my latest projects these are the results of my latest projects:
song scripts this page has the stories behind some of my songs - it is in a kind of blog-ish format
My Journey Through Depression
Subject: My Journey Through Depression Date: January 2009
My hope in writing and publishing this article is that it will encourage any sufferers or friends/ family of sufferers who have experienced or are currently going through depression. I would also like to think that plenty of readers with no knowledge of or personal association with the illness will also benefit from reading this. May your patience pay dividends as you read this, leaving you encouraged and better informed! Having suffered with depression over four episodes in my own life, from my student days to the present, I want to share something of my own encounters with it, and hope in the process to give you a helpful overview of my understanding of the illness.
Depression is a condition which affects far more people than is generally acknowledged, though it is not as universal as 'the blues' which we all go through from time to time. No-one is exempt from the wilderness times or the occasional bout of ‘the blues’, but for many the wilderness experience becomes far more than the hot burning sands before reaching the oasis; it becomes more like quicksand which swallows the person whole, engulfing a person with feelings of despair and hopelessness, preventing the journey from continuing and threatening life itself. « read more here »
My Near-Death Experience
Subject: God's Awakening, about 8:30 Date: Tue 13/08/2002 09:05
As I woke I recalled the story of the potter's house I had read in Jeremiah yesterday, where the clay pot was reduced to a lump of clay by the potter, ready for reworking. I felt God say "So what about you? Are you willing for me to start again with you if I see fit?" What a scary question! How could I know what that would entail? Pushing aside the part of me that protested "But you have already built some good things into my life haven't you?" I decided to address the question, hypothetical or not. Slowly, like someone treading through a minefield, I began to vocalise my thoughts. "Lord, if that is going to happen I cannot go through that emptiness again unless I do so in the fullness of your presence. Please, don't take me anywhere where you are not. If I know your loving presence with me only then could I bear to go through that emptiness." I recalled last night's prayer meeting in which we had rested for a while in God's presence and I had found myself reflecting soberly on the implications of God making his presence manifest. "He who falls on the rock will be broken, but he on whom the rock falls will be crushed". Cheers God, what an attractive choice! But the latter choice leads only to annihilation; the former one leads to the prospect of full healing, presumably with the bones fitted together by the "divine surgeon" better than they had been before!
Last Tuesday, off the coast of Port Ban in Iona, I got a small taste of what it means to be broken on the rock. « read more here »
Lift
Subject: Lift (nothing I can hold back) Date: Treacle 2002
This is quite a significant song in that it was the first fruit of Sue Bavister’s prophecy back in 2002 about my moving into a zone where
I would write songs that would catch within the church. It was also the first of mine to be tried out in the context of a professional
recording studio in the hands of a producer, as you will hear on the CD if you have got it.
But hey, who needs a CD when you can catch my music first hand on mp3 from my new music archive – (cheers Chief Archiver Marki!)
While it has not travelled as extensively and
with as much impact as “Lose Myself” it has made an inroad into the youth culture of the Church via Lincoln’s TREACLE events.
As a clear indicator of things to come and a pleasing delusion that I could extend my stay in the land of youth and pitch
my tent in tir na nog I am thrilled with it!
« read more here »
