Our Opisto student completed his year Jämsä Opisto last spring. He was our first child to attend Opisto. With this minimal parental experience, I am happy to recommend Opisto to every young person.
This fall I started my fifth year in university. My studies have reached a point where there is only an uncompleted Master’s thesis between me and graduation.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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Toimitus suosittelee
Viikon kysymys
Toimitus suosittelee
Viikon kysymys