the bell and got off the bus at the next stop, still somewhat dazed by my waking dream. More people were boarding the bus now. I turned and walked past the Church. What I realised was that every aspect of my life is somehow affected by the decisions made by so many people across the years—and that God was somewhere there in the midst of human life.