Blog: What am I like?

I as­ked my child­ren what I should write in my next blog post. One of them sug­ges­ted I should write about my­self and tell the re­a­ders what I am like.

Blog: Alo­ne

The room was qui­et. The yo­ung boy was sit­ting alo­ne in the twi­light, sta­ring at his phone. My wife and I in the li­ving-room were won­de­ring why our son’s life was so lo­ne­ly. We were wor­ried that his lack of friends might le­a­ve deep scars in his mind. It was as if he were qui­et­ly slip­ping away from life.

Blog: Why should we pray?

"For he will com­mand his an­gels con­cer­ning you to gu­ard you in all yo­ur ways; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike yo­ur foot against a stone." (Ps. 91:11–12).

Blog: Ex­pe­rien­ces of the co­vid ye­ar

A ye­ar ago, I was in­vi­ted to start blog­ging for Päi­vä­mies. Op­ti­mis­ti­cal­ly, I ex­pec­ted that, gi­ven a full ye­ar, I would find 12 fair­ly good ide­as for blog posts. Well, I didn’t. De­ad­li­nes came and went, and I of­ten did not even touch the pen in the me­an­ti­me.

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.