Happiness rules, says Helen

Chris Gardner With just a week before the Civil Union Act comes into force, celebrant Helen Charters has yet to be approached to conduct a service.
The new act does not become active until Tuesday when gays and heterosexual couples can begin applying for civil unions.
"I do ordinary weddings and baptisms already and so I asked to become a civil union celebrant," Helen, 48, of Te Awanga, said.
"I believe everybody has a right to their happiness. If people are in same-sex relationships, that should not stop them from making a commitment."
Helen is also an ordained peace minister in the Beloved Community, having trained under self-proclaimed spiritual peacemaker James Twyman, who has put prayers from 12 world religions to music and performs them in hotspots such as Bosnia, Iraq and Israel.
"All the main religions have the same message. I take the best bits out. There are thousands of paths that lead us to the creator."
"Our culture seems to have lost the power of community and ritual in favour of materialism and consumerism. I think that's very sad."
Helen, who is also a life coach, describes herself as a planetary healer who uses prayer, meditation and song to neutralise the negative feelings that she says surrounds the planet.
She agrees that her views could be described as New Age, and hopes to establish her own church.
The Zimbabwean divorcee, who has been in New Zealand for five years, is one of eight celebrants registered to conduct civil unions in Hawke's Bay.
In Napier Janice Baillie, of Shakespeare Terrace, has registered alongside Jennifer Harris of Bishop's Close and Christine Watson of Westminster Avenue.
Robyn Greenwood, of Dartmoor Road, Puketapu, has also registered.
Hastings has two celebrants: Karina Collyns of Sussex Street and James Judd of Usherwood Crescent, while Central Hawke's Bay will be served by Diana Petersen of Farm Road, Waipukurau.
Meanwhile the region's churches continue to voice their objection civil unions for gays.
Ken McLoughlin, pastor at City Assembly of God in Tamatea, said he would not put his name forward to perform civil unions.
"For me marriage was instituted by God, it was His idea and not man's," he said.
"A civil union is instituted by man and this type of relationship between a heterosexual or homosexual couple does not conform to Biblical principles."
The region's Catholic Bishop, the Rt Rev Peter Cullinane, said Catholics wanted couples to experience love and respect.
"The form of living together that the church promotes and blesses is marriage, especially Christian marriage. The Church cannot promote and bless relationships that only simulate marriage and purport to be equivalent to it."
Bruce Collingwood, senior leader at The Oasis Church in Onekawa, said sex was only appropriate within the boundaries of marriage between one man and one woman.
"Nothing else is right in God's sight," he said.
"I take the stand that we always love all people but that love means I won't encourage or condone a destructive lifestyle that undermines God's best for us as His most precious creation."
Napier Christian Fellowship pastor Steve Carnie said civil unions were contrary to what the Bible taught.
"Marriage is about a husband and wife," he said.
Andrew Riley, associate pastor at Hastings City Elim, said the church was not registered to perform civil unions and had no plans to become registered.
Steve Lindsay, at Living Waters Wesleyan Fellowship in Taradale, said he had not registered either.
Village Baptist Church pastor Mark Fox said his church, in Havelock North, would not be registering.
The Rev Brett Walker, minister at St Columba's Presbyterian Church in Taradale, said he could not figure out what the difference was between a marriage and a civil union. While he would not conduct a homosexual civil union, the Presbyterian Church Aotea New Zealand was leaving it up to individuals to decide.
The Rev Howard Carter, of Knox Presbyterian Church at Ahuriri, said he would not conduct a civil union for gays.
"One of the reasons put forward for the Civil Unions Act was that it gave people the choice to legalise their relationship without the religious connections with marriage, so to have civil unions celebrated in church would blur some of those distinctions," he said.
The Rev Brian Dawson, priest at St Luke's Anglican Church in Havelock North, said he had not registered "at this stage ... This is a delicate situation for all of us."