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Zentangle Diva Challenge #317 – Stand with England Edition

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I realize it’s kind of very late in the week to be posting my response to this week’s Zentangle Diva’s challenge which was to use a photo as a string and tangle around it. This week’s challenge was posted the morning after the horrific suicide bombing of a Manchester, England arena just as a concert filled with teens (and at least one 8 year old) and their parents was letting out. We know about the eight year old because she was killed in the blast along with 21 others.

I was feeling very sad for Manchester, so as my string for this challenge, I looked back through my photos and found one taken during a visit to London in 2012 during the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year—-hence, all the Union Jacks. I decided to dedicate this week’s challenge response to Manchester and England.

Tangles used: Paradox, Tipple, Hollibaugh and the one that looks like a chain that I embarrassingly already forget the name of.

I’m an Anglophile. We lived in England for the 1969-70 school year when my father was an exchange teacher in Devizes, a Wiltshire market town. I made my first return visit in 1999 and had the good fortune to be able to visit twice last year, thanks to Mr. Dr. Excitement‘s medical research conferences.

One of his conferences was in Birmingham, a city not unlike Manchester, reinventing itself after a gritty, industrial past. (Think “Rust Belt” cities in the United States). Some of the new city centre Birmingham architecture seems to have been designed by tangle enthusiasts.

Birmingham England library

Main library, Birmingham City Centre

Then, there was this building:

On that trip, we spent our last night in England, in Manchester. (American Airlines flies non-stop from Manchester to our home city, Philadelphia.) It has a stylish pedestrian center, and a multi-cultural vibe. I enjoyed a sake (Japanese) mojito (Cuban) at a Vietnamese restaurant behind Manchester Cathedral.

Manchester England Cathedral

Manchester England Cathedral

As with so many beautiful places of worship around the world, the lovely Manchester Cathedral has a history marred by violence and destruction. The first church on the site was built in the 7th century and destroyed by the Danes in 923–back in their raping and pillaging phase. The rebuilding of a church on the site started in 1215. That church was ransacked during the English Civil War in 1649. The cathedral underwent extensive renovations during the 19th century, but was partly destroyed and severely damaged by a German bombing in 1940. It was restored over 20 years, only to be damaged by an IRA (Irish Republican Army) bombing in 1996. But, it was standing to shelter those praying for the wounded and the souls who lost their lives this week.

One of my favorite Shakespeare passages is about England herself. The prose is poetry, but the message is flawed—ask William the Conqueror.

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle,
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war,
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands,–
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.

King Richard II, Act 2 scene 1

Moats, walls and even oceans (and the English Channel) cannot save us from those infected by murderous rage, tribalism and avarice. I know I sound naive and I constantly battle my own cynicism and despair for the human race, but tonight I am wishing with all my might that all the citizens of the world choose to live by the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule simply asks you (me) to be empathetic, to “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.” In simple English, “Treat other people, the way you wish to be treated.”

Peace. Out.


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