There is want in the world and I know little of it. There is too much darkness and death, disease and war and evil. Yes, very much evil. There is fear and danger all around us yet I am blessed with peace and plenty. This is a peaceful haven and I know if for what it is. Events of the wider world remain remote and the troubles that abound seemingly a distant soft murmur that impinge on consciousness. I turn my eyes to the flickering television screen and I watch knowing so well the storm that yet lies ahead. I sense upheaval, a disturbance in the air. Terrible events continue to proceed along their ordained course. I feel the rolling, churning, chaos forever moving forward. Pictures spin through my mind, impossible to comprehend in their frenzied snatches. My own beliefs are as old as fear itself and my beliefs are not easily altered, nor easily abandoned. The central fact of the pictures is extraordinary but I have come to accept the extraordinary with the same facile assent of the dreary commonplace.

The words I write from the images seen of what is and what may be are scattered with their glories and of the terror of mankind. Who among us is mighty enough to forestall such destruction in the coming century? The world will continue turning and the affairs of men continue apace, there will be more violence, armies in movement, people once again moving across borders. If man knew what looms before him would he change? No, I doubt it – man will learn in the most painful of ways – for our future is a blessing and a curse. Our lives will be changed and events will gallop forever onwards and a great many changes will come to pass. Perhaps it is better than mankind does not know what lies ahead for when they fully know the truth man will carry it for a long, long time. But I know as I have always known. We imagine we see the world as it is. What we see is the world we imagine. We do not see the world as it is and men as they truly are.

Australia sits like a rock in the sea, the terrors will wash these shores but will recede and the rock will remain unchanged. I know that wisdom will be given when wisdom is required, courage when courage is required, and life when life is required. All things will be given. Never will our sons fight better or with more courage. It is they and their blood that will make this land secure again. I am not bereft of hope. Hope is there is my heart.

America like Europe remains deeply shadowed and dark, twisted and burnt, surrounded by swirling forces that cannot be contained. Europe will continue to lie within a welter of confusion. There are those will vie for position and power and who will be filled with ambition and greed. They will seek to snatch what they can from the times of confusion. Alliances will change with the wind; loyalties will ebb and flow with the tide. The eagle remains wings scorched and screaming – so many dead, dying … they will be pierced with arrows before they draw their own swords. Do they not hear the things internally and externally whispered on the winds of time? Will they continue to remain aloof and unconcerned with squabbles in distant lands because they believe it will not affect them? They cavort in the twilight believing that they are invincible and that the seasons will continue to come and go. Ruin will proceed from this

Only the eternal stars will ever remain, glittering hard and fast in the dark skies. We will learn the truth of all things, to one day explore those distant stars. How I wish I could travel the craft that will ferry mankind into the universes beyond this one. When our sun explodes in a billion years hence wiping this earth from the heavens the distant stars will remain, unchanged, carrying the future seed of man.