CHRISTIANS are everywhere, 15.000 of them, filling camp sites, B&Bs and churches - the Keswick Convention is back (July 16 - August 4).

It looks and sounds familiar - preachers, seminars, books, music, youth concerts, traffic jams and rain (it usually does!).

Not surprisingly, lots of people in West Cumbria haven't the slightest idea what this three--week event is all about. After all, God is dead isn't he?

What draws so many of all ages like a magnet to Keswick every year is a mystery. What is it these Christians know we don't know.

There was a time when I too didn't know, but now I know what some of my friends don't know.

Donald Rumsfeld once famously said: "We know there are known unknowns... but there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know".

At Crosthwaite Parish Church's Sunday morning service, it took a Doctor of Philosophy (Donald A. Carson) 25 minutes to reveal to us the great unknown. When the preacher sat down, 600 people were left in no doubt. The great unknown is Jesus Christ.

Not that everybody everywhere doesn't know about him, they do. It's the great unknown about him that sets him apart.

No-one else came from outside our world to identify with us in our brokenness. This sets him apart as to who he is.

Knowing who he is makes all the difference.

R.Hall

Cockermouth