Free unsollicited editorial comment...

Free thoughts of a quasi-politico-social nature, just as they arrive in my head on a beautiful spring morning in Svealand…Happened onto some rank ugliness whilst chatting with my son in front of the computer, he dialoguing with friends on issues of the world, as he does so well…A too-well-known site dedicated to hate, hate supposedly that God feels for supposed groups of human beings in pre-selected countries, cities…If one can even put God and Hate in the same sentence, it must mean, as I understand Scripture, out of His shining purity as holy God, His aversion to certain attitudes, behavior, actions of mankind and not hate for persons, places, cities, countries, for the greater Good that He desires for us all…Perhaps this is too fine a distinction for the folk at God Hates Inc. to grasp, it certainly is not the only thing they can’t grasp…They just love to hate, that’s all, they actually like to hate, makes ‘em feel big and powerful and superior and, I suppose, gives a certain meaning to their otherwise pathetically empty existence…They hate everyone that’s not themselves, I guess, they probably hate me, too, after all, since I have earrings, live in Scandinavia, and don’t drive a Chevy truck…Actually, for sometime now, Saab has been owned by GM, so in a sort of metaphysical way I do drive a Chevy…Hard to put a 3-tier gun-rack in a Saab 900…But don’t be fooled, no matter what they say at Westboro Bat-guano So-called Church, these people, though they freely use the name of God and have mental delusions that they are speaking for Him, are not Christians, at least not in the sense that they have the slightest connection with the One actually named Christ, and so we can, as far as Christianity goes, simply ignore them…God doesn’t even acknowledge them, recognize them as His, and some day that fact will be made acutely plain to them…Surprise!…Reminds me of when I was 17 and living in a suburb of Dallas, Texas…One summer day the Original Coneheads rolled into town, those pointy-headed KKKlowns, set up camp on strip-mall parking lots with their signs that, for some unknown reason, had words on them like “God” and “Love”, concepts that the Scary Ghosties knew and know nothing about, how strange…I wrote to my local paper then that these folk certainly could be called a lot of things, but not Christians…Today we see the children of the same sad, hate-filled lot from 1974…Same unchanged evil human heart as 33 years ago, never known the touch of the real Jesus and His Grace…Talk about sad…

So even though, human as I am also, I want to respond with the too-easy “Well, guess what? God hates YOU! Neener, neener, neener!” ("Neener" always gets 'em, have you noticed?) I won’t, because I will not come down to your level, somewhere in Bottom-Feeder Land…Besides, He doesn’t hate you either, amazingly, even you…The wonder of His Grace!…No, but He doesn’t like what you’re doing, especially bringing His Name into your sludge-fest, appointing yourselves as His so-called angels while revealing your actual demonic natures…So the day will come, I don’t know when, when He is going to stop you in your muddy tracks, the Real God is gonna show up, you’ll answer to Him whose Name you use, you’ll look around for some kind of way out, the only one will be to repent and turn to His Grace that no one of us deserves…You will be alone before Him, ‘cause the rest of us that you hate will be where we’ve been for a long time, living life in His Love and communicating that Love to the world and the humanity He created…

But enough of this, it’s a beautiful day outside!…

And rising...

Berlin rising...

Berlin Tacheles...

Berlin: streets and walls continued...

More Berlin...

Berlin: streets and walls...

Ahoj, or something...

I am in Prague (Prag, Praha) after 4 days in Berlin...Stayed at new friends' place in Frederichshain district of East Berlin, where the student revolts first started in 1989 leading to the downfall of the Wall...Funky, gritty, grime, you think SoFo in Stockholmtown is funky, you ain't seen it, brother!...Yet, so positive atmosphere, warm people, I guess they work together to make it all work again as they still rebuild and transform and modernize...A small church near Ostkreuz meeting and worshipping on this Eastern Easter 2007, we share about New Life Stockholm and learn their own story...Jesus lives, in East Berlin...Graffiti murals, sections of the wall and dead zone, hypermodern steel and glass archtitecture, U2s Zoo Station....An alternative arts collective in a recovered squatted building called Tacheles, with galleries, studios, metal shops, cafes, write your own message on the wall...JESUS IS RISEN!..

Praha...In the Cafe Slavia, hangout of the dissidents, the playwrights, the theater people, the future president Vaclav Havel, with our friend Mark, the most Czech of the cafe-culture, clunking trams go by....Laura has her portrait done by Ladislav on the Charles Bridge, skateboarders up on the marble plaza over the city where Stalins megalithic statue was brought down...Hey, you leaders of the world who oppress and rob and starve your own, your days are numbered, Psalm 90 says so...Freedom!...Going to help with an English camp now, up in the Czech mountains near Poland...So great to be here in this part of Europe for the first time, cruising with the family, meeting dear friends again, and missing Sweden and Nordic skies and friends and fika, but we'll be back in a few days...

Ciao for now...