When grandad Brian died some very dear friends gave us a rose shrub. We are having a period of hot weather and I brought these three in.
It was this one that drew me to draw…
My pen wobbled a little more, I knew the loss! There would be one less, two less far fewer petals to draw. There are few roses in this garden July 2026.
This post is going to travel to places I didn’t know about. You are welcome to come and leave when you wish…
I will start with a story I know well. A pagan, powerful king had a dream. He knew it was important. He knew he needed the meaning. He couldn’t remember it, so could he ever know the meaning. Then this happened. A captured handsome,healthy, intelligent man with his three friends had been chosen for special treatment by the king. These men worshipped God not idols, and when asked to do the impossible they asked God to do it. Their God was able to save the day. He did. He gave the dream and its meaning for the whole of Earth time.
Historically, the king was NebuchadnezzarII, who ruled from 605BC to 562 BC, and regarded as the greatest king of the Neo- Babylonian Empire. He loved one of his wives so much that he built the legendry Hanging Gardens of Babylon because she was missing the mountains of her homeland. The Ishtar gate was also one of his monumental constructions. Nebuchadnezzar II at the time of this dream had just conquered Jerusalem and destroyed the First Temple with many of its people brought to Babylon and Daniel with his three friends were amongst this group.
God had a pagan and a Jew see and understand this dream.
What did they see? A statue. A statue made with progressively less valuable and weaker materials. Kingdoms of this world becoming less and less powerful and capable in many ways. It works out like this:
A gold head. Neo- Babylonian Empire 605-539BC
Chest and arms of silver. Medo- Persian Empire 539-331BC. It was a dual-nation empire ( signified by two arms) that conquered Babylon.
Belly and thighs of bronze. Greco- Macedonian Empire established by Alexander the Great. 331BC- 146BC ( extending further in some regions until 30BC.)
Legs of iron. The Roman Empire.
Feet of iron and clay. This represents a fragile, divided world order arising from the fragments and ruling from AD 476. The mixture of materials shows our structural instability.
The dream for both the pagan king and the captured prisoner ends in the same way. A stone cut without hands strikes the feet of iron and clay, the image is shattered to dust and God’s kingdom is established…
Daniel 2
I travelled on with how I started staring at a rose and found three quotes using the word stare.
The first was from Charles Dickens: ‘ I have known a vast quantity of nonsense talked about bad men not looking you in the face. Don’t trust that conventional idea. Dishonesty will stare honesty out of countenance any day in the week, if there is anything to be got by it.’
Then this is what I didn’t know and you can choose to leave. Here is a quote by Aaron Huey. American photographer, explorer,social activist and best known as a masthead photographer for National Geographic. I wrote this quote. Listened to his Ted Talk given 11 years ago and then asked what had been done? The answer was something had been done. All this was relatively new to me. You can travel this road as well if you wish.
‘ War is death. If we are to engage in war, then we should have to stare it straight in the face and call it by its rightful name.’
Aaron Huey.
Then here is my last quote.
‘Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.’
John Wooden 1910-2010
Take care,
Sandy 🙂