Tag Archives: belief

What did you love?

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Renndølsetra 7There comes a time to most of us, at forty five? Fifty? We seem bewildered in our own lifes, and do not seem to recognize the landscape we are in as the one we set out to find.

Which could be good, life is full of surprises. Even immovable and unsurpassable mountains turn out to have secret doors.

If you find yourself hammering at this mountain trying all the sesam-sesams you are able to imagine while no one works, you might see a coach or read a “Your dream will become true” book.

They will both ask you to remember: “what did you love to do as a kid, what do this love tell you about who you are?”

liten solveig med kanneMost of us are not able to pinpoint the passion of our youth though, we loved a lot of things. I, for instance, loved to sit in the windowsill of my room, watch the roaming fields and read, as well as building playhouses in the woods and running tracks. I would not want to make either into a living.

Perhaps we are blind to the truth all around us? I need to turn this question upside down. Instead of starting the hunt for loves and likes and happiness, I stop now and then and see what I have been doing, even if I had no time for it. What my soul is drawn to and need to do, then I make room for thatstjerneskjerm

Then I take a step back now and then and consider the output of what I have done and what I haven’t done, what did I learn to do it better next time? I have found that the answer to middle age confusion is not necessarily to do something else, but to know the essence of what you do and why.

hvit peonI think the road to middle age wisdom is to learn the lessons from the road we have travelled, and know how to apply our understanding and wisdom to every task, every challenge, every opportunity  life gives us. Mostly.  If we are on the wrong road, no amount of putting mind and soul to the task will set us right. It would be bad though if we actually are on track, but so busy comparing gear and GPS readings that we never get around to enjoy it.

hvit alliumI tried this exercise in my garden today. I already know I need to be there, though I was not really aware of what I have been doing all these years.

Now I know. I have been planting white plants. I have taken care that the sunlight gets to play through the petalshvit rose I have given every flower room to grow and thrive. I have been steadily and unvaryingly watering, tending and working to create place for joy asolveig med vannkannand peace. Hopefully that is what I do wherever else I am too.

And yes I love it, still.

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Chinese whispers and emerging strategies

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If you wrote me a letter, to tell me who you are, would I recognize that person if we met?

If you were able to shadow me for a day, would you see the connection between my words and my acts?

Or do we play an internal game of chinese whispers? To me at least, what starts as a perfectly well-defined intention, might go through tiny alterations through my acts, and end up as something totally different.

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Using my Ipad for instance. I grab it to get some information on a project I really want to do, I just check the news, then Facebook, then my mail…..you know. I would tell you that it is important to set goals and focus on them, my acts will tell you that what truly is important to me is checking out what my friends are doing. Or looking for antiques at eBay or catching up with the news.

Nothing wrong with that. As in chinese whispers, the word coming out at the end more often than not is a perfectly normal word, it is just totally unrelated to the initial one. How fun it is to hear everyone saying, “I thought you said” or “really, that’s not what I heard” .The surprise is fun when playing and disappointing when living.

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In business language we call these surprises an emerging strategy. We may print our strategies on glossy paper and publish them on our webpages, they still are just words. Our true strategy is the one emerging from our choices, priorities and acts.

Happily there are times when our bodies are wiser than our minds, what we do is what we really should do, and will take us to a surprising goal we will be happy to reach. The emerging strategy might be the best possible way. How would we know?

Just now I am backtracking my internal whispers, trying to recognize the first whisper. What is truly important to me, will my acts take me there? Or do the innocent, perfectly normal, diversions take me somewhere else, perhaps the place I should be?

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The happy corner of my eye

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imageI posted this picture of the truth on Instagram. It is the view from my bed. What I did not mention that if I looked the other way, this is what I see.

imageAnd of course I did not tell you that if I just look straight ahead, where the loud noice and serious action is, the coming picture is the true view.image

The first picture is the truth about me though, and what I look for. This last week I have been in hospital with embolisms in my lungs. The serious condition tries to crowd my mind and vision like the rescue helicopter commands my view. I do not allow it though. I accept it, I handle it, I do what I have to do, but I keep looking for the happy corner of the picture. The glimpse of beauty and love that tells me, this too is true.

The pulsating, vibrant fall colors that insists, we are all dying, take care that you live with love, truth and beauty before you do.

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You’ll never walk alone

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IMG_5662 (1280x853)Yesterday I was present when the congregation at Tiller started to use their new liturgical clothes. The process of designing and making them is worthy of several blog posts that maybe will be told, one day. Today I’ll just share the beginning and the end.

I always start with the biblical texts for the Sundays when the liturgical clothes, or paraments, will be used.IMG_5618 (1280x853) This set is red, the color of blood, the color of martyrdom, the color of fire, the liturgical color for Pentecost, for ordination, for the day of the apostles. The texts speak about being a witness, about martyrdom, about baptism by fire and by the holy spirit. To me, most of all it speaks about the God who walks with each and one of us through all this. Be not afraid, one texts says. I will not leave you fatherless, another tells us. Yet another, I will stay with you to the end of the world.IMG_5641 (1280x767) So I wanted the textiles to show God surrounding us, enfolding us, walking with us, in every moment, in sorrow and in joy. Which made me start with the Fibonacci numbers. Fibonacci did not invent them, but told the west about ancient indian and arabic knowledge, the sequence and order you’ll find in nature, the golden ratio. Like the seeds of a pine cone or a sunflower, every row being the sum of the two before it. IMG_5639 (1280x853)To later theologians this sequence became a witness of how God’s ordering principles rule nature. To me, I used this sequence to make a cross, and the world where we live. Sometimes you do not immediately see it, like in life, it may look chaotic, it may look without order. If you keep looking, it is there to be found.IMG_5651 (854x1280)