The new library in Dyer Street had a meeting room with seating for 200 people, but it quickly became clear that a larger meeting place was needed. And this is one of the reasons that Bingham decided to fund the Bingham Hall.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every week or so.
Bingham Library
Cirencester’s Bingham Library building is now the Town Council Offices and the Tourist Information Centre. When I was a pupil at Cirencester Grammar School in Victoria Road, this grand old building was still the town’s main library. I remember walking to it from the family home at 37 Victoria Road, often to return books and take out different ones on science fiction, astronomy, or whatever interested me at the time; sometimes to visit the reference library to read articles from Encyclopaedia Britannica and make notes for Geography essays on coffee, rice or tea production in exotic places.
Daniel George Bingham
Blue plaque (click to enlarge)
The Bingham Hall in King Street as well as the Bingham Library in Dyer Street were built as town amenities and improvements by Daniel George Bingham. For more details of his life and career, click the blue plaque on the right.
Bingham worked in railway management, first at Cirencester, later at Paddington in London, and finally in Utrecht in the Netherlands where he became wealthy. He visited Cirencester briefly but quite regularly and spent part of his wealth providing the library in 1905 and the Hall in 1908. He and his wife Jane had friends and family in Utrecht so they were always keen to remain living there, though clearly Bingham retained a fondness for his town of birth – Cirencester.
From the beginning, the new library in Dyer Street had a meeting room with seating for 200 people, but it quickly became clear that a larger meeting place was needed. And this is one of the reasons that Bingham decided to fund the Bingham Hall to provide expanded facilities for meetings, dinners, theatre, music, and even a rifle range. I remember being in the Army Cadets in the sixth form at the Grammar School and taking part in target practice with .22 calibre rifles in the Bingham Hall rifle range. Morning assemblies were held in the main hall at the Bingham Hall, also school theatrical productions and musical performances.
What about us?
Few of us will ever have enough money to contribute something major like Bingham did. But most of us can afford to buy a little extra food and put it into the Food Bank receptacle as we leave the supermarket. Or we can join a local organisation helping others in some way, or keeping the local environment tidy. We all have the capability to improve our fellow citizens’ well-being in some way, it may cost no more than a little thought and a simple action.
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In first-century Jewish society, a woman approaching a rabbi — in public, uninvited, without the mediation of a husband or male relative — was itself an act that would raise eyebrows and clench jaws.
Sometimes I read something so good that I want to share it with my readers. This happened recently with one of Christoper Dryden’s posts. When I asked if I might republish it here, he very generously agreed. But I’m having second thoughts. Not about sharing it, but about sharing it in full. I think it will be better to share enough that my readers will want to go and read the rest on CD’s blog.
Context: What social barriers does the bleeding woman overcome to reach Jesus, and why is this significant?
This scripture does not indicate the social barrier, but we can infer the following: she has a disease, which doesn’t make her socially acceptable for starters. The nature of the disease, apparently, would make her unclean, so she shouldn’t be seen in public. Touching the garment of Jesus would be considered scandalous and outrageous cos the belief was that those touched by the unclean would be unclean themselves. She’s a social outcast, and she should know her place and deal with the fact that she’s worse off for looking to get her problem sorted, only for it not to work out. She’s a woman, that also ain’t becoming of someone who wishes to approach this guy. Seen in that light, the amount she’s overcome to reach out speaks volumes about the level of faith she has that one touch could make all the difference. It explains Jesus’ own commentary on the situation, namely that her faith has made her whole. And as I reflect on that, there’s the nudge to consider what level of faith can be exercised to trust Jesus. And also, there’s a challenge of how we can demonstrate and declare, for the benefit of other social outcasts, that their issues can be solved by reaching out to touch Jesus, who is near them?
In first-century Jewish society, a woman approaching a rabbi — in public, uninvited, without the mediation of a husband or male relative — was itself an act that would raise eyebrows and clench jaws. Layer on top of that the twelve years of haemorrhaging, which under the Levitical code rendered her perpetually ritually unclean (Leviticus 15:25-27), and you start to appreciate what she was carrying before she ever took a single step toward Jesus. It wasn’t just a physical condition. It was a sentence. Twelve years of isolation. Twelve years of being untouchable. Twelve years of being told, in effect, that she didn’t qualify.
She had also spent everything she had on physicians who left her worse off, not better. So not only is she socially marginalised, she is financially spent and medically hopeless. She has nothing left to lose. And that, right there, might be the very thing that unlocks her faith. When you’ve exhausted every other option, the audacity to reach for Jesus becomes a lot less surprising.
Seen in that light, the amount she’s overcome to reach out speaks volumes about the faith she has that a single touch could make all the difference. It explains Jesus’ own commentary on the situation: her faith has made her whole. And as I reflect on that, there’s a nudge to consider what level of faith is required to trust Jesus. And also, there’s a challenge of how we can demonstrate and declare, for the benefit of other social outcasts, that their issues can be solved by reaching out to touch Jesus, who is near them?
Someone might feel like they don’t qualify. They feel like they’ve been told — by circumstance, by history, by the voice in their own head — that the door to Jesus isn’t for them. This woman’s story is a loud and clear rebuttal of that lie. She reached, He responded, and the power that went out of Him was not accidental. He knew. He always knows. And He is never contaminated by what comes to Him, broken and desperate. He is only ever transformative.
Content: How does Jesus treat both the synagogue leader and the unclean woman with equal dignity?
What a fascinating word – dignity. Let’s get ourselves a running definition or walking, if we prefer the strolling approach. Dignity is about worth, value and honour. To treat people with dignity is to confer on them a sense that they are of worth and value and should be duly honoured…
Reading more
My hope is that you’ll want to read the whole thing. Don’t miss the opportunity, you will not regret it! And if you like Dryden’s writing as much as I do, you’ll bookmark his site and keep coming back for more.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
All forms of life are precious and we depend on many of them to provide food, purify water, generate the oxygen we need to breathe, clean away life forms that have died, and much, much more.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Fallen tree, climbing ivy
This old tree trunk, clearly felled by chainsaw, is being colonised by ivy. Once the tree stood tall and strong and it’s likely that ivy clung to its trunk and branches. Now the tree lies on the ground, entirely dead, but ivy still uses the trunk as a support to grow upwards to continue to reach the light.
No giving up
Life is not in the habit of giving up, generations come and go, no individual tree, person, or anything else lasts for ever, not even a species. But life itself adapts, changes, and takes advantage of what went before. There has been life on planet Earth for around four billion years, that’s only 500 million years after the planet itself was formed. And it’s developed enormously in variety and complexity since chemistry first gave rise to biology.
We’re still filling in the gaps in what we know, but our knowledge is expanding and the gaps are shrinking. What we do know is that living things are very good at taking advantage of circumstances. That’s what the ivy is doing on the dead tree trunk. The need for sunlight is critically important for plants as the energy from that light allows them to build sugars from water and carbon dioxide. A stock of sugars enables them to survive the nights where the sun is absent, and survive the long, dark, cold, winter months as well.
All forms of life are precious and we depend on many of them to provide food, purify water, generate the oxygen we need to breathe, clean away life forms that have died, and much, much more.
Animals of all kinds and sizes ultimately depend on the sugars made by plants. Many animals feed on plants, stealing their sugars in a variety of forms, some feed on other animals, stealing sugars in secondhand forms; some, like us humans, eat both plants and animals. But almost all life depends ultimately on sunlight for its supply of energy.
That same great source of light also informs us, lets us see. Without light, eyes would be of no value whatsoever. Without light we would all be profoundly blind.
Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world’. What does he mean by that? Is he saying that he is a light without which we’d be profoundly blind?
I think that’s exactly what he’s saying. Light is essential for vision and vital energy. The sun enables physical vision and energy. Jesus provides another kind of vision and energy. Search it out! It’s not too hard to find.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
The photo shows a valley in Greenland, a valley is a low point, but Trump’s arrogant rudeness was another kind of low-point, and his falsifications were low-points as well.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Greenland (click images to enlarge)
A huge rumpus has developed over Mr Trump’s fixation on owning Greenland. I’ve never been to Greenland, but I’ve seen many photos and read accounts by people who have visited or who live there. It’s a large island with hospitable inhabitants but a very inhospitable climate, mostly covered by an ice cap up to 3 km (2 miles) deep, and peopled by a rich mix of the hardy Inuit natives of the land and Danes. The photo shows a valley in Greenland, a valley is a low point, but Trump’s arrogant rudeness was another kind of low-point, and his falsifications were low-points as well.
The rumpus continued until Trump backed down, but in his Davos address and press conference Trump said many things that did not ring true in my ears and mind so I wanted to see a fact-check.
What follows was not written by me. It’s Chat GPT’s response to my request for the AI to read the transcript, fact-check the claims, and draft a 1000-word essay for me. I planned to edit it into a finished article to publish here, but I decided instead to publish the draft as is.
Read it below: ChatGPT as a guest author on my blog.
Here’s my request to ChatGPT:
Please examine President Trump’s Davos press conference, fact check his claims and draft a 1000 word essay based on your findings.
Feel free to put this prompt into an AI of your choosing, the output will vary between AIs and may change over time as well.
Fact-Checking President Trump’s Davos Speech and Press Conference
Introduction
In January 2026, U.S. President Donald Trump delivered a highly anticipated speech at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, and later faced questions at a press conference. His address was notable not only for its bold proclamation of U.S. ambitions — especially regarding Greenland — but also for a wide array of controversial and, in many cases, misleading or incorrect claims about international relations, economics, and domestic policy. This essay examines the context of the speech, fact-checks key assertions, and evaluates the broader implications of the rhetoric deployed.
A Controversial Theme: Greenland and U.S. Expansionism
Perhaps the most eye-catching aspect of Trump’s Davos address was his discussion of Greenland, the vast Arctic island that is an autonomous territory of Denmark. Trump reiterated his desire for the United States to acquire Greenland, labeling it “critical” to U.S. and NATO security. He also — for the first time in this campaign — publicly pledged not to use military force to obtain it. – Time
However, this position was controversial for multiple reasons:
International Law and Sovereignty: Greenland is part of the Kingdom of Denmark; any transfer of sovereignty must be voluntary and negotiated. Danish leaders have consistently rejected selling or ceding control of the territory. – AP
Misrepresentation of Defense History: Trump implied that the U.S. “gave Greenland back” after World War II. In reality, the U.S. military presence in Greenland was based on agreements that affirmed Denmark’s sovereignty over the island while allowing the U.S. strategic access — but Greenland was not “returned” in the sense of ending U.S. ownership, because it was never wholly U.S. territory. – MediaITE
Strategic Importance vs. Imperialism: Trump’s framing of Greenland as a necessary bulwark against global threats was criticized as overly nationalistic and potentially destabilizing for NATO unity. European leaders stressed sovereignty and peaceful cooperation. – Guardian
Although Trump’s explicit rejection of military force was welcomed by markets and some commentators, the overall push was seen as a diplomatic provocation rather than constructive strategy. – Time
Misleading and False Claims
Beyond Greenland, Trump’s remarks included a number of statements that were factually inaccurate or misleading. Fact-checkers from multiple outlets documented significant issues:
1. NATO Contributions and Benefits
Trump characterized NATO as a burden on the United States, asserting the U.S. “never got anything” out of the alliance. This framing ignores both measurable benefits and longstanding structural agreements:
The U.S. does bear a large share of NATO defense spending, but it does not pay 100% of it; in 2024, U.S. defense spending comprised roughly 60-plus percent of total NATO expenditure. – NewsChannel3-12
NATO membership delivers both strategic security for the U.S. and economic and political stability among allies, which benefit U.S. interests. – NewsChannel3-12
2. Wind Energy and China
Trump derided renewable energy efforts, particularly wind power, and claimed he couldn’t find evidence of wind farms in China. This is demonstrably false:
China ranks first in the world in installed wind power capacity, with roughly 40–45 percent of global capacity. – Reddit
Such misstatements underscore pervasive misunderstandings about energy infrastructure.
3. Trade and Economic Claims
Trump’s economic narrative included assertions about U.S. trade imbalances and export markets that were incorrect:
He claimed the European Union does not buy American farm products and automobiles, implying that U.S. exports are negligible. In fact, the EU is a major market for U.S. agricultural exports and is among the top vehicle export destinations for U.S. manufacturers. – WRALNews
Additional claims about trade deficits — especially exaggerated figures about China and Canada — were similarly misleading when evaluated against official trade statistics. – WRALNews
4. Election and Historical Falsehoods
During the speech, Trump reiterated the claim that the 2020 U.S. presidential election was “rigged.” This assertion has been conclusively debunked by multiple courts, election officials, and independent fact-checkers. – HindustanTimes
Furthermore, in discussing geopolitical conflicts, Trump mischaracterized some historical events (e.g., conflating diplomatic tensions or border disputes with actual wars). – MediaITE
Economic Performance and Domestic Policy
Trump also touted U.S. economic performance under his administration, claiming low inflation and high growth. While inflation has been reduced from peaks seen earlier in the decade, some of Trump’s accompanying statistics — like headline growth figures and the scale of investment commitments — were overstated compared with independent economic data. – NewsWeek
His framing of U.S. economic strength was intended to contrast with his characterisation of the previous administration, though key metrics show that inflation, growth, and market performance fluctuate due to broader global and domestic conditions, not solely presidential policies. – NewsWeek
Rhetoric, Reactions, and Implications
Trump’s Davos speech was met with a mixture of shock, criticism, and, in some quarters, applause for his combative posture. European leaders, especially from Denmark and the EU, expressed concern about his Greenland remarks and his critiques of European energy and economic policy. – Guardian
Financial markets reacted positively to the pledge not to use force in pursuing Greenland, but broader geopolitical analysts warned that pushing such rhetoric in a forum dedicated to economic cooperation risked undermining U.S. credibility. – Time
Conclusion
President Trump’s appearance at the 2026 World Economic Forum was consequential — not just for its content but for the contradictions and controversies it generated. While his call for U.S. leadership and economic strength resonated with some domestic audiences, the fact-checking analysis reveals that many claims were inaccurate, misrepresented complex facts, or repeated debunked narratives. The emphasis on territorial ambitions like Greenland, along with misstatements about trade, energy, and alliances, highlights the challenges of integrating nationalist and transactional rhetoric into forums predicated on multilateral cooperation.
In sum, the Davos speech stands as a stark example of how high-level international engagement can be shaped as much by political theatre and domestic audience signaling as by policy substance — and the importance of grounding such speeches in verifiable facts if they are to foster trust and constructive global dialogue.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
The idea of a wool market is an appropriate one for the town; in medieval times the wool trade was of high importance in the Cotswolds where a series of wool towns developed, of which Cirencester was the largest.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Woolmarket (click images to enlarge)
The Woolmarket is a small shopping area between Dyer Street and The Waterloo in Cirencester. It looks old, it’s presented as old, but in fact it’s a relatively recent development, created in the 1980s and further improved in 1996. The idea of a wool market is an appropriate one for the town; in medieval times the wool trade was of high importance in the Cotswolds where a series of wool towns developed, of which Cirencester was the largest. The town’s Parish Church of John Baptist was built and extended in part with money from the wool trade as was the old Abbey before it.
Many of the Georgian frontages around the centre of the town began their lives as the homes of wealthy wool merchants. They are now mostly offices or flats, and sometimes have the ground floors replaced by retail businesses with large windows for display. But look up and you’ll see right away two or three floors of Georgian architecture above those ground floors.
The photo
I took this photo on a wet evening on 18th January 2026, the paving slabs of natural stone glistening in the overhead lighting and the more distant buildings softened by descending mist as the damp atmosphere cooled down following sunset. It’s very typical of January in the Cotswolds. Sometimes we get snow, and heavy frosts are possible, but often it’s just a chill damp with muddy fields and foggy mornings.
The sheep statue
In the middle of the photo, look into the middle distance and you may spot the statue of a traditional Cotswold Lion sheep. This famous old breed was once widespread across a huge expanse of the Cotswolds, though now it is a rarity.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
You see the lights and you might hear the engine or the sound of the tyres on the road surface. But there’s no way you could tell the make and model of the car. The details are hidden.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click images to enlarge
Sometimes it’s foggy in Cirencester. The Cotswolds is in the south-west of England and the prevailing winds come from the south-west and are laden with water vapour after crossing the Atlantic. As the air rises over the Cotswolds and other hilly country, some of that water vapour condenses as rain and some as fog. Once the sun appears, any mist or fog clears away with the rising temperature.
It’s all in the detail
As you look at the scene in the photo, you’ll notice right away that the fog obscures details on the church tower while the details on the nearer, and much less tall buildings in the foreground are quite sharp. This is always the way of things in foggy conditions. Nearby objects reveal more detail than those further away. If you stood near the base of the tower and looked towards the top you’d see the same thing. Stonework at the same level as your head would be clear, but raise your gaze to the top of the tower and you’d see few details. In heavy fog you might not see the top of the tower at all.
This is a great illustrative parallel of our ability to see spiritual details too. Look at the people around you and you see a lot of detail – hair colour, eye colour, style of hair, details of clothing , now look up and the detail seems to vanish. The Bible tells us that the Creator is hidden in dark clouds. The English words dark and darkness didn’t traditionally mean an absence of light, the sense was of something hidden from view. When you look into the headlights of a car coming towards you at night you see the lights and you might hear the engine or the sound of the tyres on the road surface. But there’s no way you could tell the make and model of the car. The details are hidden although (or even because) there’s so much light.
Yahweh (God) is like that too, as you get to know him the first thing you’ll understand is the simplest thing of all – he is there! Just an indistinct outline in the distance. As you draw closer, gradually you’ll begin to see how brightly he shines, but spend some time with him and more detail will appear, not what he looks like because he’s not a physical object in our universe, but you’ll start to see that he consists of a pure love, you’ll notice that he cares deeply about everyone, not just his followers, that he is the source of such things as peace, and grace, and joy, and that he knows you better than you know yourself. This experience feels very like walking towards an object almost invisible in the fog and discovering it to be a beautiful tree or an an amazing building. And the closer you get, the more detail you can distinguish – the veins on the leaves or the surface details in the stone.
Making a start
But how can you begin to know him? Where do you start? The answer is simple, begin right where you are right now. Start by noticing that the people you know (and you yourself) have a threefold nature. You are physical, like a stone or a puddle of water, but you also have a mind – utterly unlike a stone or a puddle! Is it so surprising, then, that there’s a third dimension to your existence and nature? These dimensions overlap yet they are distinct.
Your physical presence can be measured just like that of a stone, you have a certain size, shape, and mass, if you’re in motion you have measurable velocity, direction of movement, momentum and so forth. You possess colour and reflectivity. But overlapping with this physical presence are your senses of touch, sight, hearing and the rest.
The stone lacks these abilities. You have a brain that constantly evaluates the information coming from your senses and combines them into knowledge of your environment. This makes you aware of other objects (don’t trip over that stone, don’t step in that puddle), other lifeforms (chase away the fly that has landed on your arm, don’t step on that frog on the footpath), other people (talk to your neighbour, pay for the item you just bought, wave to your friend across the road, ask for directions).
Pushing through the fog
And that third dimension? Most of the overlap here is with your emotions, the love you feel for family and close friends, the fears you entertain (fear of death, fear of injury, fear of loss). There’s a spiritual element to your nature that overlaps mere emotion and goes way beyond feelings. This is another dimension that you can explore and it’s part of our nature that we sometimes fail to consider and rarely, if ever, visit.
So go there, move towards that somewhat foggy zone and the further you go, the more you will see. And I can assure you, the more you see the more you’ll be drawn along to explore further because what you find will be delightful, encouraging and fulfilling. And remember, in the fog, the further and higher you look the less you will see. But go closer and the details will become clearer. Drawing close is the only way to deal with fog.
And there’s a huge additional advantage, the physical and the mental aspects of your existence will pass away, the atoms of your body will be recycled, dispersed, and used to construct other things. But the overlapping spiritual aspects remain, because they are not dependent on the physical world in any way, they remain.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
Unlike life, death is stable. It’s not often that you see a dead body come alive again. That would be resurrection, it’s not something that we expect to see happening regularly (or at all)!
I’m writing about these three topics in obedience to a prompting from the Holy Spirit. I need to say that at the outset. And I think I’m going to need to create two versions, one for people who are following Jesus, and another for people who have no idea what I’m talking about. I’m going get stuck right in, please bear with me; my hope and prayer is that there’ll be something here for everyone.
For those who have no idea
We all know what life is, or at least, we think we do. Life is a metastable state. Let’s define ‘metastable’ – Imagine a pencil lying near the centre of a table; if you push it a little it will move across the surface but it won’t fall over. It can’t! (unless you push it so far that it reaches beyond the edge of the table it is always fully supported on the table’s surface. That pencil is a stable object.
Now take the pencil and stand it up on it’s point. Let it go and it will fall over. A pencil standing on its point is unstable.
Now take the pencil and stand it on the table with its point uppermost. If the pencil has a good, flat end and the table surface is even and horizontal, you will be able to do this with a little care. Now push the pencil point sideways a tiny amount and then release it, it’ll wobble a bit but then remain standing and settle down. But push it beyond a certain amount and it will fall over. That’s metastable, the pencil can cope with a tiny movement, but push it too far and it’ll fall over.
Life is like that, it’s a metastable condition. Most of the time we live day after day as the weather changes, sometimes warmer, sometimes cooler, sometimes wet, sometimes dry. Put us in a place too hot, too cold, too dry (a desert), or too wet (an ocean) and we will die. Not immediately, perhaps, but push us too far, and like the point-up pencil, we’ll fall. Life is metastable. All of us will die eventually, if not of overheating or drowning, then eventually of old age. It’s not normal to live for ever.
Unlike life, death is stable. It’s not often that you see a dead body come alive again. That would be resurrection, it’s not something that we expect to see happening regularly (or at all)!
That’s about all there is to say to the ‘No idea’ group.
For those following Jesus (or might like to)
Jesus had some really interesting things to say about life. He reminded people that life is metastable, but without using that term. He claimed that there is a different kind of life, a spiritual life parallel to biological life, a life that is stable rather than metastable, a life that has the potential to be stable as either permanent life or permanent death. And he further explained that we can choose either permanent condition.
These claims don’t make sense, do they? I’ve stated them as simply and straightforwardly as I can. I should add that these deep truths cannot be grasped by intellect or understood by logic. They are, I suspect, completely distinct from the physical world and from the rationality of mind and brain. These things are unmeasurable and indescribable, available only through faith, hope, and love.
So if you want to explore further, faith, hope and love are the tools you will need to do so. Faith is a mysterious idea, quite hard to pin down or explain. Hope is something we all have, though perhaps we all hope for slightly different things. But love is the most important and the strongest of the three, it’s the one key you truly need to unlock resurrection (a return to life) and to grasp the enormous benefit of permanent life and the desperate state of permanent death. So take love as the starting point. If you are new to all this, Henry Drummond is a good guide and companion on the exciting journey that lies ahead.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
Put an upturned bucket over a patch of grass in your garden. Lift the bucket every day and take a look, then re-cover the patch… How long does it take for the grass to die?
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
Trees provide shade, most welcome on a hot day, and they provide shelter when it rains (though this may be unwise during thunderstorms).
But notice the absence of grass beneath these conifers. Shade and shelter are exactly what other plants don’t need; they depend on plenty of light and water to enable them to grow. Light is essential as it provides the energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, and water is essential as the raw material for this process. The oxygen is released into the atmosphere, while the hydrogen is bonded with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to make energy-storing sugars for use at night and to build cellulose, the main support molecule that gives stems, branches and tree trunks their strength.
The lack of light and water under tree canopies creates a kind of local desert. You can see this clearly in the photo from the presence and absence of grass. So how do the trees survive? That’s a great question! Their roots spread out widely and deep, far enough to reach moist soil and deep ground water. In persistent rain, water drips from the drenched leaves above. And root, trunk and branch all contain stores of water so a tree can cope with a long, dry summer far better than the grass can.
Light
Here’s an experiment anyone can do. Put an upturned bucket over a patch of grass in your garden. Lift the bucket every day and take a look, then re-cover the patch. See how long it takes for the grass to turn yellow. How long does it take for the grass to die?
For plants, light is essential. There are some animals that live in dark caves or underground, with no light. Earthworms are a good example, but like all animals they get their food by consuming plants and other animals. But for most creatures, including us humans, light is essential nonetheless. Whether we are plant eaters (like cows and sheep) or meat eaters (like lions and wolves) or omnivores eating either or both (like humans and rats) we still need light to see in order to find and identify the things we must eat to stay alive.
Water
For plants, water is part of their ‘food’, it’s needed to make sugars. For animals water is of no value as food, but it’s essential to prevent dangerous dehydration. All animals know when they’re thirsty and they’ll find water and drink to keep themselves alive. Think of a man lost in a desert, the cartoons have him croaking out, ‘Water.. Water..’ Imagine someone unable to find water, they’d die of thirst long, long before they died of hunger. Most of us would be in danger after a few days without drinking, but we could live for several weeks with nothing to eat. And of course, if you are a fish too little water would mean you couldn’t breathe, and if you were a land animal too much would mean you would drown.
Spiritual (not religious)
The idea of essentials has been carried over into spiritual ideas too. Light and water (and food) are so clearly necessary for life that they make good analogies and illustrations. What did Jesus mean when he said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’? Or when he explained to the Samaritan woman at the well that he would provide water that never runs out, or when he told his followers, ‘I am the bread of life’ or ‘I am the light of the world’?
He was simply saying, I am essential, you can’t live without me. I’m necessary for life. Just as in the physical world, how would it feel to live in the dark, without water and without sustenance? How long would you last? How long would I last?
Many people today feel sure there is no spiritual aspect to life at all, it’s just about living your life in the here and now and then dying from accident, illness, or just old age. Others think there’s much more to life than that. At the very least there are moral and philosophical truths to consider. We should care for one another, help one another, and cooperate in helpful and kind ways.
Food for thought. Let me know below how you think about the essentials of life. Do you have any thoughts to share on this?
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Just from this image the brain understands there are ripples on the surface of the water and from past experience will also know that these ripples will be moving.
What’s in an image? Sometimes quite a lot, more than meets the eye. I’m posting an image every few days.
Click to enlarge
Sometimes we see things indirectly, and our brains are capable of retrieving far more information than you might at first think. It’s true of all our senses – hearing, touch, taste, smell and all the rest. The senses provide information but the brain makes much more of it all.
What do we see in this image? It’s just a pattern of coloured patches reflected from a water surface. That’s what the eye sees. But the brain tells us there are clouds in the sky above and there are ripples on the water. Then the brain compares this basic information with what it recalls from past experience and it can construct two narratives, one for the clouds and another for the water.
The clouds
There is a dark cloud and it’s the closest one to us, it threatens a shower of rain. A second image taken a few seconds later would be enough for the brain to decide the direction of movement of the cloud and predict whether the rain might fall here or somewhere else. Paler clouds, white clouds and blue sky suggest there’s some sunshine around as well so although there might be a brief shower, it won’t turn into ongoing steady rain. All of that from from a few colour patches.
The water
Because of the way the cloud reflections are distorted, the brain can infer the water is neither heavily disturbed not completely calm. Just from this image the brain understands there are ripples on the surface of the water and from past experience will also know that these ripples will be moving. The same brain will realise that there are two likely causes; either there is a light breeze blowing or perhaps a boat has passed recently. Once again, past knowledge in memory is necessary to arrive at these conclusions. There are some large ripples and, near the top of the image, some much smaller ones too. There was a small disturbance in the water further away as these small ripples seem to form an expanding circle of which we see only a small part.
Here and there things are floating on the water, small leaves, perhaps? If so, there must be trees nearby, perhaps with branches overhead. What a lot the brain can reconstruct on the basis of prior knowledge! And all of these conclusions come from some patches of colour in a still image. And what about the little sticks emerging from the water on the left-hand side? It’s the remains of vegetation of some kind. Was there a plant growing in the water? Did a strong wind break twigs off an overhead tree branch?
And one last point – it was not raining at the moment the photo was taken. The water would have been covered with dozens of circular disturbances if rain was falling. That’s a lot of information that your eyes and brain can glean from a single fragment of time trapped by my camera!
We are, as the Bible expresses it, fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
We cannot know exactly what this area would have been like when it was full of active volcanoes, but we can get a rough idea from modern subduction regions on Earth today. Under the Mediterranean, for example, the African plate is being subducted underneath the plate carrying Europe.
This is one of the waterfalls along Stock Ghyll just north-east of Ambleside, Cumbria in the English Lake District. It’s beautiful countryside, and the nearby Force Cafe and Terrace served us a wonderful ‘Full Force’ breakfast. In the local dialect, a waterfall is known as a ‘force’, and there’s a whole string of them along this stretch of Stock Ghyll. A ghyll or gill is a narrow, deep, wooded ravine with a stream running though it. The term can also be used for the stream itself. Donna and I made our way carefully along this muddy, stony footpath, and it was well worth the effort.
Stock Ghyll runs right down into the town of Ambleside where it once powered a series of watermills, and finally flows into the nearby lake of Windermere.
Bobbin mills
Bobbin mills were common in Ambleside in the 19th century. Coppiced timber was cut to length and shaped on a lathe, then wooden discs were attached to both ends and the completed bobbins sold to the textile spinning and weaving businesses in the industrial cities south of the Lake District where they were used to store thread after spinning and before weaving. They contributed to the rapid growth of spinning and weaving factories in northern England. Wooden bobbin manufacturing died out with the 20th century introduction of plastics.
Formation of the Lake District
Skiddaw in the distance
The granite structures of the fells and mountains of the Lake District erupted from volcanoes during the Ordovician period some 460 million years ago.
Much more recently, repeated glaciations ground out U-shaped valleys arranged more or less radially and when the glaciers melted during warmer periods, lakes remained in the valley bottoms. Rivers flowing into the lakes or sometimes from one lake to another, have silted up some of the lakes at one end, and these flat, silted zones are now rich areas of pasture and crop land as well as places where urban construction has become possible. The photo above shows the mountain of Skiddaw in the distance and farmland in the foreground. The town of Keswick, out of the frame to the right, is also built on this flatter land laid down as sediment in the northern part of Derwent Water.
What else can we learn
One thing is very clear, what happens in one time period may be changed drastically at another, later time.
We cannot know exactly what this area would have been like when it was full of active volcanoes, but we can get a rough idea from modern subduction regions on Earth today. Under the Mediterranean, for example, the African plate is being subducted underneath the plate carrying Europe. The Alps and the Pyrenees have risen as a result, and volocanoes like Etna and Vesuvius are still actively pumping out magma or ash. The Mediterranean region is also prone to earthquakes. Now imagine (if you can) a mile or more depth of ice resting on top of the Alps grinding down the rocks to form U-shaped valleys as they slide due to gravity across the rock surface far below.
In Roman times, the areas of river sediment like that in the photo above would have been smaller than they are today and the lakes would have been correspondingly longer.
It’s very much a dynamic process. It’s a bit like the life of a person, we start as a new born infant and learn to talk and walk, then run. We learn to eat, and we learn to reason. at school we learn a lot more about the world we live in, politics, science, other languages, geography, history; we fall in love, we marry and raise a family; we have a career and learn how to manage the work environment, run a business, serve customers, manage bank accounts and so forth. The world is our playground, we travel on business or just for fun, we become grandparents as we grow older and retire from work. There are many beginnings and endings along the rich tapestry that is a human life. And lives intertwine in so many ways – friends, family, work colleagues, neighbours. Just like the Lake District, at any point it’s impossible to know what the future might hold.
Life is the same. What happened in my life when I was young is very different from what is happening in my life today. Change and unpredictabilty are the only things that are consistent throughout. If the ice hadn’t melted when it did, the Lake District would be far different from the place we know and love.
How do we deal with this built-in uncertainty? One way that many have found is faith, following a guide that we trust in ways that stretch us and help to shape our characters. Faith can be like an anchor in a choppy sea or even a full-blown storm, holding us safely in the right place until calmer conditions return. I recommend having an anchor in this experience we call life. But if you choose an anchor, choose carefully, there are some pointers elsewhere on this website. Hunt around and see if there’s anything here that you find attractive or compelling.
I’m always fascinated by links and similarities between one thing and another, life is full of them and sometimes they help to broaden our vision and understanding in ways that are quite unexpected.
If you enjoyed this or found it useful, please like, comment, and share below. (If you don’t see those links, click the article’s title above the main photo and they will appear.) Send a link to friends who might enjoy the article or benefit from it – Thanks! My material is free to reuse (see conditions), but a coffee is always welcome and encourages me to write more often!
Journeys of Heart and Mind 