I don?t know if it?s because I?ve been on the Island for a while now with all this water, but I?ve got a vivid image in my head.

I can see a far vista in a desert valley. The floor of the dry, dusty basin has scrub brush but no trees, sparse grass in small clumps, and vast sections of sandy soil.

The valley has a slight bowl shape, and I can see down into the centre where two lonely roads meet in solitude. There is not a person in sight.

Where one road intersects another is a crossroads. You can stand in the middle where they meet and see the mix of perspective. When you?ve been walking down one, and you suddenly come upon that other, the dust from the first road can cloud the way you see the second.

To illustrate this more, here is an experiment. Take three bowls of water. In the first put very, very hot water ? as hot as you can possibly stand.

In the second put very, very cold water ? ice cold. In the third put tepid water. Now, place the fingers of your left hand in the hot water and the fingers of your right hand in the cold water.

Let them sit there for a minute or so, and then remove them both and put them into the tepid water.

What happens? Most people experience the left and right hands differently, even though immersed in the same tepid water.

That bowl of water is like a crossroads. It?s got a little hot and a little cold. It?s a mixture of the two, but depending on where one has been before entering the crossroads, their experience of being there will vary. Where you?ve been affects what it?s like to be where you are.

This column will explore a place to stand in the mix of three roads: Psychology, spirituality, and every day life. That place is not where everyone stands.

It?s where I stand. The roads come together in me, and so I share what I know of each of them, but it?s what know of them. It?s not what I ?should? know. It?s not what I ?ought? to know. It?s not what someone else knows. I know what I know, because I?ve studied these roads and the critters you can find on them, and I?ve been walking these roads now for some time.

I don?t just know about these roads, as if I had learned them from a book. Oh no. These roads have shaped who I am as a person.

I?ve struggled on them. I?ve cried. I?ve laughed with the other people I?ve met while walking them, and sometimes those people have had to pick me up, because I?ve fallen on my face.

Sometimes I write as a psychologist. At other times I write as a theologian or a clergyman. Solomon was a man who knew what it was like to walk such diverse roads in life, and he said: ?There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven...? So it goes.

I?m a mix of every road I?ve walked, and I hear the music of each of them. Sometimes it?s the Beach Boys singing: ?Don?t worry, Baby...? Other times it?s Sad? crying: ?I am in the wilderness; you are in the music.?

Sometimes it?s enough simply to be walking, and then I write as fellow traveller. This is where the travelling comes together in the CrossRoads.

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