[subtitle: The journey continues]

Did you know that 1 in 4 people will experience some kind of mental health issue during their lifetime?

It wasn't all that long ago that I had my "Alpha Epiphany", got up on stage at the Alpha Conference and told the World (well, its 900 or so representatives who were present at the time) that I felt called into the area of Mental Illness and Clinical Depression to help....   errr... well, actually, that bit of clarity hadn't really appeared yet.

I'm not as prolific a musician as some other AL members, but I have been known to up-tools and do a bit of recording and writing in my time. At long last I've gotten my act sufficently together to release an album - Strange Ink - like for real, for proper, on iTunes and everyfink. It's only taken 10 or 20 years, depending on where you start counting from.

A man is in bed with his wife when there is a rat-a-tat-tat on the door. He rolls over and looks at his clock, and it's half past three in the morning. "I'm not getting out of bed at this time," he thinks, and rolls over.

Then, a louder knock follows. "Aren't you going to answer that?" says his wife.
 

Someone close to me who is experiencing a great deal of suffering and torment right now (and hence me too, by proxy) made an observation the other day, between the sobs and gasps of breath...

Where are all my "friends" that call themselves Christians? They're the worst type - they pray for you, then forget about you. They don't actually do anything to help.

The sad thing is, she's very right...

Whole heartedness.
 -You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart – Jeremiah 29:13

Persistence.
-See Luke 18:1-8 especially v7 “And will God not bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night?”

to fix and heal us, even when it seems impossible. If it didn't, most people would be walking round like zombies and robots and be unable to function.

It's also apparent that when we go through major difficulties, get broken up and then put back together again, we emerge as different people. We learn a lot; we strengthen our resources; we take a new perspective; we strengthen some of our relationships, and prune some of our others.

Sometimes we pray for protection, and it doesn't seem to be forthcoming - the rocks still seem to keep hitting us. We need to look at the big picture...

I suspect in most people's journey of faith there comes a point (perhaps several) where you are on the brink of some kind of enlightenment - a place that on the one hand has all the innocence and mystery of a new believer; and on the other, some kind of sense of revelation and understanding.
 
This is a unique position to be in - because looking back one can still relate the all the emotions of someone experiencing intial Christian exposure, trying to understand what it all means, trying to sort out the confusion, trying to get to grips with why people are so flipping excited about it! And yet looking forwards, one is starting to come to find some of that understanding and excitement actually happening.

What if Intelligent Design incorporated Evolution? Now wouldn’t that be really intelligent?

The Times reports today that scenes from Born Suvivor - the discovery channel programme bought by Channel 4, which shows Bear Grylls surviving and escaping from hazardous natural environments - were faked. As the youngest Briton to ascend Mount Everest, Gylls was a natural choice to feature in the 2005 Alpha cinema and sticker campaign asking "Is there more to life than this?"