wild rose pilgrim

within every human

2009-04-30T02:02:00.000-07:00

I hope there is a piece of God within every human. I hope that deep within every person there is a glimpse of God; pure love; the ability of growth and caring. I must live in faith of that love; I must seek within the eyes of every human the eyes of God. Within every heart the heart of God. Within every hand the hand of God reached out.

We can choose not to act on the love within us. We can choose not to be the love we bear. But I must believe that we carry within us God even when we do not act as if we did.

I will listen. I will speak out when I disagree. I will hold you in my arms. I will protest when I am not treated with respect. I will hear your story. I will try and understand. I will try in every moment to love you. It might not get me to heaven.

I believe in having my eyes fixed on God. I believe that my eyes can not be parted from humanity if I want to see God. If I claim to see God but do not listen; if I claim to see God, but do not speak in honesty; if I claim to see God, but refuse to see you, I wonder what God I am looking at.

images of god and man

2009-03-23T06:05:00.000-07:00

Our definitions say more about us than about God.

It makes me sad that we Christians so often fight over theologies. I wish to make clear I don’t believe I am right. I believe I have met God, or rather; seen a tiny glimpse of what can not be defined by human words. I spend my life trying to grasp with my heart what cannot be understood by my brain. But I still think we need to think and speak.

All we have is our pictures; constantly changing; of a living God larger than our pictures. I need to quote a very close and loved friend, I hope you don’t mind, dearest.

“ God is none of our pictures of God. God is someone far beyond all of these. But pictures may be icons that help to draw us in, though if we ever get stuck at one picture, we'll be missing some other important aspect. “

I see God in people, flowers, sunlight. I have many pictures of God. I see God in Church, in The Word, in communion. But I also see that people have been oppressed by words used by Christians, wounded for life by our interpretations and rigid opinions. I believe we need new definitions. We need to hear new voices speaking out on the love of God. A young girl, still a child, once stood up and praised the Lord for showing her what powerful men around the world had not seen. She was to bear a child, bear within her God. I believe the unexpected still carry God within them. Bear new images, not complete, but alive.

White male theologians have determined what Christian faith is, for a very long time now. Much wisdom has been found. But there are many voices left unheard. I have not the complete Truth. I have a small vision of it. Others may have more. Already white male theologians through history have had many different ways of interpreting the Bible. There are many more. We need them. It lets us see many views of God. It teaches us not to be stubborn. If I only met people who agreed with me, I would never grow. I am learning this from others also learning it, while growing by my side. I tend to be stubborn but am humbled when met by people who disagree with me in loving ways. If I never listen to others I may be entitled to seeing others as less intelligent, less lovable, less Christian or even less human than me.

In Sweden, being born white, middle class and having chosen a heterosexual marriage I am in a position of power. I need to ask myself as a Christian and as a human, how do I use that power? Do I use a language that hurts people? Do I use my faith as a weapon against people?

For centuries a picture has been created of God as a man who can wipe out entire cities, kill children, and punish people with suffering and torture. I drew a picture of the Truth as a lesbian woman, in the eyes of this world the least of the least, with no power, completely naked, loving, breathing life into creation, having a loving relationship with what she has created. Why is that image of God more provocative?

ecumenia

2009-01-28T10:05:00.001-08:00

I believe God is a naked lesbian woman who makes out with the flowers in the morning.
You may say that is a metaphor. I say it is The Truth.

"Truth is not fact but relationship" say the wise. I treasure my relationship with God. She smiles.

We all view God from our own standpoint. Does that make our view of God any less true? We can only view God from our own standpoint. And so we judge eachothers views from our own perspective - thus turning them askew.

God gave us The Word after she gave us The Brain.
Maybe her features blur when we try to take her picture.

pulse of love

2008-08-16T13:48:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our house in Lund!

We have a garden. A fireplace. And we are soon about to plant roses.

Roots growing deep. Love is all around. I can feel its pulse in everything around me.

Love yourself. Love every freakin' inch of yourself. Love your body. Love your mind. Love your mistakes, your weaknesses, your tears. Love is so important that it can't be waited with. We can't wait another second with beginning to love ourselves. Loving ourselves to the extent that we forget ourselves because we are so ful of joy and love and contentment. When we love ourselves to the extent of wanting to dance naked in the garden we find the love that frees us. And others. And ultimatly the world.

Love is more than acceptance, but it starts with the full acceptance of this being me. This body; these hands, these feet, this belly, these breasts, this cunt, these eyes, this hair is a celebration of life! This is me. And this me is made from pure love. This is the mystery of life. It is the foundation I am created on. It is the gift and terrifying truth of my mere existence.

I believe in a world where people speak with eachother, and understand one another. Where people share possessions and thoughts, homes and lives. I believe in a world where people are free, in body mind and spirit. It isn't here yet. But it is a little bit closer for every person who believes in the right to love oneself as we love others.

(thankyou for your inspiration, bell hooks)

wedding pictures

2008-07-25T01:40:00.000-07:00

Me and my bridesmaids... Mirja, Sofie, me and Lina

Sorry for not writing for ages! The last months before the wedding were quite crazy... But now we are happily married! And back from our wedding trip in the Swedish mountains!

The dress was finished the day before the wedding... thanks to Mirja and her Mum, and a seamstress who helped us the last three weeks. Mirjas Mum did all the embroideries (and worked day and night for weeks). Warning: If you ever find a picture of a beautiful dress on the internet, but don't have a pattern for making it, think twice about asking your best friends to make it... it might be the hardest work they ever do!

Many friends helped us with preparations (more than helped! Made the whole day work!) Here my bridesmaid Lina, and my friend Nathan from Canada. Even the forest helped...

... when going to look for trees to decorate the barn with, we literally ran into a tree in the middle fo the road! It hadn't been there the day before, but it might have heard us talking about the wedding... Yvonne, from Canada, turned out being great at cutting tree branches.

Lina, Mirja, my Dad, my Mum, me, my husband Joakim, his mother and his father, and Sofie.

Me.

Me with family and bridesmaids.

Our frist dance... We got ready to waltz... and then came "Is it medicine" by The knife.

Me, Sofie and Lina.

Best part of the wedding ceremony...

Waiting for non-alcoholic champagne...

Joakim Pettersson and Erikka Chapman, happily married...

Welcome to Lund to visit us! We share a house with friends, and have a garden, a fire place and a guest room!

I can now be found on Facebook (but I'm not online all that often...)

the wild north

2007-12-26T09:48:00.001-08:00

Back in the North. Snow and ice and freezing cold. Why the heck do I love Kiruna?

Yesterday I saw the Ice Hotel, which is exactly what it is called. Made entirely out of ice. Very beautiful.
Today we saw reindeers and went for a scooter ride in the snow. Tomorrow we are going playing in the ski hill, in garbage bags...

I have finally met the sami people. I admire survivors. To me it seems, that if you know the mountains and the reindeers you have all you need in life.

I am longing for the summer and hiking across the mountains. We will join the sami as they gather up all the reindeers for the summer branding and counting. They won't brand them as with cattle, but cut their ears instead. Each person in the family has their own mark so the reindeers can be recognized as they run free in the mountains. It seems our honey moon will be fantastic! Oh, yes... I am getting married.

2007-09-19T02:38:00.001-07:00

no money for prague!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Going to Prague at New Year

2007-08-02T01:58:00.000-07:00

check out Holding the tension- the power of paradox, a conference held by CAC (Richard Rohr's centre for action and contemplation). Will be going there for New Year. Join us?

http://www.cacradicalgrace.org/conferences/httcz/

breathing the forest

2007-07-30T10:54:00.001-07:00

African drums and people dancing around a fire. Cooking for sixty people over an open fire. Eating dumpstered food and talking about an alternative way of living. Learning primitive skills and resting.

More and more people see how our way of life in west is killing people in the third world. How our mines and factories are trashing every remaining forest and untouched world.

The only way to survive the depressing truth is through hope.

Hope is people dancing in the light of a fire.
Hope is people getting together to form self sustaining organic farm communities.
Hope is people willing to make the choice of not having a big house, a car and four different kinds of bread spread.
Hope is people choosing eachothers company instead of watching a new movie.
Hope is people realizing that every little step counts.
Hope is focusing on joy and solutions instead of hatred and problems.
Hope is seeing that people can work together in harmony cooking and gathering fire wood and making decisions.
Hope is seeing the pain of the earth and its people and still daring to laugh and dance and cry and find new ways of living.
Hope is taking action based on love and respect and a trust that if one person changes their heart, mind and life, others will follow.
Hope is fighting violence with love.
Hope is listening to people like Richard Rohr.

"You can never solve a problem with the same mentality that caused it."

2007-07-01T14:04:00.001-07:00

I met a man. His eyes reflected mountains.
He said:

“I cannot tell you who you are.
I cannot tell you who you should be.

I will not tell you your boundaries.
I will not tell you what you should believe.
I will not tell you how you should behave, what you should wear or how you should look.

All I can tell you is this:

I love you.
With everything you are and everything you aren’t.
With all you believe and all you don’t.
In every way you behave, and all the times you don’t.
In whatever you wear or don’t wear.
I love you.”

And suddenly I felt someone cutting the ropes.

My love language is adapting to who others want me to be. I give what others want, that is my way of loving.

“ Well is that love? “ he said and gave me no answers.

big trees

2007-06-23T08:27:00.000-07:00

learning from nature. how to be a tree. grow deep roots, thrive to reach the light, trust time, stay still but always moving, breathing, being alive.

stayed with eco-warriors in tree houses outside of edinburgh. will be going to a gathering in the forest in july. check out URVISION at http://www.vildvaxande.org.

standing in the forest dripping with rain. love is standing side by side seeing the same tree and loving it.

love is more than a feeling. but it sure feels good.

summertime is brilliant. saunas. camp fires. swimming. forest walks.

moving toward the forest. moving toward peaceful activism. moving toward love in action. tomorrow is a new adventure.

2007-05-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

kärleken är nära och gömmer sig mot huden och bakom den finns de öppna slätterna och bergen

because of love and light

2007-05-13T07:43:00.000-07:00

At one point I thought a wounded heart would not love again.
At many points I doubted whether my expactions on love where reasonable.
(never been very reasonable about anything)

There is a certain love that only God can give us.
And there is a certain love that God only can give us through another.

Strange to think how even the most painful failures in love relationship can heal and grow. How even the worst pain can be left behind. "You won't heal until you love again", they said. "How do you love again without healing?" I replied.

How come what you think you want the most can be the worst for you?

Thankyou David for seeing already a long time ago, what I might not have seen before it was too late.
Thankyou for making the decisions I couldn't.
Thanks for remaning a friend.

Thankyou God for teaching me to love wholeheartedly no matter what, and for daring to love again no matter what.

I finally let go of the past, of David and much else, during the darkest time of the winter.

Months later the spring came, and with it, all that I have longed for.

the pain of family and the essence of this bitch thing

2007-03-29T08:16:00.000-07:00

Family are those from who there is no escape. The people who follow you where ever you go. Having left such an impact on your innermost being, they stay a part of your life forever.

I see them in my face when I look in a mirror; the people who gave me my genes. The people who share my blood. Those who, like it or not, made me who I am.

And I feel them in my heart each day. The people who came into my life from nowhere at all, with no blood relation whatsoever, and got stuck there. The people who just happened to slip into my life, and the people who where invited. Those who, like it or not, made me who I am.

Sometimes I'd like to be free to just go about without family. Without those people who find every sore part of me and rub at it. I would like to have escapable friends.

Not that it would make me happy, but because it would be easier.

"Network. Before a word for those who took care of me. Nowadays a word for the contacts in my phone book." Åsa Sanders, in todays City Stockholm newspaper

Family. Those who actually do take care of me. And call me when I am busy flicking through the phone book on my cell for the fourteenth time trying to decide which name is the coolest or most beautiful or possibly the most compatible with mine.

In this world there are many ways of surviving. For me there are two. Either I adapt to the ways of the world around me, or else I don't. If I do, I will be soft and loving and friendly when around Christians who speak with soft and loving and friendly voices. Then I will be tough and rash and crude and sarcastic when I am confronted with the hard world outside the Church doors.

Or else I don't adapt. And then I refuse to be soft and loving and speak with a friendly voice just because that is expected of me, or just because others do so around me. And then I refuse to gossip and slander and provoke and hurt just because the world around me does.

But the truth still remains, that no man is an island. The people I carry in my heart will forever affect me. My voice, my body, my choice of food. My choice of music. (Playing at home right now: Bob Dylan, Rammstein and welle:erdball) And somehow I have to find that way of living that means opening my heart to those I love. Those who cannot be escaped. Who cannot be locked out. And yet live so fully in God's love that I refuse to be a puppet.

But since when was this an easy task?

Beg your pardon, God, but surely even you yourelf must sometimes wonder what you thought you were up to, creating earth and all?

B.I.T.C.H

2006-11-28T12:10:00.000-08:00

I have this brilliant sticker on my fridge. It says:
Being bitchy and unstable is all part of my mystique.

At this time of my life, it is more than true. I am going through the B.I.T.C.H program for learning to love sincerely.

I have this constant longing for depth in reality, for communication, honesty and frankness. I wish for intuition to guide me as much as logic, and I want the world to open up it's secrets to me. I don't need to understand them. I just want to live them.

Studying acting is all about breaking down barriers and letting intuition guide. About making oneself vulnerable and open-minded, concentrating not on what goes on in one's own little bubble of life, but shifting focus to something else, something bigger. The bigger picture.

Something that isn't me is being formed out of what is me. Something that isn't me, is being made out of me and all the others working together to become one body - one stage, one play, one organism. I know how this is sounding... But as much as you might think so, I am not planning on spending my summer vacation at Findhorn.

But the more I allow myself to be vulnerable inside the class room walls, the more sides of my self seem to pop out into the open, outside the class room. I find myself using language I usually wouldn't (not as in speaking in tounges, rather some kind of fascinating bitch lingo I never used to use). I find myself not taking crap from others. I find myself tired of being some squeeky little puppet who talks with a girly voice and won't stand up for herself. OK, some of you choked on your chicken bones there, at least those of you who haven't met my squeeky side. I can be provocative on the surface, but far too much of my behaviour is just disguised people pleasing.

I refuse to be cute and kind out of fear. I will get back to being kind, don't worry, I won't always be swearing at people, pulling off rude jokes and being bitchy. (Well, I will at times...) But the thing is, when being kind is a way of hiding, when being soft and gentle is a learnt behaviour, it is nothing but just that, a learnt behaviour. It still serves it's purposes and in some ways makes this world a nicer place to be in. But it sure doesn't count for true love from God.

Now. I am a bitch. I am very much aware of the fact that there is quite a lot of bitch all the way down in me. But I'm sure not going to be anything but a bitch for any other reason than true love.

I will be saying things that others usually don't say in Church. I will telling my Mum that I don't care a crap if she doesn't like my way of living my life - if I invite people to sleep on my couch it's none of her business. I will be getting pissed at the parking guards when they hold up a Parking is Full sign.

And when I tell my friends I love them I say it because I mean it.
And when I tell people how I feel -spank me if ever I lie.
And when I pray, I know I do it as a beggar.

"I'm sure you'll work it through. I know I won't be left here hanging. I know you'll untangle the mess and make a new pattern. A pattern just a little more free. Just a little more me."

Welcome to
B.I.T.C.H:
becoming independent through Christ's healing

love me love me not

2006-11-21T07:26:00.000-08:00

I don't function according to the social rules of society.

It doesn't usually worry me all that much. I know I am brutally honest and say things others usually don't. I know I fall head over heels in love with strangers and confront them with it. I know I expect deeper communication than just words, deeper contact than just two people moving around in the same space.

I could be perfectly happy with my obviously terrifying way of living, if it wasn't for the fact that it seems hideously hard to love me. Somehow it works out fine for anyone, male or female, to be my friend. But something in me seems to scare the crap out of any man who comes close enough to actually start falling in love with me.

I know I'm 21 and don't need to worry yet, really, but seriously. I do worry. What if I am just so extremely strange that loving me would be impossible? What if I am just so odd, so outside the socially accepted, that loving me would just be too hard? What if I am charming, lovely, kind and exciting until you come up really close and see me for who I really am? I am tired of being cool at a distance and scary when approached.

Sorry for asking such self-pitying questions today, but please tell me I am not the only human on earth who goes through these feelings? Is it normal to worry this much about your mental state of health? (Did this blog not start with that very question?)

Edinburgh

2006-09-29T04:10:00.000-07:00

For those who happen to be habitants of Edinburgh:

18th-22nd of October would be good days to drink some tea with me. I'll be there.

If you know of anything a theatre student should do while there tell me aaaaaaall about it.

Kisses.

creating monsters. finding me

2006-09-22T03:35:00.000-07:00

I have nearly lost my voice from screaming at the top of my voice in the process of finding a suitable monster within me. Not very responsible as an actress, I know, but it was necessary. Interesting exercise. I enjoy finding monsters within me.

my miniature list of things my theatre education is about

seeing people when looking in their eyes
being one with a group
communication without words
feeling the will of the group
how would I act if I was in a situation where...?
finding, NOT ACTING, a person within me
seeing others
hearing others
being one with others

As you may guess, this is a miniscule part of my education, but maybe the essence. Learning to see others is the base for an actress. May I suggest that this is a very, very, very hard lesson?

Oh, yes, the requested news on my relationship with David. I don't have the faintest clue. If anyone has a nick for giving other people good advice, feel free, but all I know is that I love him, he has no clue if he loves me, we are good friends, but we aren't dating. We were for a while, it just felt weird 'cause he wasn't ready for it, still hurting, still doubting, and so we let it go and for now we are good friends and I am trying to figure out whether to just live my life without giving a crap about it, live my life but still hoping for it, or live my life agonizing and crying my heart out over it. Actually, the last suggestion would take to much energy from my otherwise so brilliant life, so I'll just stick to the first two.

News

2006-09-11T03:15:00.000-07:00

I have a new home!

Welcome to Stockholmsvägen 5 in Nyköping, which is now my new home. It is a one room apartment where I can lock myself in for silence or invite friends for tea, just as I please! I love it... And it is close to the train station, as...

I am doing a years theatre course!

It is very intense and so much fun. It takes a lot of energy and gives a lot of energy. Concentration, focus, relaxation excercises. Power Yoga and stretch. Voice excercises and improvisation. Hard work but very rewarding.

Short news, gotta go and read up on some politics.. Yeah. Politics. I've gotta vote, you know. Vote. Vote. I know, it sure sounds like a swear word, but it's the curse of democracy...

2006-08-04T13:33:00.000-07:00

NOTICE
I am currently stupidly in love.
If communication efforts fail, please prevail in hope of returning sanity.

2006-08-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

At the restaurant where we had Vindaloo for breakfast once

2006-08-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

Life dreams...

2006-08-04T13:26:00.000-07:00

Life streams...

2006-08-04T13:25:00.001-07:00

David by the mill

2006-08-04T13:25:00.000-07:00

The old mill

2006-08-04T13:23:00.000-07:00

David by Brahe Hus

2006-08-04T13:22:00.000-07:00

By the mill

facing the fox

2006-07-18T12:50:00.000-07:00

I wonder if we aren't all fleeing the potential child rapist inside of us.

For along time I have wondered why the most godly and loving men throughout history have had such a deep insight into their own sinfulness. But when Church has focused on a condemning and legalized view on sin it has not created godly men, but broken people down and made them act in fear.

As I walked among the beautiful mountains, contemplating my own sinfulness (which may seem like a strange occupation in beautiful mountains) a thought grew in me. This fear of sin. I wonder if it isn't the fear of sin that drives us away from God, and into legalism and condemnation.

What if sinners aren't graded? Well, of course, you say, no sin is more sinful than another. But what I'm saying is, what if we all are capable of sinning in ways we could never imagine ourselves doing?

I fear the very thought of there being an Erikka inside of me who could beat children. Steal and murder. Hurt and torture. What if there could be found an Erikka inside of me who would take pleasure in causing others pain?

Potentially I could commit every sin that has ever existed on Earth. Is that a thought I am willing to accept?
And if I'm not, isn't this very refusal what drives me away from surrendering to God...?

I will always be found protecting high ideals. And speaking of God's love. And taking a stand for focusing on God's love and not on human sinfulness. But when I am faced with the beastly pornographic bitch inside of me, I find that my words about God's love don't comfort me. Because I am only accepting that God loves me as long as I am living up to certain minimum standards.

When my high ideals are scattered, I find that instead of turning to God for comfort and protection I hide and cling to my own condemnation and self-hatred. But here's the thing.

As I once again in my life was spitting in my own face and hating the feelings and thoughts and actions I didn't think existed within me, I found that God was not the one pouring poison down my throat. He was not boiling the tar and preparing the feathers. Instead, I got the feeling that he was saying that he knew I was capable of being a brutal bitch all along. I was expecting to get fried, but instead I felt a certain relief. I have all along been refusing to accept that there is a sinner within me. And the moments when I have faced her I have fought her like a hound hunts the fox.

But I don't think my fight has helped me much. The road is narrow. But somehow there is a part of me that keeps thinking that I can make it. And as good as that may sound it's a desperate lie. I can't make it. Whether I like it or not, I am fully and completely unable to live my life in a godly and loving way. Frankly, I'm quite fucked.

As long as I am unwilling to fully accept this fact, I will be unwilling to fully accept God as head of my life. I am still holding up a lot of Access Denied signs.

I guess the first step is to say: 'scuse the mess, but you'll just have to take it or leave it. Welcome to my dark corner.

land of the midnight sun

2006-07-08T03:33:00.000-07:00

Moving up.

Am in the far north again, this time it has turned into the land of the midnight sun.
I am heading for the mountains.
Not tall and overwhelming like the Canadian Rockies.
But wild and vast and a world of their own.

I'm gone from cyber world for 10 days.
I will enjoy the buzzing of mosquitoes instead of cell phones... Se ya guys

the cure for wild rose fobia

2006-06-30T13:33:00.000-07:00

I was scared of the wild roses because they remind me of a man I loved and lost.

I broke his heart by being the kind of idiot only a Christian can be. Looking back I can see why God kept telling me to shut my big mouth and get started just loving. But being a devoted Christian I was too busy giving my answers and quoting my books to be capable of listening to what God was saying. I am sorry I failed you the first time, God, when you gave me the love of my life and I tried to make him somebody he wasn't. Even though you told me he was just fine.

And the wild roses came. More beautiful then ever. And so did my love. More beautiful than ever... =)

I have a million words to say. None of them would do. Some things are best experienced. Some things are known only to the heart but not the mind. I know something deep, deep, deep but I can't find the words to it. The closest I can come is that I know I love...

For those who know me well but haven't got it yet... David's back in my life.

you make me angry. welcome

2006-05-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

I need to get some things straight here. As you know, my life philosophy is formed around a preferrence of certain hot liquid and a bloke who really liked trees, well, at least he got stuck up one quite awhile during Easter once. So, I'm not in any kind of trouble when it comes to my tea, don't worry. Yesterday I even learnt from a Somalian woman how to make Lipton's Yellow Label taste nice. No, the thing is, I'm bugged by a few lines this treehugger is supposed to have said at some point. Something like, Love your enemies.

Well, that's fine as long as you don't really have any enemies. And as I never really considered myself to be a warrior like person, I never considered the fact that I might have enemies. But as it happened I started to notice a tendency to get really pissed off with people. Really, really upset. And as my love language is all about sitting down with a cup of tea in my hand and talking and listening, I have decided that the only thing left to do, is to post the following invitation... So, if you belong to any of the following cathegories of people who piss me off, please feel yourself warmly welcomed to my home for a cuppa!

- anyone who likes really simple answers of the kind: smoke them out, forbid them, throw them out, shoot them, bomb them, extinguish them.
- anyone who really believes that the problems of the world can be solved through one particular political world view. Oh, yeah, if you're a marxist, please stay a week and bring lots of tea.
- anyone who thinks that women should fight oppression through sleeping around and having many abortions
- anyone who has read a religious scripture, in particular the Bible, and understood it.
- anyone who thinks women should be able to give the shit in their kids and live their own life
- anyone who thinks that women should care about their kids while men give the shit and live their own lives
- anyone who goes to Church on Sunday and talks with a soft voice but never with their neighbour
- anyone who gets really pissed of with other people and writes argumentative articles instead of just inviting them for tea.

Welcome! email me for directions: erikka.chapman@sverige.nu

a god with big ears and long arms

2006-05-13T02:13:00.000-07:00

The miracle of prayer grabs my guts and shakes me around. Pure joy spreads within, and leaves me somewhat shredded and ripped apart. It is impossible to see God answer prayer without it shaking my entire world!

Thankyou for answering prayer God. Thankyou for actually touching the lives of the people we pray for. Thankyou for being almighty. Thankyou for being more real than anything else. Thankyou for rocking!

wild roses

2006-05-06T13:53:00.000-07:00

summer came so slowly, i thought it would never arrive. then in an instant it threw itself at me through the window; a warm wind and a sudden outburst of bird song and green leaves.

I fear their petals will be like thorns.
I fear their beauty is more than I can bare.

living and loosing, such is the way of a wild rose. in anticipation of spring, a prayer in every broken branch. make out of me a burning bush... I long for love returning

my favourite poem of all

2006-05-05T12:19:00.000-07:00

I know you've probably heard these words by Mother Theresa before, but I want to share them again because they come back to me at all times. When I doubt, when it's hard to believe in the power of good, I remember them. Just wanted to remind you guys... Love you all!

People are often unreasonable, illogical and self-centered;
forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you
of selfish, ulterior motives;
be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win
some false friends and some true enemies;
succeed anyway.

If you are honest and frank;
people may cheat you;
be honest and frank anyway.

What you spend years building,
someone could destroy overnight;
build anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
do good anyway.

Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
give the world the best you've got anyway.

You see, in the final analysis
it is between you and God;
it was never between you and them anyway.

Ölkemi and staying home

2006-04-28T07:10:00.000-07:00

I have bought a painting of a tea drinking elephant.

Together with a friend I have started the process of reverse alchemy. Searching for the Philosopher's gallstone. How to turn gold into gall. In Swedish it is called Ölkemi. It is a very advanced chemestry that requires the finest non-acoholic Norrlands Guld beer and a set of various teas.

We had the thought that we should combine his passionate love for beer with my passionate love for tea. Don't ever try to boil beer.

I am currently leading a very intense life of studying trigonometry, writing manuscripts, working and being in Church. Sometimes I forget how much life rocks. Now I am reminded of what a splendid gift life is and how much there is to enjoy!

I am staying for another year in my home town. Too much good stuff happening, too many wonderful friends, too much love -just can't leave! Oh, shoot, I'm homebound... I actually love Nyköping!

life lesson #me

2006-04-05T08:42:00.000-07:00

I am being taught by life and God to love myself. It seems this is a choice I have to make, and learn to practice. I am practicing it by doing to myself what I do to others I choose to love. I smile at myself. I tell myself I love me. I make nice, really superhealthy food with fresh vegetables, and go jogging, and tanning and taking care of my body. I place my hand on my skin and pray light and life and love in to myself, just as I do when I hug my friends... It's not as hard as it has been. It's getting easier. The hard thing is to allow myself to love myself. I feel a bit guilty, and very selfish. My only comfort is the thought that I can't love others without loving myself... And I live to love others! But I sure don't want to run short of love, and as love is somethign that grows the more you practice it, I am currently praticing loving myself...

the far north

2006-03-26T04:25:00.000-08:00

16 hours on a train, tracks going north, further north, to the far north.

I could have stayed on the train forever.

I reached Kiruna, an island, or tower, hovering over a vast land with widespread forests.

I reached the north.

I don't know if I love it or fear it.

I don't know if the south will have me back.

finding peace in the weekly chaos

2006-03-05T10:53:00.000-08:00

The key seems to be some kind of structure, and the Sabbath is probably one of God's more brilliant ideas. Such a simple thing as one day a week just spent in his presence, in Church, walking through the snow, drinking tea, praying with friends. My so turbulent and chaotic life has suddenly got a foundation of peace, centred around one day a week that's God's and mine.

I am now a Sunday school leader for the small children and one of the youth workers on Friday nights in Church. My fellowship and community has been a loose network of friends scattered across the world and suddenly I am part of a traditional Church. It is a challenge and a growing place all at once.

I am actually settled for the next few months, until July, and it feels really strange to have a weekly routine. But then again, after July my future is completely unplanned, so that is as it always is... Scotland? Lord, do I get to finally go to Scotland?

black and blue and bob dylan

2006-03-04T10:26:00.000-08:00

Images of snow and the memory of biting cold spraying in my face choking the little air inhaled between fits of laughter. Sunshine and tired smiles exploring the structures of snow on branches and partly iced black water. Paths by mice popping up to see the day light before disappearing down into the secret underworld of snow.

The setting sun over miles of forests after a day of snow fights and "semlor" and Swedish "fika" at Caffe Latte. The pink reddish light reflecting on the roofs of my home town as I approach possible sudden death by bum-bumping down ski hills in a bin bag.

I should have understood that war is always wrong. At least if you are shorter, slower and weaker than the man you are trying to fight. I should have learnt from the first time I tried, that starting snow fights just would get me wetter. Or at least the second. Or the fith...

Time after time the challenge of learning from monasticism, obedience, Catholicism, munks and Church Fathers reaches in to my heart and provokes me by waking dreams and longings and questions I don't want to ask nor answer. Time after time I learn new things about tea; who could have thought warming the tea pot and making sure the water's exactly a hundred degrees could make such a huge difference?

/I could be learning
you could be yearning
to see behind closed doors/

bob dylan

Some days the world is a closed door that suddenly opened and you find that following the hidden path by the flowing water actually leads you to the same bridge as your normal route... But that sometimes beauty hides in the paths unseen, and in it: life.

my 21st birthday

2006-02-26T12:59:00.000-08:00

For all those who wondered what my Pink Day was like...

2006-02-26T12:52:00.000-08:00

Me and Mirja and my pink rubber boots

2006-02-26T12:41:00.002-08:00

Birthday girl...

2006-02-26T12:41:00.001-08:00

Forcing my friends to eat MUCH cake

2006-02-26T12:41:00.000-08:00

All men should bring me roses...

2006-02-26T12:39:00.002-08:00

2006-02-26T12:39:00.001-08:00

Me and Mirja

2006-02-26T12:39:00.000-08:00

Opening presents from Mirja&Rasmus

2006-02-26T12:38:00.000-08:00

Erikka 1 Year

2006-02-26T12:37:00.001-08:00

The Pink Fairy Princess goes party...

winter landscape

2006-02-11T18:10:00.000-08:00

For now I don't think I need to be like Mother Teresa. For now I think it's enough to just be alive. Being alive is pretty cool. It rocks, actually.

Some days I don't feel alive. Working days, nights and evenings, different times each week, messes ones life up a bit. It is a little exhausting.

But when walking through a Swedish winter landscape with trees laden with bristling white snow one is alive. Yeah, truly alive. Blissful winter, oh so hated, oh so loved...

nightly thoughts during a break at work

2006-01-24T14:03:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had the feeling that you are inwardly being torn to pieces because your mind is spinning all the time and your emotions can't keep up? I guess you have, most people have gone through it. I'm sick and tired of it. I keep telling myself: Breathe. Thank God. Say thankyou every time it feels like you are going to freak. Just relax.

But I just really feel unsuficiant. liek I'm not enough. Like I would be happy if only... that friend was here, or if that person could visit me, or that bill was paid, or this... Always one more "if" until I'm happy. And all the time this feeling like it's all a part of God's glorious growth plan for my life... It kind of sucks feeling that every little low and every freak out party is actually just a part of God's plan to purify and mature you. Couldn't life just be sucky without purpose for once? I can't believe I just said that, because if I believed it, that ther couldn't come anything good out of the bad, then my life would feel very, very pointless...

my blog seems to be napping a lot

2006-01-16T07:43:00.000-08:00

I keep going online to write on my blog and then I change my mind because I can't find the words.

I am in a serious process of working through some theology and heart issues and battling with this and that and reading books and having long daily devotions. And it all centres around how the Catholic monestery life can teach me how to give up more of myself for the sake of others and to live more freely in the love of Christ.

It is hard and painful some days, but full of joyous tears and revelations too. What I really need to discover more is that I cannot win God's love nor deserve it, but that the fact that I don't deserve it doesn't mean that I should refuse it!

I think you should all come and visit me, everyone who happens to read this right now. Hugs!

my home

2006-01-12T07:47:00.000-08:00

welcome

pilgrims and travellers

to my kitchen couch

a job! and time! and writing! and strange dreams...

2006-01-09T07:22:00.000-08:00

I moved in Monday a week ago, and the same day I got a job! I am now working in an old people's home across the field from my house. I love it and really feel I got my dream job. The people working there are awesome, and so are the old people living there, even though some of them are very old and very sick.

I am reding much. On Church history and saints and what we can learn from them. Our brilliant Swedish author Peter Halldorf. And Tolkien of course. And journaling. And writing letters. And drinking tea. And spending much time in contemplation and silence.

So all is well, but for some weird nightmares. Last nights dream wasn't the worst of nightmares but it sure was weird... I dreamt I was watching one of those group of stupid people and one a week gets voted out- programs (obviously I had a TV in my dream!) where the participants were to train a working dog of some kind. And there was one dog who wasn't all that bright, and he got washed off by a wave when they where being pulled along on a rubber thing after a motorboat. And then there was a female participant who had misunderstood the whole working dog thing -her working dog was small and cute and treated like a baby. And for some reason all the dogs were given pets (!) and she gave hers a rat. I still have this image if how this little dog went and picked up his rat from a nest, and the rat looked dead, until the dog opened it's mouth straight into the camera and this huge rat face with gleaming red eyes looked into mine, and I just knew: the darn rat is carrying the plague!

Sure enough, soon they were scanning all the dogs pets to find out who had brought in the plague. A woman was explaining that the camels bones hadn't gone yellow, but they did find that it had very short thigh bones... And then she went to x-ray the elephant, who was a bit miserable, because he had a back pain, but that, the woman happily informed, was easily cured by acupunture...

(here my memory of this peculiar dream fortunatly trails off into darkness...)

my new home... the pilgrim is settling down!

2006-01-02T12:08:00.000-08:00

I am about to discover the adventure of having my own home and being able to hold endless tea parties! I am over-joyed!

This is how it all worked out:

I have now rented a one room and kitchen cottage from the 1700's, the red kind with white corners, with an old iron stove and and a kitchen couch for curling up on with tea and friends by candle light... It is modern inside, but the outside is original, and the ceiling beam is too! It is gorgeous...

I am living in Nyköping, my home town, very, very close to the Ryan Air airport Skavsta (everybody get the hint and go: Yeey, let's go to Sweden!) and will be here for at least 6 months, working in an old peoples home. I am really excited! You should see my house guys, it is a haven of love the second you walk into it, and now that I have emptied it of all the "art" and "crafts" that filled the shelves and walls and done my best to make it truly mine, I must say it looks pretty cozy...

I hope and wish that my best friend Mirja will move in with me soon, but for now I am alone, which doesn't feel that bad after all, not for now.

Thanks everyone involved in sorting out my future: Feel free to visit me any time! I will make sure you get your share of tea... Oh, and I do have a great draw out guest bed in the kitchen!

Your Chance To Receive An Erikka In Your Life!

2005-12-29T13:25:00.001-08:00

For anyone interested in having me as a part of their daily life -here is your chance. I am currently without a permanent home, without any money whatsoever, without a job and without plans. Complete freedom! If you want me in your life, here is your challenge:

Please find a job for me that either requires no previous experience, or is within old peoples care, such as home care assistant or care worker in an old peoples home, or animal care. I am willing to do any job, but preferably one that includes working with people.

If you have a home for me to live in, that would rock. I love community living, so wherever I live it needs to be together with or close to people.

Living far away from here is not a problem, provided you can be really creative in getting me from here to there without money...

My three current alternatives:
1) Staying in my home town and sharing a flat with my best friend Mirja.
2) Moving to Stockholm and living in community living with some friends from 24/7 prayer.
3) Moving to Edinburgh and living together with someone somehow in some way doing something.

My favourite alternative right now is number three. I have a definite love for always picking the hardest alternative...

So now is your chance to fight for my appearence in your life! Feel free...

an old friend of mine

2005-12-26T14:45:00.000-08:00

So this old friend of mine moved in with me. To be perfectly honest with you he can be a bit of a hassle at times. He is constantly tailing me, and the problem is he upsets people with his rigid manners, and the fact that he seems a little lost at all times, as if he doesn't quite have his act together, some pieces missing, so to say. But then again, he is an old friend. I very literally held my hand around his heart as he was having a tough time, his very last tough time I am glad to say. Not much left of his heart nowadays, though, sad to say, but at least he has left all heart aches behind. He did turn a little hard and rigid though, as I said, lost his swing in a way. And the missing pieces of his, personality, bothers my family a bit. It did cause a small internal battle, but I actually had to tell him not to keep hanging on to my skirt all the time and just stay in my room out of the way of my Mum. He was a little hurt at first, with all right, because he doesn't really have another skirt to hang around, and as he no longer is attached to the ass he originally hung out with, he might feel a little lost. But I had to tell him that as much as it is nice having him tailing me some times, in the long run I won't be a good substitute for a lion's ass. I just can't live up to the swiftness, the fast moves, the strength of a young, strong lion. I just don't have the hairiness of a lion's buttocks (thank God for that!) and I just don't know the right tailswing to do it justice. No, I said, as much as I love you, dear old chopped off and stuffed Lion Tail, Remain From My School Day Practicum Days of Cutting Up Animals at Zoos, you will have to stay in my room, safely outside eyesight from more easily upset creatures. Plus, wearing you as an ornament makes walking down stairs or driving cars very complicated...

the woman

2005-12-18T17:02:00.000-08:00

Emotions and revelations are like blood and fire. Forgive me for not always being thankful for God's never ending ability to place within my reach what I currently need. Well, Father, what I need is all good, but what about the fact that I don't want it?

You started this, God, not me. Well, I can remember myself carefully reflecting on the subject. I started out, a few months back, by asking a little upset: What's the deal God, is there no female part of you at all? What about Holy Spirit? What about Hebrew grammar, is there no equivalent to say the German language with it's female/male words? Couldn't there be a female side of Holy Spirit? And yes, you did answer just a few days later, through someone who had no idea what I silently had asked you, who was just talking on the first chapter of Genesis and happened to be a Hebrew scholar, that the Hebrew word for Spirit in Genesis chapter one is in it's female form... And then we were off. Well, not for yet a while to come, but it all started there.

For then came the slow process of meeting Mary in every Catholic Church of my trip. And then, on a walk during my pilgrimage when I was walking out of Leon, I found myself crying in realization of the pain of giving birth in a stable. And the overwhelming discovery of my own womanhood, how in some intangible way I found myself being a woman but couldn't put my finger on why I was discovering this now or when I became her or if she has always been there or who she really is.

And all the time that Mother Figure, with her brown-redish, curly hair, glittering eyes, flashing, beautiful smile. The woman no amount of philosophy or psycology can tame with their analyzes of her existence. The woman from every Bob Dylan song, giving Shelter from the Storm, the woman every woman battles with in one way or another; we cannot make love to her, we cannot hide in her womb any more, we cannot quite flee her; we can try, or we can settle for hating her, or becoming her.

I hate psycology. I know I will have to change my mind about this eventually, but for now I hate how all my emotions and revelations get stripped down into one thesis or another, into explanations and theories. And I hate how this Woman will have a thousand different names in psycology and religions, but in my simple faith in Jesus Christ I seldom encounter her. Help me, brothers and sisters, why did Freud and the rest of the gang I do not read or study get monopoly on Mother images and womanhood?!

And then of course the book dropped out of the shelf. Well, it didn't actually drop out, it just stood out and kind of placed itself in my hand in a friendly manner, and even though I felt the God is giving me this book- alarm go off I didn't really understand the terror and agony this involved. If one is battling with The Woman and wondering who she is and how to deal with her, why not read Herman Hesse's "Narziss and Goldmund" and make things bitterly worse?

Can one really survive such a book, with it's painfully broken hopeless life view and yet deep deep life desire no despair quite reaches through? Or maybe, that is the whole point, that it is the despair that is fueling that life desire, that the despair and the pain is so linked to the desire for life, and everything life brings. Maybe it is all along the lines I have been working on in my mind, about love and pain being so tightly knitted together in the female heart and mind, and love so physically leading to birth and pain in our bodies.

But then, what do you do with a book that ends with a man dying and his last words to his best friend being, But how do you then once want to die, Narziss, if you have no mother? With no mother you cannot love. With no mother you cannot die.

Figuring out what to do with this woman seems so hopeless, because if I love her I must hate every other woman on earth as everybody else suddenly fades and go bitter, but if I ignore her and pretend she doesn't exist as a shade, no more than that an image, or dream, an answer to an unspoken question, if I ignore her, then I find myself desperatly compensating by trying to become her in every way.

Who is she then, this imaginary picture of the perfect woman, beyond good and bad, beyond life and death, beyond love or hate, in whom's womb I cannot crawl back in, with whom's body I cannot make love, by whom's side I cannot stand measure and whom I cannot become, nor flee, nor hate?

(And what the heck does she have to do with all this about God's female side and the virgin Mary?!)

the language

2005-12-16T13:46:00.000-08:00

I learnt a new language on my trip. And it isn't Spanish.

It is a language with no words and if ever it has a voice it is in singing only. I so feared the life that no words can capture, as I am sure frequent readers of my blog can remember me battling with earlier. And as that life came to me, silently, not abrubtly but throughout long, walking days, it turned out to be the only life completely true. Words of ours will always lack.

My new language, which of course is as little only mine as is the wind or the stars, has a childish magic to it, and is as impossible to comprehend as latin would be if it suddenly lost its grammar. I can just reach out my hand and touch this new language and every time get surprised at what I find...

It prays with its hands. I reach out my hand and touch a loved one and suddenly my hands turn in to prayer. My skin itself turns into love, something deeper than me, beyond my control. It is so very natural, so very earthly, not at all supernatural or scary, yet more spiritual than anything else. It is as if this new language lives in my hands, and in my voice when I don't speak, and in my arms, and most of all in my chest, as if it spreads like silent words with no meaning out of my chest to the person I am embracing. I cannot explain it with words of course, but I am trying because I am so sure there must be others who speak this language, and I am sure they all have known it for a long time, because I am feeling like a child discovering what the world always has known and I am seeing for the first time.

I thought men and women sought out eachothers bodies mostly for the reason of sex and multiplying and satisfying a hunger for nurture and care, but not for the mere reason of speaking a secret language no one can understand with words. I didn't know that beyond the sexual and the romantic exists a touch that has so obvious boundaries that they are no boundaries at all, a touch thats only goal and mission and reason for existing is love. And no prayer could exist without it.

Sometimes I wonder if that touch isn't what prayer really is. Because when I am far away, and I pray, I still feel my hands place themselves around the heart of whom I love and am praying for, and the language is all around, communicating, speaking wordlessly, and I feel no distance at all, just the aching longing distance of space, and really, I'm not sure that actually is an existing distance when it comes to love...

the swedish light

2005-12-13T09:37:00.000-08:00

I never knew what makes Swedish winters so special. I never realized that the mysterious light comes from the sun never quite leaving the horizon, which gives a peculiar side light effect all day long. My home country is cold and very dark. As I wake up it feels like it's already evening: midday never comes. But the physical coldness is compensated by the warmness of seeing my family again. It feels like home. It never used to feel like home, but for every time I come home it gets more and more like home. I love my parents, they rock. Even though my Dad just tried to kill himself with plywood by standing underneath it while screwing it to the ceiling.

My days are full. I have started running. I never used to be able to run. Yeey for the benefits of pilgrimages! I have got my skirt. The skirt I dreamt of all the way to Santiago. A normal skirt for every day use, that makes me look feminine and slim. Yeey for the benefits of pilgrimages! I need to go cook. In a kitchen with utensils. Yeey for the benefits of being home again...

a pilgrim's heart

2005-12-07T03:53:00.000-08:00

I am writing this as I wait for my bocadillo bacon con queso on my third day in Santiago, but I'm still not sure I've arrived. I cannot process the amount of emotions and happenings enfolding inside and before me.

I woke up on the morning of my last day of walking with the feeling there was an angel in the room, that God had fully healed my heart and that I was ready for Santiago. Early, before sunrise, I walked hand in hand with Anna and Sebastiana through a misty, dark forest, each of us carrying our own loves and victories within us.

I only have one thought on our arrival, the one thing it all boils down to. After weeks of walking, laughing, crying, loving, dancing and going nuts with all the people having their life crisises around me, after wanting to run away, or most of all to love but not knowing how to, I knew, as we, the five of us (out of a pilgrim family of nine or more) who have been piercing eachother's hard surfaces, somewhat painfully but resolutely, though mostly involuntarily, walked into the cathedral hand in hand, in a line, some in tears, some of us with smiles, and I knew:

LOVE HAS CONQUERED

Just so intense, so dramatically surreal and yet more real than anyhting else, is the life of a pilgrim.

As I placed my forehead against stone once more, this time the floor of the tomb, it was my time to cry. I suddenly knew deep in my heart that it is the small things that count. The love of dry socks and apples, an extra blanket and a hug. The ability to love these things, the simple love of dry socks, is more powerful than all the darkness in the world.

From here I fly home to Sweden. I fly from Santiago to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to my home town. I leave on the 10th of December and arrive on the 11th. And then I make new plans after Christmas...

santiago de compostella

2005-12-06T03:54:00.000-08:00

I arrived on December 5th in time for mass.

growing slowly

2005-12-01T11:10:00.000-08:00

The camino gives you what you need. Not what you want, oh no, what you need. And most often what you need is what bugs you the most, itches teh most, hurts the most. The people who push every annoying button of yours and you try to escape them, walk faster than them, slower than them, avoid them, hate them, dirt talk them. But you cannot escape them. And you end up havign to forgive them. And love them.

The man hurting and drinking and carrying wine instead of water in his bottle. The woman who went off anti-depressants and is like a loud, annyoing wound bossing others around. The couples who are desperatly falling in love and triggering every jealous thought a single person could have. The man who is desperatly attractive and has a Not For Me sign all over him.

Living together isn't easy. Loving and forgiving isn't easy. The camino gives you what you need. Not what you want, oh no, but what you need. And in the end, what you do not want, what you try the hardest to avoid, is actually what you most of all do want.

And when it all gets too hard, I do have norweigan Anna, and she sure helps me grow. And laugh.

I want you to walk with me from Rabanal del Camino to El Acebo

2005-11-26T09:16:00.000-08:00

There is something about blizzards that makes you feel alive. With the snow and rain drenching your clothes all the way in to your skin, and the wind in your face sending small pieces of frozen rain, like needles of ice, desperatly trying to puncture the surface of your facial skin. And then you stop for a moment, in the grey cloud on the top of the mountain you are climbing, and right behind you, in all the greyness, there is a small patch of sunlight that seemingly should be an impossible occurance. And somehow you feel like life is an adventure beyond your wildest dreams.

And then you hit the last Templario's home in Manjarin and your wildest dream has gone even wilder. And you enter a wooden cabin out of the rain, up on a mountain, and it has a fire stove and cats and a donkey that walks around eating scrap pieces of bread. And as you leave the horses come galloping down the road, galloping free, out of the grey cloud as if coming from nowhere. And you keep climbing up, up, through the cloud, until you come to the pass where you have the sense, even though every view is blocked by cloud and mist, of passing from one world to another. And this new world takes you down, steeply down. And then you enter El Acebo. And the old stone houses bring you back a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years back. And you put down your bag and you know that when morning comes you will see the view. And when morning comes you meet the frostbitten, chilly air of the snow clad mountains, and your heart fills up with awe as you move slowly, trying to block out the cold wind, slowly down towards Ponferrada, and you stop, time after time, as the snow falls and covers your wool sweater, and you breathe, and you feel like crying, and all your heart can say is: I am alive. I am alive. I am alive.

astorga

2005-11-23T12:04:00.000-08:00

Astorga is beautiful. It has the atmosphere of a place with many prayers. I am finding friendship hidden in the heart of a Norweigan beauty. She has the most amazing life story and smile and she spreads love all around her. She provided me with the best quote ever as she was telling me about how she felt bad that she had to take the bus one day, because of physical pain,( after walking several hundred kilometres) but then gave herself a break and thought "well, I have been in a wheel chair for a long time because of a broken back and I am partly paralyzed in one leg..."

Christmas

2005-11-21T11:33:00.000-08:00

Realized I haven't blogged about the fact that I am actually flying home for Christmas. I am taking a flight from Santiago, so my trip is close to ending (for now...) I am agreeing with all the old ladies of our neighbourhood (which is the patch of forest withing 10 km from my house): Erikka can't be away for another Christmas...

I did receive more Italians in my life

2005-11-21T04:43:00.000-08:00

I am now in Leon.

I must say that the most amazing thing about this trip is meeting all these gorgeous, lovely, adventureous, fabulous men!

Last evening was spent in a long conversation-partly in song and prayer- with an Italian photographer from Milano. I got a new recipy for tortelli I need to try out. I also got the answer to what my heart has been talking about for awhile. I have known that my next pilgrimage must have something to do with St Francesco (St Francis) but didn't quite know in which way. Well, it's obvious isn't it? I must complete my dream of going to Italy, and I must walk from the northern part of Italy down to Assisi! It is so obvious and I never realized. Such is the mystery of life. It won't be a very long walk, but I can always make it longer by throwing in Rome, or maybe walking all the way down to Sicilia...

I am going to sleep for a few hours, then find a supermarket (didn't find one last time!) and then see what to do with my evening. No more Italians around for the day, but I suppose I will run into Andrea again tomorrow. He really couldn't see the point of the Swedish pancake party we pilgrims are planning, but I guess an Italian wouldn't. But as they do get every other necessary part of cooking, we can forgive them for not loving pancakes, can't we? Australians don't mind a Swedish pancake party, and Joe is back soon enough, so all will be well. Well, apart from the fact that Joe will tell me that Australian pancakes are bigger, fatter, better, more pancaky...

about leaving comments

2005-11-19T18:19:00.000-08:00

I was informed by a friend yesterday that my blog doesn't allow for non-bloggers to leave comments! Sorry guys, I have now changed that, I really hope it works... If I understood the Spanish, you should all now be allowed to leave as many comments as you possibly could come up with...

(yes, you could interpret that as a hint if you would like to)

sahagun

2005-11-19T02:57:00.000-08:00

We have now come half way from Roncesvalles to Santiago!

Last night I slept in the same albergue, in Terradillos, as a Belgian couple I have been travelling with for a while now. We had an open fire, good tea and a peaceful evening. I am reading Tennesse Williams' A streetcar named Desire, which means it can be hard communicating with me. Every spare moment I am lost in the Penguine Classics with yellowing pages...

Joe has returned to Madrid for the weekend, to rejoin us on Monday or Tuesday. I am in charge of his walking stick, The Joestick, which usually indicates that Joe is to be found in whatever bar it has been placed outside. Now it is my main travelling companion, and a good one too.

I need to find a supermercado. I still have time. Everything closes at 2 pm. It then re-opens at 5 pm. The Spanish schedule doesn't make sense to a Swede. We don't have the same summer heat as Spain does. We don't eat a huge lunch that goes on from 2-5 every afternoon either. And we definitly don't eat our evening meal at 9 pm. But, I'm getting used to it. Just need to find a shop before it closes...

a place of acceptance

2005-11-17T07:59:00.000-08:00

I am learning so much from the Camino. A very wise Canadian woman told me the other day: Remember that the Camino will give you what you need.

It does. Every day I have to receive what it gives and not keep thinking that things should be different.

"I should be praying for others."
"I only pray for others I should deal more with my own crap."
"I should read my Bible."
"I should journal more."
"I should be more silent."
"I should talk more."

I have quit doing this to myself. If I am hungry I eat. If I am sad I cry. If a prayer comes to me I pray. If it doesn't I don't. If I need to be sarcastic and pulling off fart jokes I do. If I need to be writing important messages from God in the sand to people with blisters who have important revelations to share with cancer sick strangers on the others side of the world I do.

I think we spend too much time fighting. We need to spend more time surrendering. We are part of a bigger picture and us fighting is really only a gesture of trying to be in control of a situation outside our control.

Today I placed my forehead against an old stone cross and gave up my need for answers. I guess I will have to do that daily for the rest of my life but it was the first step. I had to say it. I had it coming for the longest time... "God, I love your word and all, but it all does boil down to that I understand nada of what you are trying to say... and all is good. Because I love."

I know there are many people fighting. And I know there is a war going on. But I think there is something to be said about the way of the Camino. Be where you are, be who you are, and trust that what you need to be saying, praying and doing will come to you.

Our flesh and our fears, cannot and will not be put to death with a selfmade axe. We will only ever be free from fears, and the evil those fears make us do, by the grace of God. And that, my dear friends, is something far bigger and deeper and more impossible to comprehend than we could ever imagine. Our hearts transformation is beyond our control, all we can do is surrender and accept that we are who we are at the this moment, and that we are where we are at this moment. All our faith really is, is a hope and a trust that God will meet us right there and that all things are well.

eagles and freezing my butt off

2005-11-15T08:40:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I saw twenty eagles at once.

First one that was soaring above my head and stopped in the air. Then a few hours later I saw twenty of them all flying together above a hill. And then I dreamt that Mirja's Mum Asa-Lisa told me that they all gatehr together because it has been a bad year for the fruit (!) they eat and that they are loking for prey to hunt. Now work on that one, charismatics...

The refugios don't have heating. It gets cold at night. but i love my travellign companions and we are havign a good time. Forgot teh name of where I am, but it's 42 km from Burgos.

snow and stomachs

2005-11-13T08:28:00.000-08:00

Today we woke up to snow.

My so called water proof bag soaked through so all my clothes are wet. We went to a bar (in Spain everything that happens happens in bars: you eat breakfast lunch and dinner there and there is constantly old men drinking alcohol any time of the day) and I ordered tapas. I pointed at some potato salad and when it arrived it wasn't actually potatoes but chopped up pieces of some animals stomach. I tell you, that was more than I can stomach...

Joe and I and the Italian German who's name I daren't try to spell right now have now arrived in Burgos.

praise our almighty lord

2005-11-12T12:23:00.000-08:00

Finally tea. Like actual good tea. With milk. In a tea cup.

I need more italians in my life

2005-11-12T09:23:00.000-08:00

Today I picked mushrooms with an Italian German who makes gelato. His favourite flavours are hazelnut and lemon. The mushrooms were the kind called Proud Mountain Slicelings. In Swedish, that is.

by the way my friends

2005-11-11T10:29:00.000-08:00

Forgive me for not emailing you guys (being all the wonderful people who read this) and for not reading your blogs, just don't have enough internet time. It kind of ends up being a probably healthy fast from too much internet. But I do miss you all, and think of you much. If anyone has anything you need prayer for, why don't you text me and I will bring it with me on the camino?

+46 702474074

Always with you...

going deeper into myself

2005-11-11T10:02:00.000-08:00

And then the full impact of the consequences of womanhood hit me. I didn't get very far out of Logrono before breaking down crying and having to turn back. I stayed with the first woman i met on the street. If angels would come with three kids and a husband Esther from Rumania would for sure be one of them.

Conversation between my uteris and my legs:

Legs: Hey, give us back our energy, what the heck do you think you are doing?
Uteris: Your energy? Now, you have had all the energy for days, what do you have to complain about?
Legs: Well we have to do 30 km today, and what good do you do anyway?

Between the two of them there wasn't much energy left for my brain to work.

But now I am better. I walked. Today I took it very easy. Sang in a beautiful Church. Christe Lux Mundi, in streaming sunlight through an old stone window. I love life. Last night we played cards. I beat Joe. (I just had to put it in here, hun, I just had to.) And we ate a lot of food.

My gang of people has split up, but we have formed a new group that kind of moves in the same speed. I seem to get stuck with the Australians don't I...

So the deep part of me is starting to process and work and bring thoughts and feelings up. I guess that's what a lot of this is about...

ducks

2005-11-08T05:16:00.000-08:00

I had no idea that it was possible to endure such intense physical pain and still keep moving.

On our second day, we being my group of friends I started off with in Roncesvalles, the albergue we had planned on staying at turned out to be closed. So I ended up having to go 15 more km as the sun was setting, running down a long hill, arriving crying and exhausted to find my wonderful travelling companions waiting for me and some very good food to comfort me... (We wlk alone and meet up at night, or walk part of the way together) I was glad to have made 35 km in a day, but it wrecked my knee to the extent of me having to face some serious pain the next day. With Joe being a doctor I was quite OK though, because he didn't really allow me to complain that muc. We did some swearing together. I`m sorry guys, but contrary to the common belief, pilgrims do have to swear. I have settled for that fact. And if that is the fact, I have to pick up a swear wrod that feels OK. Joe hasn't left me much choice, though. I will be saying Fuck a duck for the rest of this trip...

I love my group. The "old guys" 45+: pink haired German Gunter, the New Yorker Richard with huge glasses (do all New Yorkers repeat their sentences, repaet it, you know, repeat it?) the loud and farting almond farmer Martin from Mallorca, and then of course the younger companion, the handsome gentleman doctor Joesph from Melbourne. Don't worry, he's got a girlfriend and he isn't my type...

I'm in Logrono, have walked 20 km and have 13 more to go today. I wouldn't be so harsch on myself if it wasn't for the fact that I can't stand being left behind by the others... And they wouldn't be so harsch on themselves if it wasn't for Martin, who is constantly claiming that every stretch of the camino will be completely flat, and that we all could walk at least 46 km without any problems...

I'm better today. Less pain. Body adjusting... I have the appetite of a small tiger. Need to find some food... The other day I ate a big plate of pasta, bread, lamb, chips, and Tarta de Santiago all in one go...

Not much time to write, gotta go. God bless, will tell you more next time I hit computer.

Ps. Planning on registering the Silly Walk de Santiago at the Ministry for silly walks... Funny how 35 km of walking can make you look like a duck.

first walk

2005-11-04T10:36:00.000-08:00

Spanish earth worms are huge. Now that's something for fishing.. ;)

I love the Camino. walked the first 26 km. Met another Australian. Joe, 28, from Melbourne. Good times.

pamplona and having faced many fears

2005-11-03T04:09:00.000-08:00

I am in Pamplona!

I know some people will be thinking I am strong and courageous for doing this trip by myself. I need to tell you, and it is important: I am not.

I only make it, because now and then, I hit a brick wall and break down and cry and realize that all I have to offer God is weakness and tears. That's where he meets me and gives me the joy and strength to go on. My only strength is my weakness: knowing that I have to trust God and can't do it by myself. I have to constantly deny my own futulie attempts to get by, and trust that HE will make it work...

My week in Taize was beyond words. "You seem to have life changing moments every few hours" said my Australian brotherandcraphereallyhasdughisclawsintomyheart Edward. Friends are more important than life itself, because we can't love God without loving our friends, being human is OK and it is necessary to accept that I have needs and accept that I am at where I am at and the German chorus to Pippi Longstocking goes: Hey Pippi Langstrumpf, die macht was ihr gefällt.

I think noone really understands the Cross, but when we let go even a little of our own workings and check out the grace of God in ways deeper than discussing Biblical words, it's as if life goes radiant, the world slows down, God is present, our eyes are opened and every piece of information is profound, be it so a Bruce Springsteen song played on the radio of an old man on a bench infront of a statue of St Franscis or the drawing of a tiny sun on a piece of garbage.

So after my major God-I-can't-make-this-You'll-have-to-scrape-me-off-the-floor-breakdown (Sunday) I found a busload of Spanish nuns and students who gave me a ride (Monday) to La Jonquera in Eastern Spain. This kind of changed my plans of crossing the Pyrenees, as I found myself south of the mountains already. So I found my way to Pamplona via a night in the hotel the busload checked me into (they actually had a money collection trhoughout the bus to give me a place to sleep!!!) and a night with Miriyam (Kirby's friend I met in Dresden) in Barcelona (she stood cooking for me late at night!) and then a night in a pension in Pamplona that some nice Catholic's checked me in to!

Tonight I am going to Roncevalles, about 40km north of Pamplona, to start walking back here (I know, I know, but I have to start in Roncesvalles, even though it means I will be backtracking...). I am getting my pilgrim's passsport in Roncesvalles, and I guess that means I will start walking tomorrow. I am now down to 10 Euros, which will take me by bus to Roncesvalles and give me a night there (it seems like this is a village that consists of one Church and not much else!) and from there on we will see how things go. I might not find free internet until I am back here in Pamplona again, but that shouldn't take very long...

So, I only have "the easy" bit left now. I am actually getting started. I am actually walking now. I cried with joy here on a bench, in beautiful Pamplona, with washing hanging out from the windows, and flowers, and sunshine... I'm here, I am nearly in Roncesvalles, I am starting tomorrow (hopefully) and all is well.

I am alive

2005-11-01T02:30:00.000-08:00

Will write more next time I hit a spot with a computer. For now: I am in Spain, on the east side heading west to start walking. My plans changed as usual. I am looking for buses, trying to avoid hitch hiking, as my Mum and Dad so wish for me not to. Tell you more later... But I am very full of joy and peace and songs...

I have drunk excessive amounts of tea due to my cousin being Brittishly fond of tea and I will be at Taize for a week so don't worry if I don't blog

2005-10-22T14:32:00.000-07:00

me and my cousin

2005-10-21T06:26:00.000-07:00

I spent a night in Genève, with a lady from Church for the nations. Walked down the street wondering where to go, and saw the sign for a Church, met a man who had the key for it and gave me tea and bread, joined there Wednesday evening service and got a place to stay for the night.

At one in the afternoon I went to the train station to catch a train to Lyon to meet my cousin at 16:30. The train was wickedly expensive so I ended up going ot the airport, getting a lift with a woman from the parking house exit, and arriving 5 km from my cousins house in the middle of nowhere, an hour from Lyon, after getting 6 more lifts with other people.

The first bit of catching up with my cousin was done on the phone.
Me: Just don't worry about me, I will be fine, and you needen't go past the train station and pick me up. Just give me your address, and I'll get there.
Sarah: You won't, it's not even a village, it's in the middle of nowhere, and I really don't want to pick you up at night from God knows where!
Me: I'm telling you, I will be fine. This is how I travel, OK?
Sarah: Well, I have four kids in the car, and I am alone tonight, and I really don't want to pick you up late at night!!!

Anyways, had she trusted my word for it, she hadn't needed to worry. God always provides a place to sleep or a way to get there. I called her 45 minutes after she got back from Lyon, and told her I was 5 km from her home... She was mightily impressed, and we had a very good laugh at our conversation on the phone. At least we covered a lot of information in just two sentences... "This is how I travel" and "I have four kids"...

Taize on Sunday.

soccer match

2005-10-18T07:59:00.000-07:00

Oh, yeah, the soccer match. I was really looking forward to the cultural event of actually seeing my first soccer match live. OK, maybe not the huge arena kind of soccer matches (if you are a soccer fan and haven´t heard of Cazis/Thusis vs. Bühler, don´t worry too much about it), but still, it was a soccer match. My excitement lasted, well not quite, to the first goal.It was actually scored while I was getting money out of the car to buy myself a hotdog. The second goal came as I deep in thought was plowing through the book I found msyelf reading on a bench in the sunshine... it was a very cultural event, and I am glad to say I really enjoy reading books to the cheering of a soccer fan crowd.

a thought

2005-10-18T07:35:00.000-07:00

The other day I had an American, overhearing me speaking english with someone, think I was from the States. That is the best compliment I have ever recieved for my English skills, but maybe not my character...

(and that of course, is a joke, for anyone who missed out)

lonely pilgrim (still at Monika´s house)

2005-10-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

My heart is so broken.

I know it is really late at night and I have just finished reading one of those books that leaves you emotionally wrecked and in tears, as always, but I wouldn´t be justified in blaming it all on that. I believe my heart is broken. And, as many wise friends of mine would say, that is a good state to be in, though I myself would gladely exchange the current amount of tears running down my cheeks for a cheerier state of mind.

I know I am hiding behind long sentenced with an icy touch to them, hiding behind sentence strucures as usual. But really, I am writing this hoping that a friend or two will be reading. There, that set those tears off again.

I am so lonely. I have friends all over the world, more friends than I can count, not trying to brag in any way, just meaning that where ever I go there are new friends to meet and love. But every time I meet a friend, it is just to be torn away again, leaving a heartbreaking longing in my heart. I have been torn away from so many good friends, have moved away so many times, in so few years, that it feels like I´m standing on a remote island, waving to everyone I love at a far away distance. Yes, I am fully aware of many deep reasons for my life looking the way it does, none of which I mean to elaborate on now, some of which are for my own good by God´s device, some of which could be different but are being used by God being as they are the way they are.

But the fact remains, that I live in an everyday life where I do not have close friends joining me daily or at least weekly. Screw it, all the wrong people will be reading this and getting all worried about me, but what the heck, everyone knows I have my days of being a wreck so who cares. I can´t be the only one bawling my eyes out because I don´t have my friends around me at all times. I´m hurt. I´m really, really hurt, and I really wish I could be on this journey through life with someone, someone who would be here and not currently in Stockholm or Calgary or Vancouver or Africa for that matter, or in any other of those far away places life and God has chosen to place the people I love...

I guess I just had to write to get these tears to stop for a momet. Nuff self pity, eh? ´kay, sleep time, huh? Yup. Clock strikes 2 am.

getting hooked on the catholic way

2005-10-16T04:09:00.000-07:00

I have added a verse to Alanis Morissette's song:

what it all comes down to
is that everything's gonna be fine fine fine
I've got one hand in my pocket
and the other one's doing the cross sign

I love these nunnes. They are loving, passionate about Christ, and they risk their health and lives in helping people all across the world. I am blessed with meeting these Christians from all across the world and from different denominations.

I will go back to St Gallen with Monika. We are going to a football match (soccer)and then I will stay with her.

Oh, yeah, the song has a dance to go with it if you feel like adding motions...

my heart has turned pilgrim

2005-10-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

Good things about Switzerland:

1.
The gardens. Absoultely amazing gardens. So many flowers; every window has baskets of different coloured flowers hanging in beautiful constallations down the sides of the walls...

2.
Wanderweg. Incorrectly translated Wonder way because it is so amazing. 10500 km of marked out trail, telling you how long it will take you to get from one place to another, and so well marked out you can't get lost. Perfect for people travelling alone without maps!

3.
Patient cows. The Swiss cows constantly have miniature Church bells ding-doning under their ears. I would run my head into a wall. Luckily these cows don't, which allows us pilgrims to listen to constant music.

4.
Fabulous farms. Feels like coming back in time. Wanderweg goes straight through peoples farms and gardens, and is full of old fashioned farms with ducks and hens and cows and sheep, and everything very cottage like and nearly medieval seeming.

5.
Walnut trees. If you ever have sat at the top of a high hill overlooking a Swiss river, and gazing out over forests and alps, eating fresh walnuts, you will know what I mean. If not: try it!

My plan worked thus far. I got to Chur, slept on a bench outside of the train station in Reichenau (to my friends who promised to be with me in the dark and cold times; you were there), hiked seven hours through a beautiful valley and mountains, slept at a monestery and met a friend who shares my dreams and visions. It was one of those "coincidences". My cell phone shut itself off (something happened with the battery so it didn't ring) so I was an hour late for breakfast. As it happened breakfast was still going on and I met this girl named Monica there..

After this though, my well thought out plan failed as I can't get to the Matterhorn by interrail, so I am back at the monestery with Monica and will make a new plan tomorrow.

Yesterday I decided I am ready to be a pilgrim. For real. I picked a staff and have carved a cross and the name Kristus into it, I met a man who asked me if I am going to Compostella and wished me a good journey in latin, and I wrote the first verse of my walking song.

moving, moving slowly toward you
moving, moving slowly within you
like a baby in the womb
like a wave in the sea
I am within you
and you are in me
moving

I have a plan

2005-10-13T02:25:00.000-07:00

For the first time for a long time I have a plan. It does of course involve sleeping in some towns I have never been in and don't really know where to find a sleeping place in, but still, it's a plan with places to go and things to see. I am going to Chur and from there to Disentis and then I eventually will end up Brig, after hopefully seeing St Gotthard and some mountains. My not very secret idea is to get to Zermatt and be very touristique (I can't help using the french version of this word, it's so cool!) and see the Matterhorn. Let's see if my plan works...

either the word random doesn't exist or else God meets us in whatever direction we go

2005-10-12T13:04:00.000-07:00

I prayed something in the terms of:

Thanks for giving me the adventure I really wanted. It has been awesome, I have loved every second of it, but now I would be OK with a bed and a shower and another Christian in my life. Please, would you want to give me a Christian with a home I could stay in? (silently adding in a selfish kind of a way: in a house on a mountain side in a beautiful place)

I randomly jumped on a train at the Luzern Hauptbahnhof. It was going to St Gallen and was called Voralpen Express, which sounded good. I had read the name St Gallen on a map once, but didn't remember where it was.

So on this train there just happened to be someone reading a book with the word Christian in the titel and three crosses on the front, so here I am in this house on a mountain side outside of St Gallen.

the saga of monks, alps and a slide out my window

2005-10-12T07:39:00.000-07:00

The monk business continues...

From Vienna I went to Graz and got a map at the tourist info, trying to decide whether I liked the feel of the town. I saw Franziskanerkloster on the map, a St Francis monestery, and I find him to be an interesting saint so I headed straight for the monastery...

Another Vesper (evening prayer) and I met a 23 year old monk, or monk to be (2 years left until he has to make a final decision) who got the job of taking care of me when the older guys decided I got stay there for the night.

Conversation between me and monk Maceo (correct me if my spelling of this name is way off!!!):
E: Teach me this handwaving thing...?
M: Handwaving thing?
E: Yeah this (gesturing)
M: Oh, the cross-sign! What is there to learn?
E: Well, how exactly do you do it, because it looks like everone has different ideas about it? We don't do the cross-sign in the Church I come from.
M: You don't do the cross-sign...?
E: No.
M: Well, what do you do?

Yeah, sometimes we wonder, don't we...

I liked this monestery a lot. It has the feeling of God's presence, as if he smiles when he watches it. Even though my understanding of German is limited (getting better!) I really felt like these people mean what they pray and preach. Maceo instantly felt like a good friend. He got to answer many of my quetsions about catholisism and monk life. The red light by the altar shows that there is bread there which symbolizes the presence of Jesus, and indicates that one should kneel, and monks don't do sports in monk clothes, they change in to sport wear...

I like the kneeling. It feels like physically bending my will to God's. Maceo said it's like saying with your body: You are big, I am small. I like the cross-sign too, but I still tend to call it the hand-waving thing.

I walked around Graz doing the typical female processing, which usually means having the same thought run twentyfive times through my mind... But it was needed.

I looked at a fountain. If you zoom in on the place where the water in motion hits the still surface, the spray looks like chaos. But if you look at the whole picture you see 16 perfect arches of water through the air, forming a circle. If something looks like chaos, remember there is a bigger picture. Water in motion is important. Oxygen...

Tried my theory of sleeping on a train, but picked an evening when the trains weren't working and the replacement buses were late. At 2 am. I finally jumped on a train to Zurich and slept until 10:00 am. Lindau?Bergenz is beautiful seen out of train window.

A guy on the train recommended Grindenwald, but interrail didn't get me all the way there, so I went to Brienz. Yeah, I was a bit scaredat first, going to the Alps not knowing where I was going. But Brienz, with its houses by th turqoise water and its surrounding mountains is too beautiful to be able to house any fears! I called Dad from teh dock and then went off exploring. I found the perfect place to sleep...

A single room in a wooden house, with a set of high stairs to climb up and a view of the lake. Completely for free, definitly air conditioned, and with my own slide rigt out my front window! And the best of all: the slightly.. undefined... walls gave me proper use for all the winter clothes I have been carrying around!

After a good nights sleep, waking with the sunrise, I went for a 15 km hike from Brienz to Meiringen. Beautiful, beautiful Switzerland! I love this country. I passed through a museum of old farms, buildings and the Swiss life in old times. My trail happened to go through it -I didn't sneak in for free on purpose!

I actually wlaked on the Jakobsweg for awhile, but I think I was going away from Compostella de Santiago at the time...

Am now in Luzern, about to make a new plan. Have eaten food! Yeey for bread and cheese, I was starting to get hungry after 24 hours on only two apples...

frodo and the jesus freaks

2005-10-08T13:25:00.000-07:00

Oh yeah, and I relate most to Frodo. He has that longing for adventure, but is torn between wanting to travel and wanting to be at home in safety. He is scared of danger and hard challenges, but still willing to face them for a higher good. I can identify with being small and scared, and the fact that he wouldn't have survived a single day of his journey without his friends. I am very much a Frodo in many ways, but I haven't quite analyzed him deeply yet. Instinctly I identify. He despises the inhabitants of the Shire but when he is out on his journey he misses them. I would feel that way too was I to live in the Shire.

I didn't get to finish the book yet. It stayed in Prague as I moved on. But I will continue when it turns up again, somewhere else.

Nomadism verses stuck in one place with one group of people... I think God will prepare me. I think travelling might beat me a bit, hopefully, so that studying will be OK. So that I needn't keep moving all the time. I don't want to be tamed, I just want to be at peace in one place... Please God? Help me, will ya?

I am so tired. So incredibly tired. I am hanging out with the Jesus Freaks (no naked butts), but to be honest I'm more wiped out with the Jesus Freaks. I am in need of sleep. Talked with Juran late last night. Tomorrow is a new day. Heading towards Graz and the Klagenfurt I think... Yeah, I know I am worse than an American tourist. But I like trains more than cities...

vienna

2005-10-08T09:52:00.000-07:00

I now have a CD called The Hot Doctor On The Train Indie Rock Mix. I have never listened to Indie Rock before. But I feel honoured that this random assistant doctor on the train from Innsbruck to Vienna wanted to make me a CD just so I would learn what Indie Rock is. The Hives. They are Swedish. Go figure.

So I didn't see much of Innsbruck because I decided to go to Vienna and meet up with Juran. I am now at a Jesus Freaks meeting. My day was spent touring looking at things. I fell in love with a rose garden and picked out my favourite statue (Vienna is full of statues!). It is actually the only one I liked. It i some slightly unkown Austrian poet I think... Grillpartzer something...

I will go towards Switzerland from here. Alps. Here I come again.

Am getting ready for my walk on Jacobs Weg. Sorry, switching to German... The Camino Pilgrim Trail. I am feeling like it's time after this. I am getting ready. I am also thinking about nomad life verses comunity living and thinking that tight friendships and a tight community is important. There is a season for everything...

inter-rail pilgrim

2005-10-07T06:49:00.000-07:00

After a night in beautiful Tabor (Tom Kirby if you read this go to Tabor!) with Canadian Charis I jumped on train to Linz and bought 14 day inter-rail ticket for Austria and Switzerland and if I want Germany.

I followed my heart which led me towards mountains, came to Salzburg and walked in the direction my heart led. My heart tends to like oldish towns and castle like things. I ran into benedictian monk and got to stay at St Peter's monastery for free- room with bathroom and enormous meals - they treat pilgrims as royal family.. (maybe we are after all;)

I love trains. I love alps. Wow I love trains.

Am now in Innsbruck, the town my Mum hitchhiked to and slept on steps in pouring rain. And she wonders why I am adventureous. Huh.

the important business of doing nothing (but I do play with kids)

2005-10-04T02:59:00.000-07:00

I am blog cheating today. I am doing a copy and paste out of a letter I wrote to a dear brother. But sometimes I write things to friends and realise I'd like to share it with others, too...

"I am reading The Fellowship of The Ring for the first time. I was thinking about two important things yesterday. I must be drawing closer to God because the two things that usually cause me pain are now giving me peace. Beauty and travellers. I have spent a lot of time in my life being drawn to beautiful places, but when I have seen something beautiful it has torn at my heart. And I have been drawn to men like Strider, constant travellers, but when I haven't been able to tame them, or hold on to them, they have caused me pain and grief. Today it seems like that is slowly changing. I long to meet people like Strider. To love and to learn from them, to see them move on and out of view, maybe to return for rest and a cup of tea at times before moving on again.

I am noticing that as I see the beauty in nature I feel love and peace, instead of that painful tearing at my heart by something too overwhelming to comprehend. It is as if the beauty outside of me is coming in harmony with something inside of me. "

So, I am still in Prague, resting, praying, reading, eating, sleeping and meeting people. I am not sure where God wants me to go, but major things are happening inside of me and concerning my future, so all is well.

the god who makes dreams come true

2005-09-29T08:00:00.000-07:00

I believe God can make all our dreams come true. Today I met people who seem to have got every piece of the same puzzle dream wise as I have recieved in my heart. The forest-horses-drama teacher-community-mountains-farming-ecological living-ancient hebrew-treatment centre-puzzle. I have the most impossible dreams ever to put together in a puzzle, but I have now met people with every single impossible piece in their puzzle, also struggling with putting them together.

I ask you to pray. I ask, time after time, where are you taking this trip, God? Am I really this bad at map reading, or why am I going further and further from Spain?

If I end up somwhere far from Spain, don't be surprised. Maybe these dreams we all share, are far off in the future, but there seems to be a lot of dreams to fulfill until then... I might be in a plan bigger then my own plans. Just pray, will ya?

french canadians are better than their reputation

2005-09-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

Some days are tough, I found today. My body weary, my mind a little worried, I wondered around Prague for a whole day asking myself what to do about the fact that the American guys had left town, and I was out of a place to stay, still without Christian contacts.

When the day was coming to an end I finally decided to stay in a hostel, which made my day so much better. I found this French Canadian guy, Francois and spent my evening walking around Prague with him, being a real tourist. We had loads of fun. I am so sorry, my dear Canadian friends. I must make you disappointed. There is at least one Franch Canadian who is completely OK.

I am meeting up with a group of Jesus friends tomorrow at ten. I got in touch with them through Tom, who called the Jones family, who used to live in Prague and know people here.

So that is all for now. I had a day that sucked and it turned into an absolutely fab evening. Go figure.

prag and prayers

2005-09-27T04:15:00.000-07:00

I got called by God to pee in a bush yesterday.

I have realized that I only can blog about a few of the everyday miracles and amazing events happening on my journey.

I really didn't plan to go to Prag and stay with two American guys from Mississippi, but God obviously had. And he has been planning it for a long time, but I have been ignoring his excited: Prag! (It was hard ignoring him when he sat me next to the only guy from Prag at the conference and the first thing this guy said was: Prag. And the one guy I felt I should go up to and ask whether Prag was on the way to Wienna was the one guy that was on his way to Wienna...)

I ended up laying on a blue and white blanket in the forest close to the Czech boarder, eating Dresden country side apples and praying with this Italian nomad who's favourite spice is saffran. I never knew that saffran is a small yellow flower and that you only use "the small lips for the bees" to make the spice.

"The papers for the dog please", the man at the boarder said in German, I think, as Amelia barked at him. "I don't have any" Juran replied as God had told him not to lie. "Park over there" said the man with our passports in his hand. "You might have to hitch hike Juran said to me, looking a little nervous. His passport is actually invalid because he lost it, reported it missing, and the found it again. And because he doesn't want to fill his dog up with medicines once a year she is a bit illegal because she lacks papers... A few intense prayer minutes later we got our passports handed back. "Can we go?" Jurgen said with this definite hint of suprise in his voice. The man waved us of, with his well practiced I'm a grumpy guard-look. I love God. May he always be praised.

It hurt my heart driving through this beautiful forest landscape with fields and mist and apple trees, with women standing in their underwear by rundown road side shacks, waving to the passing cars. How can one possibly want to pay for sex in a falling to pieces prostitution shack at lunch time on a beautiful sunny Monday? I'm sorry I sound more naive than I should be by now, but it still shocks me, and I believe it always should.

I got called by God to pee in a bush in a park in the Zizkow area of Prag. I was climbing a hill looking for a washroom, and God went: "There. Definitly pee there" in that wordless communication of his. How weird is that calling? I peed. I also found a handful of pictures of girls ages 17-18 and up, spread out among the leaves. The girls looked a bit like workign girls some of them, some of them just teens looking a bit hurt, with porny kind of posters on the walsl behind them. Most of them fully dressed, some of them half naked. They were all from different times, the oldest from -88. I picked them up and prayed for them, placing the pictures and my Bible before me, infront of this big building with a massive statue of a horse and a rider. The wind was blowing the pages of my Bible back and forth, back and forth, through the psalms and proverbs. I prayed whatever opened up, and sung the words. A few lines from Song of Songs really stuck out to me when the pages opened up there. I held the picture of a tired looking, blonde girl, wearing two necklaces with crosses, standing in her room full of teddy bears and posters. Who is she? kept haunting me. God, please help her!

I might be here for one single person, someone like these girls, who just really needs a hug and some love from God. Low in faith, I find myself thinking, what if she doesn't speak English?

I have got money on my account. I got more money than I was expecting from work. I'm no longer broke... yeey!

I am a little scared of being so small in this city. It really is humbling to have no idea why I am here, not know the language, not know the place. I am going to try to buy some food now. God really wants to feed these American guys. God knows they need a woman in their lives, Matthew has had vegetables twice in two months.

I can't help falling in love with u

2005-09-25T11:15:00.000-07:00

dresden rocks. going to prag. crying my heart out and piling snot on the floor with tears for the broken and wounded.

have spent weekend at 24/7 conference that rocks beyond everything. if I could tell you what God has done in two days. the favor poured out on me. prayed. cried. laughed. worshipped. danced. been fed by people even though my money was finished after the trip here. got to sleep in the conference building. awesome.

god told me today to go to prag don't know why. I am going to live with someone I met at the conference, going there with an Italian guy who's driving me. I am a bit shaken. crap, I'm turned over by God's adventure so many times a milkshake couldn' compare with me for a nickle. I am so absolutely in lack of words. I wish you'd been here. So you knew why we cried adn laughed and worshipped. God rocks beyond everything. He IS the rock.

hamburg

2005-09-23T00:44:00.000-07:00

Arrived at Rostock. Walked toward the central train station. This one German man who didn't speak any English saw me and ended up buying me a ticket in on the S-bahn. He handed me 10 euro and showed me how to get tot the station.

I eventually found an internet café and the email from my friend Esther. I followed her advice and checked the German lift platform online and got a lift from Rostock to Hamburg. I got dropped off by the S-bahn at Highway 1 and took the S-bahn to Reeperbahn in the redlight district of Hambrug where Esther and the rest of teh Salvation Army's mission team met me.

Praise God for helpful people. I had no idea how to pay for the S-bahn and have got many lessons in communicating with people with few words. Trying to reaken my German skills.

Was very tired after a long day yesterday. I now know why Jesus told his disciples not to bring extra clothes or any stuff when walking from town to town. Too much baggage to carry around on my back for 10 km.

Heading for Dresden with Esther today. Will meet up with other cool people once there!

God bless, gotta go!

the thought that comforts

2005-09-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

(the thought that comforts me at night when I freak out and get stressed)

why am I going?

because I love God and I love meeting people and I want to pray for them and spread God's love to them and share his heart with them

so where ever I am I can do what I left for. I need no stress, no worries about reaching destinations, about getting places. where ever I am I am in a place to worship God and help and love others. No matter what city, no matter what place.

It can't go wrong.