Blog: Smell of the stable

One eve­ning I was dri­ving home from work. On­ce a week I need to drive about 50 ki­lo­me­ters to work, and I of­ten lis­ten to au­dio books on my way. I was al­re­a­dy a bit ti­red. For some re­a­son I wi­ped my cheek with my glove and was rou­sed by the smell. For me it is a good smell, though some pe­op­le might not like it. I had ac­ci­den­tal­ly ta­ken a pair of glo­ves that I usu­al­ly wear while wor­king out­doors and ta­king care of the ani­mals. The glo­ves smel­led of sheep. I simp­ly had to have anot­her sniff.

Blog: Fat in the veins, bits in the minds

Two of our child­ren ex­pe­rien­ced de­vas­ta­ting loss on suc­ces­si­ve days: their pho­nes broke down. I saw this as my luc­ky break. I went and col­lec­ted all the ot­her pho­nes, too, and dec­la­red that a no-phone pe­ri­od would start in our home right now. A 30-mi­nu­te hu­ma­ni­ta­ri­an cor­ri­dor would be al­lo­wed eve­ry eve­ning, as pur­po­se­ly cut­ting all stre­aks would be akin to a vi­o­la­ti­on of hu­man rights.

Blog: Art empowers us

I like many kinds of art, ver­bal, vi­su­al and vo­cal as well as their com­bi­na­ti­ons. When I lis­te­ned to an SRK book of po­ems, Äi­dit avaa­vat ik­ku­noi­ta (Mot­hers open win­dows), on the Kuu­le! ap­p­li­ca­ti­on, I mar­ve­led at the abi­li­ty of po­et­ry to high­light the va­lue and sig­ni­fi­can­ce of child­ren as part of dai­ly life and as a sour­ce of joy. I sel­dom lis­ten to po­ems, though I oc­ca­si­o­nal­ly write po­ems my­self. Po­ems can exp­ress so much in just a few words, use no­vel ima­ge­ry to ref­resh our thin­king, and the­re­by al­so bring ea­se of mind in­to dai­ly life. Do you like po­ems?

Blog: Loneliness and bullying

Many pe­op­le close to us may ex­pe­rien­ce lo­ne­li­ness, though we may not even be awa­re of it. What could we do if we find that so­me­o­ne is strug­g­ling with lo­ne­li­ness? We can in­vi­te them over for a vi­sit, a cup of cof­fee or sau­na or sug­gest that they join a hob­by group. It is of­ten enough just to re­cog­ni­ze them by gree­ting or smi­ling. Pe­op­le feel good when they are seen and spo­ken to.

Blog: Life is here right now

I am sit­ting in the sheep barn, ad­mi­ring the gra­ce­ful skip­ping and boun­cing of our lit­t­le lambs. They are on­ly a few days old, but they al­re­a­dy fol­low their dams out­si­de and run in and out of the barn as if pla­ying tag. They will have friends to play with, be­cau­se 20 of the lambs born this ye­ar are still ali­ve.

Blog: Model of man

My son pou­red out his mind: ”You ne­ver gave me a pro­per mo­del of man. You can­not fix cars. You can­not build hou­ses. You do not hunt, and you do not even have a snow­mo­bi­le.” I tried to de­fend my­self: ”But you know, I have writ­ten a coup­le of po­ems.” I had con­si­de­red my­self a mo­de­ra­te­ly good fat­her. My big­gest con­cern had been my mi­ni­mal cont­ri­bu­ti­on to hou­se­hold work. I had to tra­vel for work, and I had been elec­ted to some po­si­ti­ons of trust, so the res­pon­si­bi­li­ty for the home of­ten fell on my wife.

Blog: Courage to be open

Of­ten in dis­cus­si­ons, pre­sen­ta­ti­ons and speec­hes we are en­cou­ra­ged to con­fess our faith open­ly. That may seem ea­sy when we sit among be­lie­vers, but it is not so ea­sy in real eve­ry­day life. We are af­raid of how ot­her pe­op­le will re­act if we tell them about our faith.

Blog: Family story in pictures

When I think about the role of pho­tog­raphs in my fa­mi­ly home, it seems they were part of our eve­ry­day life. Com­pa­red to the pre­sent time, fa­mi­lies were less mo­bi­le and of­ten li­ved in the same lo­ca­li­ty for a long time. When re­la­ti­ves from furt­her away came to vi­sit, old pho­tos were an im­por­tant to­pic of dis­cus­si­on.

Blog: Perfect

We are told there is a lot of per­fec­ti­on around us. Ad­ver­ti­se­ments en­cou­ra­ge us to strive to­ward per­fec­ti­on. Me­dia give inst­ruct us on how to suc­ceed per­fect­ly well in va­ri­ous ac­ti­ons: ”This is the way to cook a per­fect meal, set yo­ur tab­le per­fect­ly, fold yo­ur clean laund­ry, wash and po­lish yo­ur car, de­co­ra­te yo­ur li­ving-room, do yo­ur gar­de­ning, make cof­fee, and so on.” We can be per­fect in many ac­ti­vi­ties.

Blog: Spring cleared my mind

A few days ago I was bi­king around the town. There is not­hing spe­ci­al about bi­king, but it was spe­ci­al that I was not we­a­ring my ear­pods. I was on­ly lis­te­ning to my own thoughts and things I could hear around me. I he­ard so much bird­song that I did not even hope for anyt­hing more to lis­ten to.