"The Rose is Gonna Live again"

"The sun is gonna shine again.
  The rose is gonna live again."


Dreams, hope and freedom are the themes interwoven in the my next book, "The Rose of Nowruz."
Bahareh is a young concert violinist who is the lead actress in a stage play called, "The Rose of Nowruz" which takes place in the turbulent and troubled capital of Tehran, Iran. The play opens with the celebration of Nowruz, the Persian new year when everyone in Iran are hopeful for a new beginning and a better life. Bahareh is a compassionate and talented violinist who adopts the symbol of the rose, a symbol of beauty and hope, and all throughout the play, she comforts and cares for her friends who are suffering in a culture of oppression. The play is filled with music and rich symbolism that is deliberately done so that the theater is not shut down by the government.
In one magical and dramatic scene, Bahareh is finally silenced by the Iranian police and dies at a violent protest rally. Devastated and saddened, her friends gather around her and pay tribute to her activism by covering her body with rose petals.
Suddenly, the audience is mesmerized by a beautiful sunrise on a video screen. A group of Bahareh's friends gather around her body laying on the stage and begin to sing, "The sun is gonna shine again. The rose is gonna live again."
The lights go out and a single blue light shines down on Bahareh's body and to everyone's astonishment she rises up from the rose petals and begins to once again play her violin.
While the Rose of Nowruz is rich with meaning and symbolism, there is a beautiful parallel that shines through the play pointing to one of the greatest events in history, the resurrection of Christ.

Like Bahareh, Jesus was the rose, a rose of great beauty and compassion. He spent his life giving hope to the hopeless and speaking out against those who would oppress them with great burdens of false religion. Ultimately, Jesus, like the rose of nowruz, was crushed and trampled by evil men and put to death on a wooden cross. Yet at the cross, "the rose" exchanged his life of beauty, bearing all of our guilt and shame so we could have hope and freedom. Like Bahareh, the rose was crushed and silenced but came back to life. Jesus rose from the dead. He was victorious, breaking the power of sin that kept us in bondage and setting us free to live out our hopes and dreams.
The Rose of Nowruz is a book of hope and freedom to my dear friends in Iran. There is no power or evil government that can ultimately triumph over the beauty and compassion of the rose.
The sun is shining once again, shouting out to the whole world, "There is hope and freedom, because the rose is alive!"
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