From yesterday

photo

"Christianity has been buried inside the walls of churches and secured with the shackles of dogmatism. Let it be liberated to come into the midst of us and teach us freedom, equality and love."

- Minna Canth

As happens, I am reading a book by Neil Cole (Organic Church) from which I just yesterday of all days read this quote from(!). And yesterday was another flagging day - AND in honour/celebration of Minna Canth of all people and of equality in Finland. Amazing!

For some weird reason, every time within 2010 I've seen the Finnish flag in the flagpole something stirs within me and I've been touched by it. I'm not sure if it is something that happens to a return migrant like me, or whether it is something God is speaking to my heart. Anyway, I was like "What are we flagging for now? March 19th?" I didn't know. As you know turned out it was Minna Canth's day. And I think I can be excused for not knowing what it was for - it's only been set as a flagging day since 2007 - and I was away from the country for two years.. :)

I do like flags in general. Flags are important. They carry a message and are a sign. I've studied somewhat the importance of flags in popular rebellion (popular revolts) in the Middle Ages.. And have you seen the movie Kingdom of Heaven? With Orlando Bloom, Jeremy Irons, Liam Neeson to name a few... oh and even a Finnish actor Jouko Ahola(!) in it! :-) Well, if you have, you know they had loads of flags in the movie especially in the battle scenes. It is set in 1184 or something like that..

It is interesting, as we were a week ago at that 30 Seconds to Mars concert, I was just speaking to my friends there about how I like flags and how I think there should be more of them used in concerts and in dancing/shows.. and what happens, just a few moments later the band had two white flags on the stage! Another amazing thing. =)

You may know this song..

my friday eve

..was pretty similar to this:



Well, a bit of it. ;) Thank you 30 Seconds To Mars for an amazing show and the friends I was with for the evening too :)

This is a call to arms
Gather soldiers
Time to go to war

This is a battle song
Brothers and sisters
Time to go to war

Did you ever believe?
Were you ever a dreamer?
Ever imagine heart open and free?

Ever want to just stop?
Do you want to surrender?
Or fight for victory?

Far, far away in a land that time can't change
Long, long ago in a place of hearts and gold
Far, far away in a land that time can't change
Long, long ago in a place of hearts and gold

Here we are at the start
I can feel the beating of our hearts
Here we are at the start

------------------------------------------------------------------

"For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." (NIV)

"We are human, but we don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ." (NLT)

2 Cor 10:3-5

Do you know what this is a call for?