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.

Blog: Called into light

My me­mo­ries of­ten go back to the Christ­mas 30 ye­ars ago. We were ex­pec­ting our third child, who was due to be born in about a month. I had just had a pre­na­tal chec­kup, and eve­ryt­hing see­med fine. On St. Step­hen’s Day I be­gan to think so­met­hing might be wrong, and a doc­tor re­fer­red me to hos­pi­tal. Af­ter some exa­mi­na­ti­ons it tur­ned out our baby had died. I re­mai­ned in hos­pi­tal over­night, and my hus­band went home to see about our child­ren.

Blog: A call I could not decline

In the mor­ning it see­med like a per­fect­ly or­di­na­ry day. I do not even re­mem­ber how or­di­na­ry. Now, close to 20 ye­ars la­ter, I feel I can think back to it and re­mi­nis­ce.

Blog: Work – a source of joy and happiness?

Pe­op­le are hap­py about many dif­fe­rent things. Work is one thing that ma­kes them hap­py and con­tent. Work is more than just a sour­ce of in­co­me. It has mul­tip­le me­a­nings to all of us.

Blog: Inheritance

In Oc­to­ber 2021, Päi­vä­mies pub­lis­hed an edi­to­ri­al tit­led There is al­wa­ys hope that lo­ved ones who have left will re­turn in­to God’s king­dom. The edi­to­ri­al desc­ri­bed the dist­res­sing pa­ren­tal ex­pe­rien­ce of ha­ving a child give up their faith. The re­a­ders were re­min­ded that the grace of re­pen­tan­ce is comp­le­te­ly a work of God. The ar­tic­le went on to say that no-one le­a­ves God’s king­dom be­cau­se of ina­de­qu­a­te pa­rents or friends or re­mains in it due to good upb­rin­ging.