All the colours of the Rainbow

This has been my song of the week - it's been playing on my head every day since Monday. I don't know if it's the beautiful spring weather, new life that is emerging once again. But here is my song of the week, enjoy. Much love to your day!




For as long I shall live I will testify to love
I'll be your witness in the silences
when words are not enough

Something I fundamentally believe in

This is how we know what love is

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

1 John 3:16-17

The image of God is fully male and fully female

Incredible! What power-walking and controlling. And devaluing of women. Read here. women are not of less value than men blacks are not of less value than whites children are of much greater value than adults! Many of these things I don't see lived out. We think people of other colour/nation are of lesser value. We think women are of lesser value than men. We think kids don't matter so much. when will we stop power-tripping??? Actions speak louder than words.

Bublé Wonderful

Ahh, Michael Buble is like perfect Sunday music. I happened to notice his concert in Madison Square Garden (New York) was just still watchable online (On Finnish BBC). Ahhh.

He said in the beginning of it: "My mom and dad gave me so much love, I didn't know what to do with. Guess I got all this unconditional love, I get to give it back. Thats what I'm talking about, unconditional love."

And now he is puring it out on what he does - isn't that wonderful. Sharing the unconditional love he got. Love it. That's so how it should be.

Wish I got to see him live sometime. He is truly awesome!



Live from Madison Square Garden:




Taster: a trailer to what I watched




Josh Groban is another on that list. Jason Mraz I already got to see - but wouldn't mind a chance to see him live again as well. Jason Mraz has been pretty much the greatest vocalist I've heard, amazing voice live.

I so agree!

It is people who matter and people who you carry with you. So when I look back on my life I hope I see rich, deep relationships. I pray that I can smile and laugh after all that I have been through with those I love, and I will know that I chose the right thing after all: to pour my life into, not paper and plastic, but flesh and blood.

- Melissa Börger

You can read the whole post in her blog.

I went there via

Feel your beat

You are in my heart
I can feel your beat
And you move my mind
From behind the wheel
When I lose control
I can only breathe your name
I can only breathe your name

clean and healed

This eve this song just started playing in my head. They're quite powerful (even the Lutheran Church in Finland has commented so --see here), as I haven't listened to these for some time... And it takes me back to Glasgow a bit. (Maybe that's why it's playing in my head, as Glasgow has been on my mind since Saturday..Perhaps they reside near each other in my brain?)

No, it's not just about Glasgow. It has a message for just now.




I see a generation
Rising up to take their place
With selfless faith
With selfless faith

I choose to believe in this! It's my Hope and Future. I want and hope to see this. it be reality!

Allowed to feel

Kathy Escobar strikes writes again. Her post on the second beatitude "blessed are those who mourn" is worth to read! (If you don't know her and her blog yet, you can do so immediately here (her) and here (her blog)! :))

Here some of the latest post. She says it so well.

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i consider mourning allowing ourselves to feel hurt, sorrow, anger, loss, and grief. along with spiritual poverty in the first beatitude, it implies a softness of heart and an openness to feel. i believe strongly that in contemporary christian culture, the whole idea of mourning is far underrated.

i had been around the block for long enough to know that if i didn't--if i stuffed it and pretended it didn't hurt as much as it did and refused to allow myself to feel the magnitude of the pain-- it would come back to bite me like it had before. so i let myself mourn. cry. feel anger. express my sadness and loss.

Jesus is familiar with pain. he can hack it.

the question is--can we?

my experience has been that so many people i know--especially conservative christians--have a lot of trouble expressing sadness, sorrow, pain, and loss. i can only speak from my own experience and what many people have shared along the way, but i think a big reason behind it is "good Christians" somehow aren't supposed to be filled with all these difficult emotions. if we trusted enough, prayed enough, believed enough, claimed enough, then we wouldn't be feeling these things. so we stuff. we pretend. we hide. we try to will it to go away. we overwork. we do all kinds of crazy, unhealthy stuff to numb out that in the end causes us far more trouble than actually mourning.

there is so much freaking pain in this world, in our cities, in our neighborhoods, in our faith communities, in our own families. to me, part of living this beatitude out requires that we become people willing to stay in touch with pain.

it means we will have to first get in touch with our own pain & allow ourselves to mourn and feel.

we can become people & communities who learn to lament and grieve. to create a safe container for others mourning. to honor and welcome pain & loss instead of offer quick fixes & hyper-spiritualized-solutions. to hold our friends hand in the dark & let them hold ours when we need it too.

Sunday song

Cooking in Egypt

From the latest issue of The Economist

This was also quite funny! (The image - someone's wit who came up with all those names! Of course being in debt is no fun thing.. But anyway.)