The State of Leaving

"Breaking up is hard to do", says good old song. We are not breaking up, just moving, internationally. We have been living a time of changes, saying goodbyes, packing, unpacking, looking through our stuff and choosing which we want and which to be thrown away. It isn't easy, and we already hope that this period of time will be over.

Yes, it will be over. Every day is closer to the final move, and the transition is always only transition.

Leaving a place is all about inventory, whether be it material or mental garage of life. The moments of joy and sorrow, familiar buildings and surroundings, precious friends, wonderful family (also church family!), everyday meals, nominal routines... Let them be, let them be. Life will continue without us, everything will move on.

We won't, the life of now stays in our minds as a still picture, which we will treasure and zoom in to look at whenever missing home. We will enter another sphere, new rhythm and melody, our life will join the millions of other people in the busy metropolis of China.

What do we take with us? The still picture of current life, the pain of transition, and the excitement of new life.
What do we leave behind us? The possibilities we did not live out, the Finnish childhood Viivi will not have, the events in friends' and family's lives we will miss, and the steady life that would have continued.

Regrets? Life does not give opportunity to regret. There is no if, there is no but. Life goes on, the state of leaving is part of it, and we live through it.

During these times, the words of Paul comforts me:
I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. (Paul's Letter to Philippians 1:20-21)

Let it be a transition that exalts Christ, let it be a change that glorifies Jesus. To live is Christ, He does not change.

Living by faith includes leaving by faith. No matter where we are, we long for a better country - a heavenly one. Therefor God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. (Hebrews 11:16)

In that heavenly country, we will rejoice forever. No need to transit, no need to leave.

Ja "hyvästi" -sanaa ei tunnetakaan. ("Viimeiset veneet", Lasse Heikkilä)

A Trip to the Holy Land

The definite benefit of studying is to have holidays. For that matter, holidays are also the treasures of working life. We had one week Autumn "holiday" from school, which we used to travel to the Holy Land - Israel. Just to make things clear: we didn't do any pilgrimage stuff, simply holiday, and Israel was a  perfect place for that!

Wonderful warmth (btw 20-30C), beautiful sunshine, interesting places to visit (history, sightseeing, multi-cultural food, religious significance), and good company (wife+baby+parents). The only downsides were rather expensive hotels/hostels and general cost level being similar to Finland, but those money issues were resolved by savings and sharing the expenses. :) Mediterranean, Sea of Galilee, and the Dead Sea were great waters to visit and take a dip, unfortunately we didn't manage to swim in Galilee due to time restrictions (welfare of baby).

Here are some pictures that hopefully transmit a bit of the atmosphere and experiences of our trip. By the way, images are captured with Nokia N9. :)

On the way to Israel we had an overnight stop over in Kiev, Ukraine. It made travelling with Viivi much easier. While in Kiev, we really enjoyed Slavic hospitality (you can take this either way) and magnificent Slavic food! The Blinies pictured here were delicious and rather cheap considering it was room service. :D

In Israel the sun set already at 17:30, here is a picture looking at the old Yaffa with some Mediterranean waves. We actually did not notice the 1 hour time difference btw Finland and Israel, thus the first day in Israel was spent in Finnish time.

Some older part of Tel Aviv. As said, weather was terrific for holidaying. Rental car was working well and GPS navigator co-operated seamlessly, until we went to West Bank. :D

Old Roman Aqueduct in Cesarean, besides the sea. We heard this was the only "sight seeing" place in Cesarean with free entrance. :)

Let the Mediterranean flow... 

Beach under the ancient aqueduct. Warm, nice, holiday. :D Viivi was actually afraid of the sounds that waves produced, otherwise she did really well!

On the mount Arbel overlooking the Sea of Galilee. It's actually a lake. We were first in the city of Tiberias, then visited the national park of Arbel. 

The hordes of people in the street of Old Town of Jerusalem. Actually there were groups of dancing Jewish men carrying Torah and singing something. Traffic jam, polices patrolling, and the atmosphere was a bit tense. This was actually at the Arab quarter of the Old Town. :)

Best meal for me during the trip: Arab shashlic (meat on sticks). 

The Garden Tomb, the only place I actually enjoyed in Jerusalem, besides the hostel. :) Quiet and beautiful, one could spend whole day there meditating on life and the Word of God. Thumbs up for recommendation!

One of the slogans on the wall of the hostel we stayed at. Perhaps meaningful for some of you? :)

Overview of Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives. While going up there the car tyres actually slipped several times at the steep hill of ascension. I really wondered how those buses managed to get up! Also, the GPS failed us miserably as this area obviously belonged to West Bank. 

One of the eight natural wonders of the world: the Dead Sea. We arrived at Minerals Beach and spoke Russian to achieve mutual understanding with ticket officers. The place was well worth the visit: floating, mud, cleaning facilities, sulfur pool, children's pool... Dead Sea is a wonder. 

The mountains surrounding the Dead Sea at its western side. The Qumran was only 20km away from this place in North, Masada some kilometers towards South. Impressive views.

The Sabbath meal cooked together by the residents of the hostel and enjoyed together. It was great meal!

The Shrine of the Book. This is in the Israel Museum, and contained some portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls found in Qumran. It also contained the introduction of the Aleppo Codex and also the Codex book itself! Very interesting place to visit. A sense of sacredness certainly dwelt there, though same cannot be said of the Israel Museum in general. Nice Museum nonetheless.

On our journey back we had another stop-over in Kiev, Ukraine. This view is from the hotel we stayed at. Our taxi driver to the airport happened to be a believer! He had Hillsong music playing in his car, and it was good to hear his stories about Ukraine...

The trip was pleasant. Now getting back to the books and essays, only 6 weeks left of school this semester...

Summer Loving

Hah, anybody recognized the topic without googling? :P

Summer loving comes from the song Summer Nights, which in turn was a part in the musical Grease. Grease is a must if you want to learn about american (US) culture.

This post is not about US culture, nor about Grease. :)

Summer is now, Finland is experiencing exceptional humidity and temperatures. Kinda nice. In the beginning of July we visited relatives and friends in Eastern Finland, and popped in the Saimaa - the biggest lake of Finland (the land of thousand lakes). The water was COLD! Must have been less than 15 degrees, while the air was ~30 degrees. All the adults were intimidated by the coldness, only Viivi, our bold baby, went against all the odds and enjoyed the clear water and sandy beach. A hero since her small age.

Despite the Summer season and seemingly quiet surroundings here in Finland, I've had a lot of experiences and thoughts about life, living, cultures, people, future, God, faith, family, friends, aging, food, joy, sorrow, pity, pain, stupidy, wisdom, growth, responsibility, fun, happiness, money, work, career, freedom, creativity... just to list a few. ;)

Hopefully I'll manage to find time to finally download my pics from Asian trip (beginning of June) and post some of them here to share. Also, I've listed several topics I'd like to blog about, so hopefully I'll get to them eventually.

We are moving house, next week, to another city. More details later. Summer continues, just another day.

And psst: Viivi has recently learned to walk, still 2 wks till her 1 year birthday. She has also learned to annoy her parents intentionally. Bright future ahead. :)

Growth and Pride

Growth has continued, more visibly in Viivi but hopefully also in our lives.

Recently I've noticed something new in myself. It was a conference call at work, there were participants from all over the world (figuratively speaking) and I happened to be one of the guys participating actively, meaning that I actually talked and had an opinion. The novel thing was that there was another guy, who also talked quite much, and he held an opposite opinion, or actually we didn't even manage to reach same understanding about the issues under discussion. Anyhow, I noticed how I over-reacted to the attitude of the other guy and started to raise my voice, in the teleconference. Perhaps some of my colleagues were surprised at the new side found in me, I was surprised. At the end the discussion was over and I felt frustrated, partially because I over-reacted and partially because the other person was annoying to me.

I didn't know the other person, and usually I won't react like this. Or earlier I wouldn't, but now I did. I started to think about the reason for my attitude and sudden (outward) eruption of annoyance and bad temper. Surprisingly, I noticed that the root cause was the growth I've had in my professional skills and knowledge! I have grown as a professional in my field of expertise and I have become aware of it, acknowledging my "superior" knowledge base about certain topic and automatically counting everyone else less knowledgeable than myself. I call this pride, a new addition to my existing array of prides.

I was surprised because I never experienced this kind of pride. Ok, I've been proud over things I've managed to do well, but at work and at studies I've always had an attitude of learning. Nowadays I've gained experience at work, allowing myself to feel good about what I do, but at the same time producing the feeling that I know what I am doing, adding weight to every word I say about my field. This is something I don't like in other people, and now I find it in myself.

Pride comes in a sneaky way, when one is not expecting it. The devil fell prey to the trap of pride, when he didn't realize that he was losing the real ideal of his position vs. his Creator. Same pride is sneaking upon all of us every day. Each time I see myself in the light of God and recognize the pride in me, I eagerly shake it off and want to start anew. Then when time passes by it sneaks back in through different ways and paths, and I really need constant "check-in" with God to stay awake and keep shaking it off. Living in the Holy Spirit might also blind us from seeing the real-self that we are, because pride enters e.g. through the knowledge of "I'm doing great!" Paradox, another one.

I tend to think that this pride is what changes people, often unnoticed. So many stories of honest and just people, who become greedy and unjust after gaining position and power. It doesn't happen in a moment, but little by little pride takes ground in human heart, blinding the views and guiding into wrong direction. At some point one cannot even recognize the situation he is in, unless miraculously Holy Spirit opens his eyes through some accident or sickness. Paradox.

What is the learning? Growth brings pain but produces quality, this is the spiritual growth. Growth also adds responsibility, because the higher you climb the harder you fall, thus one needs to constantly be aware to not fall into the trap of pride. Growth in areas of material and skills, especially when bringing praises and adoration from other people, is leading into even more temptations towards pride. Human nature is so inclined to pride that it needs only a scent of self-sufficiency to start the engines of pride, and this engine has constant inflow of fuel and motivation to keep itself going and growing forever. The only cure is honesty and holy illumination, where the true nature of man is revealed and recognized, then the restoration can begin and fight against pride gets its chance. And this fight brings growth, adds pain, and produces quality.

Paradox. The paradox spoken by Jesus in the Gospel of Mark, chapter 8 and verses 34-37: "If anyone wants to come after me, he must say 'no' to himself. He must pick up his cross and follow me. If he wants to save his life, he will lose it. But if he loses his life for me and for the good news, he will save it. What good is it if someone gains the whole world but loses his soul? Or what can anyone trade for his soul?"

... weigh the options and calculate the costs, despise the temporary pleasure for the gain of eternal reward. I need to think about how to deal with this new pride in my life... :)