Blog: Gratitude for the Opisto year
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.
Blog: A future with one deadline
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.
Blog: Grandpa, come and play with me
A year ago our son suggested that he could bring his family to live in our home office for as long as they were building their new house. That meant we had to start clearing the room.
Blog: The sun or the wind?
”The wind gathered its strength and blew even harder. The trees bent down and the water surged and boiled, but the traveler just wrapped his cloak more tightly around him.” This is an extract from a fairy tale titled The sun and the wind, which was written by Aesop more than 2500 years ago.
Blog: Empowering memories
Wednesday is the most important weekday. Soon after the noon I begin to glance at my watch, wondering if the mailman has already come. A large part of the advertising flyers and other leaflets that come into our mailbox go unread into the recycling bin. But I take the daily newspapers, stack them by my armchair and begin to read. The biggest local paper contains a lot of interesting information about Kainuu, Finland and the world.
Blog: Getting lost
My mother married a man who owned a very remote farm. She needed time to get familiar with the surrounding forest. At that time cattle were allowed to graze and roam freely in the woods. There were no fences, and the cows were free to move around. In the late summer they sometimes walked long distances to find mushrooms to eat.
Blog: Many kinds of angels
Marraskuu, the Finnish name of November, means ‘month of death’. It is certainly a fitting name. November is dead, dark and cold. The last swans have left, and we no longer hear their constant trumpeting song. The lake has gone through a cycle of freezing, thawing, re-freezing and re-thawing, and snow has done the same. In between the snowy periods we have had rain and the evenings and nights have been pitch black. Even mornings were quite dark for a while, but as soon as we got snow, mornings took on the lovely shades of blue twilight.
Blog: Half a century ago
Half a century ago I parked my car in the center of Sotkamo and walked across a square of grass, bluebells and clovers surrounded by tall pines. I had been appointed junior teacher in Sotkamo middle school and high school, and I was on my way to meet the principal – the Principal with a capital P.
Blog: Oh, the good old times!
I suddenly remembered a small, seemingly unimportant incident from my youth. I was about twenty and already aware of my innate impatient restlessness, which I continue to feel occasionally. “Where should we go?” I often asked then and still do today.
Blog: Is Sunday not a day of rest any more?
I wake up on a Sunday morning to sounds from the neighboring yards. On one yard the house owner is cutting firewood with a circular saw, on another I can hear a lawnmower and a trimmer. This makes me wonder how differently people feel about spending Sundays. Many of them postpone so many weekly chores till Sunday that they need the whole day to do them.
Blog: Why do trees live longer than people?
I was planting violets and creepers in boxes on a sunny day of the early summer, when a dismal thought occurred to me: After this spring, I may not be able to do springtime planting more than about twenty times in my lifetime. I tried to find consolation in the fact that I do not even love planting particularly. But that was small comfort that did not brighten up my depressed mind! This small incident suggested two things that I would like to write about: gardening and the shortness of human life.
Blog: Fear not
These are familiar and safe. They were spoken by an angel of the Lord to the shepherds on the field. ”Fear not, for behold, I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” (Luke 2:10–11.) This portion of the gospel according to Luke makes us pause at the most important matter every Christmas.
Minä odotan Herraa kuin vartijat aamua, hartaammin kuin vartijat aamua. Ps. 130:6
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