Studulanudu

More from Eyjafjallajokull - The Big Picture - Boston.com

2010-04-26T14:55:00.001+02:00

I.

2009-10-23T19:01:00.003+02:00

I. they caught you right outside the door

Sent some thug with a knife

Because you were on your way to new friends

Because you dared to break away

Tribal clan neighborhood revenge

In the name of honor

In the name of revenge for shame brought

Some twisted sense of justice

Some twisted little minds of cowards

Goon squads with knives and religion

Don't know where they are

Not back in the homeland anyway

Export their honor issues and love of a fight

Love of violence they actually like it

It makes them feel big feel powerful feel in control feel like men

What kind of community is it over there

that sends pathetic clowns with phallic weapons to attack

women on the way to be with friends

with a whole clan-neighborhood and culture who approves the act?

I. there is another community over here who will take care of you receive you love you

You belong to Something bigger called Love

Who speaks freedom to be believe change grow worship live think

Shame revenge and twisted honor nailed to a Persian instrument of execution and torture

To free goons idiots cowards thugs sinners me us all

I am still here...

2009-10-09T23:27:00.004+02:00

Well, it has been a while since I was over here on this space, was in another space, dude!...Mostly Facebooking it, but my Facebook page was not, as this one, designed by my son Patrick...I guess I had a few readers over here, now I have like 48 photo albums on Book o' Face. I have trouble remembering to Tweet on Twitter, as if that was at all of the least ultimate importance...

Still here in Stockholm, Sweden, and loving it more all the time, the place, the people (most of them), the work bringing Good News to this land...But I also have a growing interest in helping the Love Revolution in Christ go forward in specific places I have recently spent time in and continually find myself praying/thinking about: Berlin, Oslo, Prague, Nantes, based on real human contacts and new friends in these places, not just my usual enthusiastic wonderment at most every place I have been (Zwolle, Dresden, Luleå, Lübeck) or want to go (Tokyo, Oaxaca, Reykjavık)...And San Francisco is still no.1...

But it's cool, if quite difficult emotionally at times, to have our kids in Santa Cruz, Nantes, and Stockholm simultaneously, and Skype-conference. You don't know how life will turn out looking when you're 52, but it is all grace from God, another year/day/minute! I am still grateful!..

Kvinnodagen 2009...

2009-03-07T16:06:00.003+01:00

Tomorrow is World Women's Day ..Världskvinnodagen. I have just finished decorating cookies for an event in the living room of good friends in Aspudden...I also finished a sermon to be given at Tomaskyrkan tomorrow on a woman from the Mediterranean coast of Lebanon who came to meet Jesus one day while he was trying to get a little down time by the sea-side in a friend's house. She was distraught and desparate, fearing for the life of her daughter, who was under the influence of demonic forces...She knew something about Jesus, she was from a Phoenician, Greek-speaking background, not at all up on the details of the Jewish Messiah, but only knew that this must be the One who could help her...She could have gone to Eshmuns temple only 3 miles away, the pagan god of healing available to all her peers...a new outlet opening near you!...maybe she had...and it didn't work?...

Jesus sees in her what He calls a great faith, she knows it is He who is God with us, it is He who can help her, she has come all this way, all Jesus has to do is say the word, the Word, and it is done...She knows that we all live and move and breathe and eat and love and laugh and enjoy good times from the gracious hand of the One true God of Israel, and that He is right here on this beach...

Her daughter is healed, set free, from a distance, totally wireless...This Gospel story has a happy ending. I think of all the women crying out for deliverance, for themselves and their daughters and granddaughters...Like the often clueless disciples who also yelled out to Jesus that she ought to be sent away, she's really bothering us, bringing in the downer vibes, the men in charge of many of these women's cultures, leaders, or the men who dominate and oppress them day after day, the idiot possessors of power in their land, just tell the women to shut up, stop crying, stop screaming, stop having dignity....They are the demonic powers today, women's daughters terrorized, beaten, repressed, exploited, sold, bought, genitally-mutilated, harassed, held back, held down under glass ceilings...

What do I, personally and experientially, and as a man, know about any of this? Not a damn thing. But I listen, observe, live and work with women, have my own daughters, a wife who herself has taught me so much...I recently saw the eyes of a mother who, like this one with Jesus, was terrorized in fear for the safety of her children in a faraway land, and for her own safety, because she, as a woman, had dared to decide for herself what she will believe...No, I don't pretend to know the half of it, nowhere near!...But I see Jesus, who proposed a different attitude, who elevated the status of women in those days, who does so today in the living out of His Word in community, whose very words judge our world cultures, bringing men and women back into right loving, repectful, dynamic, beautiful relationship with each other and with the One who made us in the first place!

So my sisters, Eshmun isn't going to be able to help you, I am afraid, I am learning to understand your collective movements and alternative lifestyles and gender issues, and every so often you hit dead on to what Jesus has in mind, and I will gladly share your outrage and striving for dignity and respect and the end of violence, oppression, and exploitation...Yet I believe the One who met that Phoenician woman--I'll call her Rita--and helped her is ultimately the only Hope for us...

I celebrate and pray and stand with you today...

Alleluia...

2009-02-19T23:32:00.003+01:00

Lift up your hands and say 'Alleluia!'...

On with the Love Revolution...

2009-01-27T12:51:00.003+01:00

Now on with the Revolution from below, from within, from inside, revolution of love, the New Society, the Alternative from God, one human heart after another, pay it forward 'cause He paid it backwards and for all time, we will not try to redeem what is fundamentally corrupted from selfishness, power, and greed, we will simply show the world how It Is Supposed to Be through Christ and His message, not a sub-culture without contact with humanity, but rather a new society within society, with and among our neighbors, walls coming down with the sledgehammers and jackhammers of the Good News...OK now you got me started! Break for lunch everybody, then we meet again...

Pekka...

2009-01-18T23:11:00.012+01:00

Today I got the news about a friend, Pekka, that, last week, his life came to an end...We were not close friends really, and long periods would go by when I didn't see Pekka around, but we have talked and hung out a little in the church café over the last 4 years, and we had prayed together a number of times, which is saying something...I sat with him the very first time I attended an all-Swedish language service back when I couldn't say much...He was from Finland, he was a very good folk guitarist: once he played accompaniment to our friend Maria who was belting out soul-blues in Roumanian: wow!...He and I sat quite a few times and discussed music, he was a regular at our unevenly-frequented Jazz Corner evenings. As recently as a month ago we were talking about the untimely death of a shared favorite jazz artist Esbjörn Svensson...Pekka sat out in the New Life Café a lot during meetings, and so I would find him there and stop and say Hi...The last exchange we had was around Christmastime this year, when we were talking about a family trip we'd made to Helsinki in July, and he asked about my son Patrick and daughter Claire, how they were doing and all...I appreciated that interest he showed...In fact, I will remember, among other things, the fact that I usually felt better after talking to Pekka: somehow our short conversations, his eager, interested questions, even the subject (music, travel, Finland, America, guitars) would lift me up. Thanks, brother!

Because he was a brother. In Christ. He was also alone. I know he was, for many who knew him a lot longer, someone who had deep needs and struggles after a hard go of it in this life...A few had closer, regular contact with him, giving over and over again of their time and company in earlier times.

You know those people who are not really close friends, and you don't know real well, but you see them over a long period of time, have sporadic conversations, and they, on some level at least, become a part of your life anyway, they add something good, they enrich your life, and you are sad to see them go, and you will miss them.

And I am sad because he was alone out there somewhere.

I will miss Pekka. It ended here too soon. But, brother, I will see you again some day, where you are now at peace, you are home among countless friends, no one is lonely, you are with the Lord, and someone is enjoying a new song you are playing....

Peace to the memory of you, our brother Pekka.

(photos: Pekka playing at 59 Minuterfest, 2006, and Östersjön seen from the Viking Lines boat to Finland, 2008 )

The time of year...

2009-01-17T12:07:00.004+01:00

This is that time of year when you enter any café in Stockholm and notice that the place is absolutely jammed, no more seats at certain hours...Of course, everyone, including me, likes coming in out of the cold, for that cappuccino- or latte-fueled fika stop and a bit of conversation...Then you notice that half the people in the seats, on the wall-benches, have no heads: it is so many down jackets sitting next to their owners, jackets so thick and heavy and non-compressible that they don't just hang on a chair-back, and, hung on the few coat-hooks in the entry, are like small people free-climbing the wall, blocking the corridor...So, actually, only half the people in Kaffekoppen or Fix or Vurma are real (some exceptions)....So that if one insists on occupying that bench-seat by the window under the North Face pile, it pushes a small wave of high-tech fabric upward and outwards, making the whole place that much cozier...I have actually lost a whole kardemummabulle under the Winter-Rea on the next table, and accidentally put on some else's black coat, while simultaneously sweeping clean the other table with my-or someone's-sleeve...The risks of my favorite cafés in January: it's worth it.

Pepparkorv!...

2009-01-11T00:45:00.003+01:00

I just have to say right here, so I think I will, then, that if you want to have the korv (sausage or hot dog, depending) of your life so far, Livets Korv if you will, check out, if you're in Stockholm, Oves Hjulkorv AB cart right next to the steps of the Konserthus on Hötorget, by the lofty exalting sculpture of naked people...They (Ove and Co., not the naked statues) have a menu of exotic wursts and sausage and the usual boiled and grilled, but I tried the home-made Pepparkorv...Baby! You may never be the same again! You can even request it grilled dark or light...So many options!...For when you eat on the run, or walk...Love that svensk fast-food...Keep your Oscar Meyer and Ballpark, gimme Solna Korv, Wurren, and Ove, and that Swiss guy on Hamngatan...

Så gå då...!

2009-01-06T23:49:00.003+01:00

Okej! Time to get up off the Trettondagensoffa and get gå-ing back to work, down to the City and onto Kungsholmen for some big-time cleaning, painting, throwing away, and enjoying John's stroopvaffels...Gotta get mine and Derek's office space into that neo-post-industrial-Berlin-Tacheles look we want...Viva metal ventilation tubing!

Gotta meet with Synergy friends on our developing arts network to impact society with hope and beauty...Fika with Sam to officially start the Revolution around here...Walk with my Tomaskyrkan friends from one island to their new home on Kungsholmen: we will sing and praise and pray all across Västerbron, a service with an unbeatable view...Prayer Week...Strategizing with the HOJS-gang on new expressions of the church all over this land...Counsel, advise, mentor, teach, tell jokes, fika, yep! Holidays are over, let's go...Come on, I know this great place near Hornstull...!

2009-01-05T00:23:00.003+01:00

Happy New Year, friends!

Bonne Année...

Gott Nytt År...

Here's to more lights across the dark landscape

Flashlights pointing up to the sky

From every place where love and faith can be located

Spreading constellations

Hope justice holiness love beauty respect dignity

Brighter nebulae connected by pearl-bands of light

On earth among us the human metropolis

One more heart at a time

Given to filled by love of Christ

In 2009

(guitar designed and built by laura webster)

New look...

2008-12-26T18:31:00.004+01:00

So for the New Year, I asked Patrick (ze Pattez) to change the look here, to blue it down, make it easier on the eyes, remind one of sea or sky or ice or windows in a sleek new building...Thanks, Pat, for the freshening-upping!...(he did the background motif while we were Skypeing). The title box contains a section of the beautiful Nya Operaen building in Oslo, Norway ... as well as "the Lord has created everything beautiful in its time, and He has placed eternity in their hearts", quote from Ecclesiastes, the Preacher. I am as struck by man-made beauty as by the Creator's original works!

Well 2008 is winding down like one of those bobbling spinning tops nearing the last revolution, with 2009 beginning in uncertainty and fragility for so many, new perspectives of all kinds, many unforeseen, to add to those whose lives have never been all that sure and solid from day one...From the kitchen table of this little rowhouse on the farthest northeastern edge of Stockholm, with heat and light and family all here, I pray for friends, for this land, for family, for this world, thank the Lord for the grace-gift of a new day, and, looks like, a new year...Hard to imagine what 2oo9 holds in store, here at latitude 58 or elsewhere, new and wonderful things to be sure, with a wide-awake dependency on the God of life for all things, with gratitude...Hope for more peace and joy and light in the darkness for many in Christ! I want to know Him better, and introduce many to Him, in 2009...

Peace!

2008-12-25T20:41:00.003+01:00

hey! i should be back here soon, i have been pursuing an extra-blogspot life these days...but you can't really develop your fascinating viewpoints or rants or get too free-verse-poetic on the Book of Face...if you are reading this, then you, for some reason, wonder what I might have to say about something, and the fact that you're still checking in here sometime after July 2008 means something to me...so this will be for those non-sound-bite ideas...Så jag kommer tillbaka hit alldeles strax...

Oh yes! Merry Christmas! God Jul! Feliz Navidad! Joyeux Noël! Noeli'nziza!

Hemma igen...så att säga

2008-07-27T00:03:00.003+02:00

Nu är vi hemkomna i Sverige sedan den 13 juni, och det känds underbart och ljuvligt fast någorlunda som om det behövs att vi återanpassar oss lite grann till detta nya läge...Närapå ett år ska v i ha tillbringat i hemlandet, med mångahanda familjåterföreningar, evenemang, resor korta och längre, engagemang i tjänst till andra medmänniskor, samtal, nya vänner, gamla kompisar, otaliga espresson som imundigats mitt i något kalifornienskt asfaltomgivet köpcentrum med palmar mm...Tacksam och beundrande inför Gud ja, det är jag...

Under de här senaste 7 veckorna har vi klivit på tåget igen, vardagen i Svealand, nu då det är sommar, nästan alla i omgivningen bortrest åt alla håll, livet i slo-mo...Vi packar upp hushållet, flytter in, öppnar fönstren, njuter av stillheten och ron i kvarteret, börjar om i arbetet så småningom...Lite regn men detta kommer inte å störa oss efter 40-grader i Centrala Dalen, 18-25 tycker vi mest om nu...blåsigt ute på Domarudden, sol och vind och salt i ansiktet ute till Sandham, mulet och molnigt med soliga genombrott emellanåt på väg till Oslo med bilen och tillbaka...Vi väljer att bara åka korta distanser, vi har haft gott om livet utifrån resväskor på sistone!

Nästa vecka då, liten Vikinglinekryssning till Helsingfors i 3 dygn, kvinnorna och jag, vi gillar stora båtar och skepp och oändliga sjö-och-havsperspektiv som hamnar bland små öar, kobbar och skär utanför någon vacker nordisk huvudstad, inte du?

Läser Peter Halldorf just nu...Otroligt att jag inte gjort det förrän jag lånade Jungfrumark av vår vän Anne Grethe i Oslo förra veckan...Av någon mystisk anledning läser jag boken på norska...Slik er det!

iChat tidigare ikväll med sonen Patrick, kvar i Kalifornien...Tillsammans i soffan med äldste dottern Claire, som bor hos oss ända tills 1:a September, vi ägnar en dryg timma åt alla slags skoj och skratt MacBook oss emellan, skärm mot skärm, Beth som till varje pris undviker kameran men inte hinner...

Livets sommarrytme i Svealand, mellan Kungsholmen och Åkersberga, mellan Roslagen och Rålis, vad den är obskrivligt skön!...Minnena från fjärran västralandet återkommer ständigt, och genast blandas med här och nu...Man ska inte bli eller låta sig bli cynisk till å säga sånt som Jag är hemma ingenstans nu då vi flyttat hit och dit med jämna mellanrum i åratal...Nej. I själva verket är jag verkligen hemma överallt vart livet än kan föra mig...

Det känds så ljuvligt att vara här....här...nu...

Home hemma chez moi...

2008-04-22T21:07:00.002+02:00

So I am here at my parent's home in Coppell, Texas, a balmy humid day when they are announcing storms on the way...I am several layers removed from "home", wherever that may be...New home in Stockholm since 2004, with friends I am not able to have fika with (until June 13!)...Hemma...Ten months in California: our home, that is Beth's and mine from 1980 onward, yet not onward...How I have loved being back in beautiful northern California, around the Bay, the City on Seven Hills with the Golden Gate, in Santa Cruz, in the great Central Valley, with old friends, and sounds from America, India, Africa, China, Mexico, Iraq, Portugal and yes, Sweden...Yet not completely home in the sense of staying, of never leaving, I will say "Adios" to more than one brand new friend made...I fly here to Dallas, my sister and brother-in-law, my parents are here in the place where I grew up...family home...

I find myself in a Chili's restaurant with 45 French people from Lyon, I am meeting our long-time friend Brigitte, with her line-dancing club on a 10-day trip to Texas...France and Sweden meet in Texas...Because we had/have another "home", a "chez nous", another adopted land in the series, whose language we still speak, the accent colours my Swedish today...I had forgotten how much I missed this, 45 people at a dinner table all speaking French at the same time, so wild compared to our quieter meals in Stockholm (man it's really loud in here!)...I am spending an entire evening in French,, like the old days, in that other home...As I drive back to Coppell, back "home" (?), here in a place I have only come back to visit for 5 days, French in my head, my family in Lyon and California, with Norwegian Sondre Lerche on the rental car CD, I suddenly have no idea where home is supposed to be, and for some reason, I smile, there at the wheel of my Yaris-capsule on the night expressway...Home is no particular place, yet at the same time, it is everywhere I may be, it can be anywhere, if I let go of my particular notions of what it should be...Hemma, chez moi, home, is wherever I happen to be because I am with Him, He is here, and I am part of something bigger, part of you over there or back yonder or here with me now: it is strangely liberating, freeing, frighteningly open and undefined and abstract, but that's all right...

So I will see you, whoever you are, wherever you are, when I get home...

Just passin' through...

2008-03-19T00:43:00.001+01:00

He was just passing through...

This morning I learned that Larry Norman died on February 24, at age 60...I feel sad, he had had some hard years towards the end, or maybe the last 30 years, to be more precise...I feel sad, not for where and how he is now, but for how he and others must have suffered over those years, while the rest of us, occasionally, wondered, probably with a guitar on our knee at the moment, what had happened to him...He was just passin’ through.

I learned his song “Sweet Song of Salvation” in 1972, aged 15, the second song I ever learned to play on my 20-dollar Mexican nylon-string guitar purchased in Juarez by my guitar teacher, Paul...The first was that Coca-Cola anthem “I’d like to teach the world to sing”...I had been to Explo ’72 in my hometown of Dallas, a sort of smaller Christian Woodstock with 100,000 other original Jesus People...Larry Norman played that song up on the same stage shared by Johnny and June Carter Cash, Kris Kristofferson and Billy Graham in a Hawaiian shirt...I was instantly impressed by the sound of the bar chords being beaten out on Larry’s own guitar...I think that day he became a model for me, an inspiration, I knew I could play and sing for Jesus and rock this world somehow...

I also remember emulating his voice, that nasal tone, or the higher register in the Neil Young stratospheres (I was a lot younger then...)...His way of letting us know it was rock ‘n’ roll, Ow ow ow ow uh hu-uh uh hu-uh ow ow ow...Lots of us did that, we imitated consciously or semi-consciously his vocal style, heck, we even tried to let our hair grow out like his...I can remember how radical he looked on the cover of “Only Visiting this Planet”, the hair, the Levis work-short and jeans, the cross necklace...Because of my own hair issues I only ever achieved a quasi-John Denver bangs-and-wire-rim-glasses look...He was the other iconic figure for some of us budding acoustic 12-string-slingers...I sang Larry’s songs at youth clubs in the mid-70s, at a coffeehouse in Irving called Ichthus Inn, even listened to another artist named Steve who had the voice and the guitar licks down even in his own material...I played “I Wish We’d All Been Ready” on my Yamaha 12-string at our 1975 MacArthur High Senior Spectacular talent show...My buddy Paul had the song about Moses and the Egyptians memorized (what a laugh, they all took a bath ow ow ow ow..) along with “Alice’s Restaurant”...In my college dorm room at Texas Tech, while the frat boys down the hall rocked the floor with the Stones and BTO, I cranked up “He’s the Rock that Doesn’t Roll” in a sort of War of the Worldviews right there...Much later I would quote a line from “UFO” to my son Patrick, as, in French middle school, he encountered random-chance cosmology and the question of life elsewhere in the universe: “And if there’s life on other planets, then I’m sure that he must know, and he’s been there once already and has died to save their souls...” About six months ago Pat heard these words on a borrowed CD in my Civic and remembered them from another land...

I didn’t know about Larry’s terrible car accident about 30 years ago, and I had only heard rumors about his mental and cardiac challenges: I don’t usually follow stuff like that with anyone, until it comes out at some point in the press...I had heard stories of baffling remarks or rudeness to fans at his concerts, but I only ever saw him play live that afternoon in 1972, and I possibly preferred to retain that image...Curiously, in 1982 or so, I went with a friend of mine, Blake, over to San Jose and ended up sitting in the living room of what was, if this is correct, the Norman family home...Larry had apparently been in the Sunday youth class with Blake’s father Russ once upon a time...We hoped to meet Larry, I suppose, but, as it turned out, we sat sat and chatted with his younger brother Charlie and looked at stacks of round paper centers on the coffee-table, little discs to be glued onto copies of the next vinyl LP about to come out...

But he was always the Street Level guy, the one daring to sing about the real stuff, like a sort of Lou Reed or Bob Dylan for the rest of us young Christians, he was in that sense a hero, a model, a forerunner...He inspired my music, my guitar-playing, and maybe most of all, my just getting up in front of my peers with the clear uncompromising message of a Savior who is coming back...He started all the Jesus Rock Thing for us...I never liked his Jerry Lee Lewis piano boogies or Vaudeville send-ups or his sometimes frankly silly puns...I preferred “Six O’Clock News” or “Why Don’t You Look into Jesus?” or “Watch What You’re Doin’”...

Here in my den in 2008, I start to realize how much he and others must have suffered, while the rest of us just didn’t know about it...I sit here and find myself crying, not for his situation now, where all is peace and indescribable joy, but just, I guess, out of deep gratitude to him, grateful for the part he played in my life among so many others...Thank you, Larry, for the inspiration, the courage, for the music, for never watering down the message, for leading the way, for keeping on keeping on even while the torment continued...You are with the Son who will reign, He has rolled away your stone...Like you said, you were just passin’ through, like we all are, and I am just glad you passed through the life of a young teenager all those years ago...See you later, brother!...

SoCal...

2008-02-24T00:27:00.002+01:00

Avina...

2007-11-13T07:11:00.000+01:00

Out in the big wide open valley
Things can happen like anywhere
But the openness gives it a lonelier feel somehow
And then the thing can be so bad so evil
Sends the mind reeling at the savagery
Inhuman acts in desolately beautiful place
A young woman her name was Avina
Saw her story in the morning paper
Then happened upon a friend of hers today
Guess her life wasn't easy wasn't clear wasn't all it should be messed up in bad stuff
Knew some bad people
Got her drugs from them owed them some money
Seven hundred and fifty dollars an 8-ball of dope her friend tells me
I don't even know what that is
Others said crystal meth
That stuff that turns humans into savage animals
One more proof
They wanted their money they lured her to a faked robbery
In our town 15 blocks away
They took her tied her up with plastic ties put her in a car trunk
Out into the open country to the south
About a mile from where I pass each week
They dowsed her with kerosene
They set her on fire left her in an old boat
What was that doing out there?
Burned her beyond recognition 95 percent 3rd degree
Somehow somehow she stays alive
Somehow she walks blackened figure plastic ties melted into her
A mile a mile the wonder of the human spirit
Collapses in a yard
Farm workers come upon what they think is a Halloween decoration
Some black ghostly thing
It is a person and still living
Until 2 days later you know like those tough episodes on ER
Heard the guys who did it got caught gonna do maximum time or more
Good I let God take care of them
My thoughts go to a person
I really don't care about the messed-up life part life can get pretty messed up
Mind just reels at the evil humans can do
One more time
And rejects the bullshit about some sort of innate goodness of us all
While someone like Avina is treated so
And human life now has an official exact price hurry while supplies last
Seven hundred and fifty dollars

O God help us deliver us from evil for Thine is the Kingdom

Would I have written this if she had just been stabbed or simply shot?
You know as in normal regular desensitized lower-the-bar evil?
Probably not and that is the perversity of it

May somehow her life be given value and preciousness even so
She had a name
Avina

Back?...

2007-11-09T17:45:00.001+01:00

They say the blogosphere is just a place where where folk can rant on and on about stuff....Who are these morons, and maybe somebody ought to boycott them, I'm sick and tired...oh, sorry!...I remember this (blog) spot, that place we used to go in a pre-Facebook world (some of us just never quite made the myspace leap, and so our pop music careers will remain the unrealized dreams that never were)...My son and I customized this template, chose the colors, and for a while I met a few folk here...I think right now there must be at least 4 people who come here anymore: Johannes, Sam, Lisa, Patrick, Claire--wait! That's five...We've all been having a real party over on Facebook, and it really is a lot of fun, the communication is lively, stimuating, I like it a lot...Especially seeing people's photos..And communication takes place in nice, crisp, precise short sentences...So that's not really the place for l-o-o-o-o-o-o-n-g editorials on Al Gore or indeed the death of hip-hop...But they better not push the commercial advertizing thing too far in Facebookville, or some of us will simply move on...We want a break from someone trying to sell us stuff or pretending life is one endless all-night party for hot singles spending weekends on Grand Cayman...Cultural snobbism...I'll settle for a jazzy evening with friends who like where and who they are just fine...Stockholm, Palo Alto, Corvallis, Lycksele, Lyon, Turlock, Santa Cruz, or wherever...Tropical islands seem over-rated, boring weather, ugly shirts...I'll take Monterey!...

Hey, some tank-ship just, and of course these things can happen, gashed itself on a pillar of the Bay Bridge and now 60,000 gallons of "heavy fuel" has spread all over beautiful San Francisco Bay, tarring up coastland, killing animals, and just 10 days before a friend of mine visits us from Sweden!...Ah, nature has quite the power from the Creator to renew-repair itself, as it/she has before in lots worse, plus human ingenuity, but still: It makes one stop and feel angry and slightly nauseous about the lifestyles and cultures and living standards that require tankship-loads of this crap (this "crap" being necessary for our lives as we have decided they must be lived) by the mondo-millions of gallons to criss-cross ecosytems, oceans, rivers, to (and I realize I'm oversimplifying) pump into our Texaco stations to fill our did-you-notice-my-pimped-out-shiny-Hummer/monster F250 pickup?...

Here in California, which I dearly love by the way, you see that, inherent in American wider culture, is an agreed-upon tolerance for showing off, that is noticeably absent in other cultures I've lived in, or at least less present...If enough people in a society agree that certain things just are over the edge and unacceptable, only the rare instance of it occurs...I'm not for conformism, but it is fascinating what level of all-out in-your-face showing off is accepted here: It's perfectly fine to cruise around the Central Valley in a monster jacked-to-the-sky Chevy crew-cab with fully room under it for use as a covered shelter for the local homeless, its bumper at the level of my Honda Civic roof, everyone knowing that it is partially responsible for those tankerloads of the aforementioned petro-crap in the Bay, that it will never leave the asphalt to get sand on the Armoralled moon-tires...Clearly, looking stupid is, collectively agreed, OK, that's seriously part of a free society, and I'm not knocking that, just makes for hilarious sights even while cormorants suffocate off Hunter's Point and coastal peoples everywhere see their lives and livelihoods irreparably altered...

But no ranting on the blog, please!...Don't even get me started on the big bad yellow Hummers...

Here's some places I haven't been to and want to go: Tokyo, Shanghai, Mexico City, Baja California, Greenland, Nordkapp Norway, Crimea, Nigeria, Rwanda, South Africa, India, Nunavut, Miami, Morocco, Tierra del Fuego...Let's do it!...If your country is not on here, don't worry, it will be...Got the World-is-so-Big-Itch, no cortisone, please!...

I am coming back here soon...

2007-10-26T21:26:00.001+02:00

Yes, it seems quite a stretch of time can go by, but I'll be back here in a couple days, hope you are still there...we've all been partying like it's 2007 over on Facebook...Vi ses snart!

I Kalifornien...

2007-07-21T02:26:00.000+02:00

Well, here we are!...After 5 weeks absence from these webwaves, mainly due to packing up stuff and flying over here to California to work and minister here for the year, and being between house in the Central Valley and cabin near the coast, with Net-access being a bit, shall we say, iffy, I'm in front of an 11-day house-sit at our friends' the Mersons, here in Scotts Valley...Got broadband?...They do!..Maybe I'll get you some news and pix on here meantime...

You know, it's a no-lose situation, win-win, to go from Sweden to California...Either way, place, God's beauty, natural and human, is amazing!...Was up in the far far north of the state, up between Shasta and Lassen peaks and parks, up there in the volcanic landscape, with forests and rivers, canyons and power stations, for the wedding of a cousin, Andrew, to Katie...Family reunion time, and we all got souvenir fly-fishing flies since Andrew is a professional fly-fishing guide...Was a beautiful evening in the little town of Burney afterwards, instead of turning in at our great little roadside Motel, I decided to walk two doors down to the local Burney Bowl, to bowl a few lines with the local people....Unlimited bowling 9 to midnight, 10 dollars, shoes are free...had such a blast!...I love bowling alleys and the folk who are usually there, and the constant overlapping PHOHNG! sound of the pins...I'm not a huge countrypop music fan, but that country-outlaw-rock, of trucks and good times, that was playing over the PA, well, it's just the thing...Can't play no Nordic Free Jazz here, just don't go...

Getting reacquainted with my homeland and its current customs, pasttimes, the social-political-cultural climate, that we only see by little slots of time through our now-become-northern-European eyes...The way cars look, what's on TV, the increasing sizes of things, how other things never change...

Favorite things return to me, those "Oh yeah! I remember that!" things: The tall tall palm trees out in the middle of Central Valley orchards and the passing Santa Fe train with its lonesome whistle, the long straight canals, the sounds of Spanish and the Latina cultures...Santa Cruz, West Cliff Drive along the cliffs, giant brown pelicans, fog, Caffe Pergolesi, my old favorite spot downtown, now boho-edgier than ever, Streetlight Records, Capitola Village, Pizza My Heart pesto slice with Patrick...Drive up Highway 1 along the edge of the world all the way up to the City, San Francisco, fogbanks just off the coast, Esbjorn Svensson Trio on the CD, moonroof open, walk our favorite American city from Mission to Embarcadero via Chinatown, North Beach and Washington Square, soaking up the multicolored urban craziness again...Thinking of Stockholm, our other favorite City by the Water, how the two cities are so similar and so distinctly not the other, can't lose either way like I said...Close friends, let us not forget, that we have now seen once again and again, we see their grown children, we sit in their backyards in Ben Lomond and Turlock, we describe Sweden and God's works there even as we hear of His great doings here in the far far West...We gratefully borrow their cars, eat their food, live in their homes, celebrate at their parties...

Gonna be here for the next year, working for the cause of Christ's Kingdom in Sweden and beyond, letting God use me here and now to push the Whole Thing forward...I'll show you some pictures here soon...You might also find me on Facebook if I can ever get my derriere over there to get that going, for now, meet me here if you like!...Love and peace...

Guess they all gone...

2007-06-13T11:50:00.000+02:00

Well, I would guess everyone's over on facebook, or myspace, or...maybe I'll see you there, getting facebook going, about to do some major traveling, so see you somewhere either in the ether or wherever...Love and peace...

1975...

2007-06-11T21:00:00.000+02:00

Getting our house ready for Katarina and Jannina to live here while we head for a year assignment in the US, pulling the photo albums with a centimeter of dust off the top of the bookcases, finding the old MacArthur High School Crest yearbook for 1975, came across...er...me..32 years ago...In the mid-70s, our young vision was idealistic, optimistic and clear, possibly due to very large glasses...

The Big Femtio på det svenska sättet....later that same weekend...

2007-06-09T00:09:00.000+02:00

Since they do such a beautiful job here in Sweden fêting one's 5Oth, even though I turn le Grand Cinq-Zéro next September, Beth offered me a big party, with a certain see-you-guys-later factor, before we head to the US for home ministry on June 15...She did an absolutely fantastic job inviting people, organizing, planning interesting and stimulating games, Pat did lots of graphic stuff, table-cards with my face inserted into famous paintings/photos (member of ABBA, me instead of Waldo, as Einstein)...And she MCed the whole shindig, with Patty Productions dance music compiles...Brillant photo essay by our cell group, gifts, including money toward a new(old) mandolin, yummy cakes from the House of Dolores, Beth and Kjell, mega Texas Taco salad, and the image of a snowy owl in the background (my favorite animal)...'Twas a truly Glad Födelsedag, as I was tossed into the air 4 and a half times...Thanks, dear friends, I love you!...

Take me to the river, naa naaa na!...

2007-06-08T23:57:00.000+02:00

After graduating from high school, Patrick, just to make the weekend even more momentous, is baptized at New Life Church, his testimony crowning his time here in Sweden..A moving moment, how cool is that to have the privilege to baptize my children who have made their own decision to love and follow Jesus!...Full involvement: I went down up to my neck as Pat went under the water...Felt like splashing the blessing around a bit afterwards!...Let His Love splash you, too...

Patrick tar studenten..Hej så länge Åva!...

2007-06-08T23:31:00.000+02:00

Then it was Patrick graduating from the International Baccalaureate program at Åva Gymnasium in Täby, after 3 years of high school in Sweden!...Well done, sir!...Wow! That was already 3 years?!...Made a number of good friends, helped them, learned quite a lot of their native tongue, hung out in their homes, went to their parties, talked about faith and God and shared his life and good humor and what they agree on as his thorough niceness...Met one of the guys on the T-bana today in the city, one who has a year to go yet, says he, as well as his girlfriend, were really influenced by Patrick's sharing of his faith and enthusiastic conviction...Lots of hugs, families from all over the region, flowers, truck drivers all over Sweden making extra cash offering to drive the individual classes around town in their rigs, outfitted with tree-branches and bazillion-watt bass woofers playing truck-rockin' dance hits...More parties, a surprise one out in Ekerö at Kjell and Maggan's with the whole youth group blessing him and sending him off, another party at Sergels Torg with the youth of Stockholm...We are proud of you, Patty!...

We went back...

2007-06-08T22:39:00.000+02:00

So, yeah, it was a fine trip!...Just now got these pix up here with all that has been going on since...It was so good to see the favorite spots, see friends face to face and kiss them on the cheek like we used to...So fine to spend time with my son before he ventures on into the next phase, leaves us for now, it's always tough to let them go on with their lives, it was that way with Claire, that strange mix of joy at their achieving goals and finishing up one stage and being ready for life away from the nest, and missing them day-to-day...But always so fantastic to see them again on holidays and surprise-visits!...Thank the Lord, they are such a gift!...

Where I have been...

2007-05-27T20:44:00.001+02:00

We are here in Annecy now, the Pat and I are...reconnecting with his favorite spots, experiences...getting to see some old friends...speaking our 2nd language with, at least in my weird case, a neo-nordic accent, getting re-accustomed to kissing people on the cheek and conversing with 6 cm distance between our faces...drinking Orangina, steak frites with Romaine salad and vinaigrette, a glass of red at La Trinquette, our oft-visited resto by the lake...oh man, the lake!...Clear azur blue water, green walls of mountains rising straight up out of the water's edge, it seems, like a fjord in Norway, veils of storm-clouds wrapping the summits, Vedette tour boats of varnished wood like nautical sports cars slicing the glass surface, no wind today...On the promenade we happen upon my old friend Godwin, my Christian brother from Nigeria, and of course, we spend a few minutes laughing out loud...What a joy to see him again! I tell him of my many African friends now back home in Stockholm...Meet Rika, from Swedish Karlstad, who has come to the church we were in here before, we speak Swedish to the utter fascination of French friends...See Roland, a friend from Seynod, the suburb we lived in here, father of Loic, a schoolmate of Laura's, he has come closer to an encounter with Christ--Wow!...

Patrick and I hang at the Bol des Marquisats skate-bowl, watching skaters, trick-bikers, Patrick gets a young boy to succeed with his first descent of a skatebowl slope without falling, by lending him his own board...Jumps later into the 13C. lake-water like a true Scandinavian...

Missed the Pentecost Sunday worship at New Life, I always like that Sunday there, celebrating the coming of the promised Paracletos, the Comforter, the Fire-Baptizer...Being here, I realize the extent to which those years (6) are part of me, my children's home, these mountains, this lake, this beautiful little city (1/10 the size of Stockholm), the roads up valleys and over passes, those days of watching 3 dozen parasailors hovering and spiraling on updrafts in front of the concave face of 2400m-high La Tournette while white sails dot the lake and people from all over the world stroll the streets, past my old favorite Cafe des Arts on the tiny island in the middle of the Thiou canal, picking up Claire after another theater production at Bonlieu Scene Nationale on a snowy night, Patrick's basketball games played in the Seynod gym, us sitting with the hard-working, chain-smoking, Renault-driving parents, all of us screaming while our boys try for two more points...

Realize too that home has become a very vague and misty concept, for me, and even more for my kids...Wherever my skis are, says Patrick...Wherever God and my loved ones or my stuff is/are?...I find myself, in the middle of so much familiar beauty and memories, thinking of spruce forests, big big skies, granite, water, red houses with white trim, a beautiful city built on 14 islands, new friends, a language I'm learning to love, cardemum, fika, ministry, and a yellow rowhouse with an ICA store nearby...Don't ever forget where you're from, someone once told me, in circumstances long forgotten...From Knoxville to Irving to Santa Cruz to Chicago to Paris to Turlock to Lyon to Annecy to Stockholm to this laptop in my friend Jon's living room, with Christ and Beth and Claire and Patrick and Laura and a Norwegian farm cat named Pepper all coming in along the way in different places and then going to a new place together...Everywhere we have been is part of us...I am a rich man!...

Patrick off to Stephen's tomorrow, me hang with Jon and over to friends from my old cell group to meet their newly adopted daughter and talk about jazz drummers and life, emailing home, visit the old neighborhood in Seynod...But Wednesday, it's SAS (we hope) back to Stockholm, to Åkersberga, to home that's plenty good enough for me!...It's good to go back and see where I have been...

Just a group of friends...

2007-05-24T19:03:00.000+02:00

I'm down here in the village of Revnice, outside of Prague CZ, spending some time with a group of guys...we are encouraging each other, praying, telling jokes, watching Liverpool lose to Milan AC (unfortunately) at the local bar (actually, they played in Athens...)...Then tomorrow I fly to Geneva and meet Patrick there, and we'll bop around Annecy and our old neighborhood in Seynod and check out our fave spots, see old friends, hit the Cafe des Arts, eat a real Steack-Frites a la francaise avec salade verte, St. Felicien, little Bourgogne du Maconnais, ah les bon vieux temps!...Will be nice to say hello again to the old homeland, it will be a sort of farewell tour for Patty, who will be off to the US and college soon...We pay tribute to the land that was our home for nearly 20 years, France, the land my kids were born in and grew up more or less in...20/47ths of my life was lived there, as long as I lived in Texas, which makes for a strange mix!...Hope President Sarkozy will do a good job, bring people together, be nice to the foreigners, etc...So, Travels with Patty it is!...A bean toe...

Snake cat...

2007-05-14T09:43:00.000+02:00

Shaving the egg...

2007-05-09T12:03:00.000+02:00

Czech please...

2007-05-02T16:01:00.000+02:00

Patrick is 18 years old today! Happy Birthday, Patty!...His first ever espresso, too, in Prague 3 weeks ago, a double Illy...

Slavia....

2007-05-02T15:50:00.000+02:00

In the Slavia, across from the National Theater, where actors, playwrights, stagehands, directors, theater-goers, but also political dissidents and student revolutionaries have hung out...Vaclav Havel had the place renovated and reopened...Classic decor, old-style, nice big chairs and windows and culture-rocking conversations (or maybe not...), and unique kardemumma espresso, with goulash from Hungary...The Café de Flore or St. Germain-des-Prés of Praha...Come, wear black, bring your Kafka and your friends, learn Italian phrases, enjoy the view inside and outside...

Praha...

2007-05-02T15:45:00.000+02:00

Free unsollicited editorial comment...

2007-04-30T10:45:00.000+02:00

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...

2007-04-26T12:27:00.000+02:00

Berlin rising...

2007-04-26T12:20:00.000+02:00

Berlin Tacheles...

2007-04-26T12:13:00.000+02:00

Berlin: streets and walls continued...

2007-04-26T12:08:00.000+02:00

More Berlin...

2007-04-26T12:03:00.000+02:00

Berlin: streets and walls...

2007-04-26T11:54:00.000+02:00

Ahoj, or something...

2007-04-13T15:35:00.000+02:00

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...

Smile!...

2007-03-26T12:39:00.000+02:00

Did you ever find your kitchen utensils smiling back at you?...I mean, in broad daylight when you're wide awake and in your right mind..This face met me as I was putting away the pan the other day, I kid you not!...Sure, it's not the face of the Blessed Virgin nor even John Lennon, but does have that "70s Smile" motif...So, Mr. Happy Smiley Pan says "Hello! Me Happy Smiling Pan! Happy fun joy to all!"...I couldn't have said it better: Happy day to you!...

Sundet...

2007-03-14T11:03:00.000+01:00

Looks like spring may be here, if so, it's early, thought I'd get in one or two more snow-shoe outings in before...But hey! Who can really complain?...Going to Malmö for a conference this weekend with many others desiring to see God spread His Kingdom across Scandinavia...On dry roads, so I took off the steel-spiked winter tires since I prefer the asphalt to stay on the road and not in the lungs of the driver behind me, where the tussilago flowers can grow along the roadway, already peeking out...We will cross Öresundsbron to Köpenhamn on Sunday to be with African brothers and sisters in worship in that great city...Bridge a hyphen between two cities, two lands...Building bridges is what we're about, in a way..."Strait" to my neighbor, across chasms and gaps and separation and barriers, making contact, meeting people in their world...
So midnight blue Saab 900 named "Svea" with 4 friends is off down the E4...

Still here...

2007-03-12T14:56:00.000+01:00

Yes, I am still out here, though it has been one busy month-almost-since I laid down any thoughts/news/stuff here...Although I have no illusions, I know most are out on myspace these days rather than these good ol' blogs "that are so...uh...2005!"...Don't know if I'll do that, but I like going there to visit friends of friends of friends and listen to their music-waiting-to-be-discovered...To you who come here still, we'll do some more hanging and reflecting på saker och ting, men det här är liksom en sorts mysigt väntrum tills vi hinner möta varann ansikte mot ansikte på något trevligt ställe i vår stad eller min, alors nous aurons une belle occasion d'échanger de fraîches nouvelles autour d'un double macchiato de chez Mellqvist ou bien Copacabana et parler de l'avenir, n'est-ce pas? Visst är det så...Be back soon, just stepped out...Ciaò...Hasta pronto...

Time to hang...dizzy...

2007-02-19T11:58:00.000+01:00

Well, you know I'm a Rickie Lee Jones fan from way back (Wayback, Arizona)...Her music has been a constant part of the Soundtrack of my life and travels, along with others'...I can remember where I was when I was humming the music to Western Slopes or Gravity or driving around with Ghostyhead on in a friend's borrowed car...Now I am hanging at home, not as dizzy as yesterday, but the flu is still hanging on, feeling better...So I'm sitting listening to her newest The Sermon on Exposition Boulevard that I ran out and bought just before the bug bit...Good deal at Record Hunter on St. Eriksgatan, one of my best music spots...I was thinking it would be just fine if she did another jazzy thing with Bill Frisell or another trip-hoppy sequel to Ghostyhead...But this is fine fine stuff here, different once again, obvious spiritual themes, open reflection on Christ's words from Lee Cantelon, on prayer, heaven, the state of the world, fine guitar by Peter Atanasoff, you 'll have to read the story...so anyway, I am just sitting-lying around, blogging on about something so interesting as flu, but this new Rickie Lee album takes me to some great places, among which, for some reason, hot sunny southern California desert- and city-scapes, music for driving across open landscape or motel-suburbia, but also great with my snowy Swedish forest-scape and Stockholm rooftops...driving up to Löfsdalen in the Saab on Friday, I'll bring it with me!...Now, back to major hanging, midday Swedish TV, convalescence...Be well! (photo by Lee Cantelon 2006)

RLJ...

2007-02-15T15:39:00.000+01:00

...i am going out and getting the new rickie lee jones record, like, any second now...

(photo by lee cantelon 2006)

Flying Valentine's Day Patty...

2007-02-15T15:27:00.000+01:00

Väsjöbacken 14 02 2007...Patty von Webster in the sky...360s à-go-go, even 540...another trek over to Sollentuna, with almost the whole place to ourselves and a few freestylers...photos, film, coffee in the ski outpost café with Discovery Channel on the wall-TV...a sultry -1 C but the local lake can hold a loaded snowmobile...Fantastic day with my son!...

An appeal...

2007-02-13T16:15:00.000+01:00

Norra Station, Stockholm, 13 february 2007: On the eve of Valentine's Day, All-Hearts' Day, an urgent appeal...

Göteborg Opera, man...

2007-02-10T23:54:00.000+01:00

God is smiling at me...

2007-02-05T12:11:00.000+01:00

When you feel God looking at you
Is he frowning is he smiling is he maybe
Laughing at you or laughing with you
I feel God smiling at me
I imagine his face what it must look like
Sort of giant bright orange ball like the sun
Like those jovial smiling suns in esoteric bookshops
But somehow happier round cheeks and wide smile
Eyes nearly closed with wrinkles in the corners
Bright lines of joy radiating outward happy crow's-feet
Like some people do when they smile
Can't keep their eyes open invades their whole face
Like my friend Steve in France
Like the Coca-Cola Santa Claus from 1961
Like the baby sun on Teletubbies
Like my Aunt Hildur who lives in heaven with Gordon
Who see the same huge bright smiling face
I feel God smiling at me

Feeling overcomes me as this little blue train rolls on to the city
Spruce and birch and granite rock and red and yellow houses
Graffitied bridges shopping centers tunnels water sky
Feel my soul responding my soul smiling back
Inner warm glow answering huge massive love
Transferring outward to face to cheek muscles
Drawing out a smile noticeable by fellow passengers
A smile for no one in particular and for everyone in general
Somehow in this moment I can love everybody
Look out at low December sun and clouds
In orange and grey
Catch a glimpse of the lines in my own face
Seen through the smiling eyes of One who loves me
I feel God smiling at me

This is how it feels
This is how it feels
To know you are loved unconditionally
Eternally perfectly amazingly
Not for what I do how I perform
Not for what I deserve what I earn
Because of who I am
Because of who he is
The One whose shining face breaks into a big wide smile
When I walk into the room

I feel God smiling at me

When you feel God looking at you
Is he smiling?
He is smiling

-stewart, roslagsbanan dec 2006

Snön kom en gång i tiden...

2007-02-04T23:19:00.000+01:00

The long-awaited snow came couple weeks ago, transforming the Åkersberga Golf Course into a winterpark...Sunshine and minus 12 C...perfect!...Time to get on the alpine snow-shoes and head out across the "tundra"...

Still out here...

2007-02-04T23:07:00.000+01:00

Wow! A whole month can go by before you, or I, know it!...I'll be back shortly with more from my O-so-fascinating life, but for today, a pink snowscape from a recent weekend in Flen in central Sweden...

Isn't she lovely ? ...

2006-12-30T21:34:00.000+01:00

Today Claire is 20 years old ! ...

The people have seen a great light...

2006-12-25T00:22:00.000+01:00

The people who walk in darkness have seen a great light...Arise, shine! For your light has come!...

The radical proposition: That the Creator of all is a Person who loves and cares for you, is not far away unconcerned and silent, but has spoken to us, has in fact come to be one of us, set up his tent in our camp, live among us, give God a human face, Jesus of Nazareth...The Lógos of God, the Word become flesh, blood, bone and breath, giving significance to our personhood, our bodies, our lives, our experience...He is the Light that coming into the world gives light and life to all...He is here, the Light is still here, come to us as a baby in a dark garage on some anonymous backstreet behind the motel in small-town Bethelehem...The radical idea behind Christmas, after all...

He has come and He has spoken by His birth, life, death, resurrection, spoken this: I love you and I want you back!...

He has initiated the conversation, will you respond?

Merry Christmas for real, to all you friends!

En härlig och sagolik och häpnadsväckande Jul önskar jag er alla, med oändlig frid och kärlek, att ni omges av mänsklig och himmelsk värme oavsett det blir snö eller ej!...

love, studu

PS...Just went to Julotta at Österåker Kyrka at 7 am this Christmas morning...The priest read the same passage I refer to above...She walked down the center aisle of this 400 yr old church full of well-dressed families, all golden in the light of dozens of candles, holding a bundle representing a baby, saying how even the baby Immanuel was not alone in the stable but had others, human fellowship, love and warmth...Out in the icy pre-dawn afterwards, sky turning pink in the east, I felt good...God Jul !

Funny Stuff from Frida Jonsson et al.

2006-12-22T18:58:00.000+01:00

Lemon Squirrel

...some funny stuff from a very-talented friend of Pat's, Frida...sort of my own loopy way of wishing you a Merry Christmas!...See you here soon!...

Welcome home...

2006-12-11T16:01:00.000+01:00

Just to say: Welcome back home, Bettan! High fives to E och C !...Montana and Seattle and probably parts of Wyoming are better now because you were there, and you are richer and wiser...Party on in Örebro then ! ...

Glass concrete light steel...

2006-12-07T12:29:00.000+01:00

Sergels Torg mid-december...In the late afternoon from inside Kulturhuset, all is light glass steel concrete movement traffic escalators voices magazines people TV-screens urban canyon walls chrome and leather armchairs läsesalongen café smell of espresso and books...
Free lightshow Åhléns glowing three Yule trees Julmarknad new T-bana uppgång foreign newspaper with a view tattoo humans milling on black-and-white plaza paper lanterns H & M clinking of glasses laughter...
Take off my glasses I am very nearsighted so the world suddenly looks like this who needs psychedelics when you have 350/20 vision?...
Claire's favorite spot...A free ljusutställning every time...My daughter comes to Stockholm in 2 weeks, we'll meet you at the K-huset 2nd level...PS it all looks even better with snow!......

Coffee in the city...

2006-12-04T11:19:00.000+01:00

Mellqvist's Caffé, Rörstrandsgatan, St. Eriksplan...On the way to work at New Life, or on the way somewhere else another day, perfect place to stop in the falling dark of end-november, for a macchiato and a warm atmosphere in this tiny café...
Rare moment when one can even see the counter beyond the small crowd of café regulars, most standing, two or three can look out the front window, we are along the dark-wood wall with our school-room tablettes, room for an elbow and my cup...
One of the best macchiatos in the city, at the best price, a great spot!...Like to read my Kultur pages in SvD or DN, see what's on, what's "inne"...I'll meet you here anytime, come in out of the (future) slush on the icy streets, espresso and conversation in 3 languages, warm bubble of light in the Big Granite...

Here comes the jazz...

2006-12-01T16:24:00.000+01:00

Jazz Hörnan: PALT and the return of the guitar...

2006-12-01T15:34:00.000+01:00

Monday 27 November...Something a bit different at Jazz Hörnan: Jazz guitar!...Newcomers Paul, Andreas, Lars, and Thomas, from my neighborhood Åkersberga and Vaxholm, playing with Hans on piano (to spell, er, PALTH ??...)..Härligt! It was like they'd always played together, a real "synergy" as they went through classics by Miles Davis, Horace Silver, and Bill Evans, with their own unique touch...What a thrill to hear that Ibanez jazz guitar work by Andreas, the first time we've had jazz guitar at Jazz Hörnan, incredible but true...
I always wanted to be able to play jazz guitar, and so I was riveted to that sound all evening!...Fluid bass lines from Paul, caramel-tones from Thomas' tenor sax, and of course, Hans flying all over the keyboard like a samba from another planet...
Lars on drums, a real joy to listen to, some tympani-mallet solos and Manu Katché-isms on the cymbal-tops...
In the middle pause we welcomed Johan Paulsson, a post-modern troubador, who interpreted his own original songs in a style that took some of us back out onto Interstate 40 somehere in Arizona in the 1970s, on the way to the West Coast...He is inspired by images of the desert, little Calexico, little early Townes Van Zandt...His father, rather famous Swedish folk-singer Mats Paulsson, his mom, and his girlfriend Claudia came, too...His dad and I talked (I didn't know who he was...) and he said he was struck by the very warm, friendly, inviting atmosphere in this pleasant place, this unique room!...Let's hear it for good old New Life Café, y'all!...Hans and Helena and I prayed and thanked God and laughed a lot as we closed up...Around 30 people came, a number of first-time visitors...Thanks to Hanneke and Brandon and Demi for House of Fika, too...And Johannnes the Wolfmeister on sound...Jazz Hörnan is back 29 January...

Be very afraid...

2006-12-01T11:17:00.000+01:00

Until my next blog-entry, please enjoy The Alien Cat from the Planet Zorkon 32...

Clash: Stockholm Calling...

2006-11-17T15:36:00.000+01:00

These here be busy days!...We just had our Synergy arts conference here in Stockholm at New Life, with people from the world of danse, fashion design, magazine editors, film producers, club event organizers, lighting and sound people, musicians, authors och så vidare...It was brillant, as the Irish say!...Magnifique...Enastående...Bellissimo...Support, hope, encouragement to go out and pursue your artistic--or other--dreams, bringing hope to this society as those who express the soul of the culture...Met some great people in -between the sessions and swinging brooms and hauling chairs with my work-teams...You guys did such a fantastic job: Arvid, Jordana, Teresa, Ike, Hanna my leaders with your Fun-by-the-Kilo teams, keeping the Big Machine groovin' on!...Allan, Marient, Linnea, John, Mattias my mates on the committee!...Those of you who visit this page from the arts or from New Life or both: know that you are loved and appreciated and not alone in your project to bring hope and beauty to this wounded society, we are with you, too...Maybe you're in Århus, Huset, Oslo, Örebro, Billings, Malmö, Chicago, Skellefteå, Umeå, Göteborg, maybe you wear Björn Borg, Annecy, Fillinges, Geneva, Lyon, Paris, London, Zwolle, Köpenhamn, Zinkensdam, Hornstull, Skanstull, Power-Tool....We are with you!...

Kaknästornet...

2006-11-05T23:26:00.000+01:00

See you again, Tanja!...

2006-11-03T16:19:00.000+01:00

Party with the whole cell group for our dear fríend Tanja, who is off to Kyiv in her native Ukraine to pursue work on her thesis...
Jeannette, Tanja, and Franco, who said it all: "C'est une soirée magnifique!"...
Sasha sang a song by Marie Fredriksson, we gathered round and prayed for Tanja, sending her off in God's peace and blessing...See you again soon, our sister!...

Claire is here!...

2006-11-03T16:01:00.000+01:00

Claire is here to visit for a week!...With Laura in Gallerian with a group of still, silent friends locked inside the store...
We always like to do the CD-shop tour...Record Hunter, Atlas, Runt runt, Marquee, Wasa Skivor, Pet Sounds...She brought home 2 Garbages, I got an early Björk and an EST...Lattés at SoFo Café on Skånegatan, Café String was too, er, noisy...We could just live in Pet Sounds, listen to music, read books!...Didn't do Kulturhuset-Sergels-Hamngatan this time (Claire's fave part of the city), that will be for Christmas break...

Here comes the snow...

2006-11-03T15:44:00.000+01:00

November 1, 2006...Scattered snowfall in the morning, do I put on the snow-tires today?...OK, let's do it, the yearly ritual...Sun comes out, snow melts away on the asphalt, oh well...Big mama snowstorm whirls down from Northern Finland, flash-freezing the roads, catching everyone off guard...Took 1:30 to creep 400m on the E18 toward our cell-group party at 6:30, which we arrived at by 9:00, after driving backwards down the shoulder to the previous exit and taking a train in...I do love snow, though! Everywhere off the motorways was white peacefulness!...Let's hear it for Saab and Gislaved NordFrost tires!...
Earlier than we expected, we enjoy the white winter!...Pat, or the cat...

Svenska favosaker 3...

2006-10-27T16:23:00.000+02:00

Isdubbar, Gislaved Nord-Frost, motoruppvärmare...already?!...No not yet...Lights in windows, open curtains, take off your shoes, ta en tur runt i huset...ICA Stark Senap, Hemtex, Bibliotekskort gratis, first names of people, sill, limpa, jeans at work, nyckelharpa, Midsommarsafton, kräftkalas, clear water, harr, Vindelälven, stone churches of Roslagen, the letter Å, the letter Ä, the letter Ö, but especially Å, for some reason...the Y-sound especially when pronounced by someone from Lidingö...the Skånska R-sound, since it's easier for me...Used CD-shops...Swedish jazz...Åre...Dude, are you fixated on snow or what?...

Svenska favosaker 2...

2006-10-27T11:21:00.000+02:00

Moose, deer, mysigt vardagsrum i någon villa i Näsby Park, Globen at night with purple light, are these Swedish things or Stockholmfavoriter, på tal...Lugna favoriter 103,3...Sametskultur, svarta Kungsholmenkaniner, Stockholm Marathon, kaffe latte à la suédoise chez Fix, Dubbel W, Thelins, Street...Macchiato hos Melkvist, Dubbel W, Gelateria...Cappuccino hos Copacabana, Sosta, Subito, Nero...Götgatan...Tubby's i somras...Folkhemmets förorter...Lycksele...Turning Torso i Malmö...Osthyveln (fast av norsk uppfinning)...öppet slättslandskap...Fjällen...Vänern, Vättern, Visby, Volvo 240 lives on and on and on...Arlanda...à suivre.........

Svenska favosaker...

2006-10-26T12:30:00.000+02:00

Pepparkaka ice-cream sandwiches, kardemummabullar, kardemumma-vad-som-helst, kanel, Pressbyrån, Statoil, ICA-nära, Willy's, värmeljus, SL Kort, City, Kulturhuset, Rålis, SoFo, Esbjörn Svensson Trio, Hans Dietrichson Trio, white birch, spruce, granite, Kaknästornet, KTH Biblioteket, Nockeby, snö, bicycles, Levin mandolin, det fallande mörkret, St: Eriksgatan, Saab 9-3, röda hus, lakes, Odengatan, Lilla Capri, strömming sur eller ej, Gevalia Ebony, people, people, people, E18, Finansminister med hästsvans och ring i örat, Svensk Jul, Cardigans, Solnakorvkiosk....to be continued...

Fortfarande här alltså...

2006-10-22T23:48:00.000+02:00

Hey! These have been busy days, boymanhowdyyessirreebobbaroonie!...Funny how 10 days just goes by like whooooosssshhh...Qu'est-ce que c'était?...Thet was ten dyes, myte!...Just got back from the ecumenical psalmsångskväll at Kungsholmen Kyrka, where I played mandolin with my good friends Mattias R (guitar, vocals) and Marient (percusso-man, the Manu Katché of Albania), with the choirs from Frälsningsarmén, St. Goran, and Kungsholmen parishes...How cool it is to have Mattias and Carina back in town!...Great old and contemporary hymns, and then our Nordic ice-bluegrass version of "Herrens nåd"...Fika with the folks we saw last year at the same event...I gotta hang out more in these Svenska Kyrkan spots, there 's people to meet and gigs to play...Missed Seb with us today, and also Jonas from the good ol' dayz...

Check out www.synergy-arts.com and learn about the conference we are busting rears to put together... it be goooood!

Excuse me...

2006-10-12T11:31:00.000+02:00

I seem to have misspelled the name of the Estonian Church below as "Nelipüli", when it should be "Nelipühi"...My apologies to all concerned...Hopefully, I have not accidentally insulted someone's ancestors nor affected relations between Tallinn and Åkersberga...Love, Stewart

Tibblebadet...

2006-10-12T11:23:00.000+02:00

Diving session at Tibble Pool in Täby with Patrick...

Eesti Nelipüli Kirik again...

2006-10-12T10:36:00.000+02:00

Time to zoom down to the city again to speak to the young adults' group at the Estonian...Hey! The sun's already down at 5:30!...Suune, Ingrid and Margit invited me to come and speak on any subject I wanted...I thought briefly about doing "Björk's Use of Rural Icelandic Imagery-especially Volcanoes-In Her Post-Sugarcubes Lyrics", but that seemed a bit specialized albeit fascinating!...So I spoke on one of those Big Questions..."God must be a boogie-man: How Evil and God can exist at the same time in the same universe"...Admittedly not exactly side-slapping stuff of hilarity, but we had lotsa fun discussing it...There's answers, there's reasons, there's Ukrainian instant coffee in my cup, mama!..
So nice to see these new friends again, and get to know each other better!...We even had French cheese and Japanese rice snacks, but most of all great fellowship...Dolores and Jeannette, also from Cell Group, came over, as well as two Russian guys from Israel, Alexander and Yuri...

Thanks, brothers and sisters, we'll get together again real soon!

Ja ta on ühest ainsast teinud kogu inimkonna kõige maa peale elama ning neile seadnud ennemääratud ajad ja nende asukohtade rajad, et nad otsiksid Jumalat, kas nad teda ehk saaksid kätega kombata ja leida, ehk tema küll ei ole kaugel mitte ühestki meist; sest tema sees elame ja liigume ja oleme mei...Apostlite Teod 17 : 26-28

October in Norrö...

2006-10-09T16:07:00.000+02:00

Got up from the computer and went for a walk out north of our house, in Säby and Norrö, it was such a crisp, clear, brisk end of the afternoon...Too good to be indoors!...Everything is wet from the rain, it's not quite the time for the colors at their strongest...I like this in-between time: it's clearly not late-summer anymore, it's early fall...But fall won't last too long here...Berries, mushrooms, and the sunflower-cousins flaming out one last time...

Among the villas along the lake a very old house, tumbling down slowly in the middle of a terraced garden...The coming snows may just finish off the roof...

Shadows growing longer by the day, the sun barely making it over the top of the building opposite our kitchen, 10 C. outside...On the Roslags commuter train you don't pull down the sunshades now because it doesn't get hot in the left-hand side windows, one just enjoys the warmth on the back of the neck...Days for turning on lights and getting out the gloves...Looking for the candle-holders...Pepparkaka ice-cream sandwiches at ICA again...

More Bowling Action !...

2006-10-07T13:09:00.000+02:00

The Sasha-Style, legendary!...Amazing to watch...Notice to the right just one of her many adoring fans...Also 5m-high giant person on the left...
Ike in prophetic bowling ecstacy...
Robert...The secret is in the hat...
Yetti looking for the finger-holes, while taking aim, this time it's the pink ball!...

Bowling action at the Rock n Bowl ! ...

2006-10-07T12:52:00.000+02:00

Our cell group went out bowling at the Rock n Bowl in Södermalm last night...A cool little 8-laner in the basement on Mariatorget...I love bowling!...Especially with 14 friends!...Some had never bowled before, some of us not for a while...Tried on the shoes, discussed how to throw-launch-roll the ball...Time would reveal as many different personal styles as there were people...
Yetti, always good to see her!...She will delight us with her great performance for a first-timer, and by using 14 different balls...Nnaemeka will show us a wicked curve-ball all evening...Those immunologists will surprise you!
The elation and thrill of a strike! Sasha stylin' all evening and it pays off!...One of several jumping people tonight!...
Lanes 1, 2, 3: we had 3/8 of the place for one magnificent hour!...Franco sizes the finger-holes, Margit and Ingrid, Estonian Olympic bowling champions 2004 and 2005 (not really) high-fivin'...Beth and Ike discuss strategy or perhaps why Pepsi is better than Coke...

Off to work...

2006-10-06T15:34:00.000+02:00

Me going to work on the E18...

Day's end...

2006-10-06T15:28:00.000+02:00

...at the end of a busy shopping day in Stockholm...

Going shopping...

2006-10-06T15:20:00.000+02:00

Actual picture of Beth going shopping on a typical day in Sweden...

Superwide...

2006-10-05T23:50:00.000+02:00

A really wide car, that 1960 Le Sabre...

Granddaddy's Buick...

2006-10-05T23:31:00.000+02:00

Found this picture on the web....My grandfather's Buick looked like this one..It was a 1960, but forest green, seated 6 people, no seat belts, we cruised East Tennessee in it, Granddaddy giving out Pep O Mints, me no doubt picking on my little sisters, Mom wearing a pleated skirt with black and red diamond-shapes, Daddy with the reflex camera pointed out to the side...I remember a rolled-and-pleated padded green Naugahyde universe and lots of curvy glass...Back at the house in Clinton TN, Henry Mancini on the new reel-to-reel, Granddaddy's laughing at Red Skelton...Grandmama cooking some great casserole dish...Well, I'm sounding like The Wonder Years...there's a lot more where this came from...

Edsel 1958...

2006-10-05T14:41:00.000+02:00

On my birth-day, in 1957, my grandparents in Tennessee gave me a toy Edsel...A marketing and styling mistake by Ford Motor Co., a car only produced, I believe, for 3 years, the famous horse-collar front grille...the model is in popular colors of the era, swimming-pool aqua and white...
It was always kept at Grandma and Grandpa Brownell's in Tennessee...When we would travel there from Dallas every, oh, other year, I would, on arrival, run in and ask where the Edsel was, and Granddaddy would bring it out...It got played with in the dirt, in the grass, on the asphalt driveway, it got "customized" in the late-60's as I became a teenager, it all but got forgotten in the mid-70's, went to my parents' home in the mid-80's...Now I have it in Sweden in 2006, it is now 49 years old...Fell off the shelf last month, which "customized" it even more...
It reminds me of home, grand-parents, Tennessee, great cars, Sprite on ice drunk out of colored aluminum cups in Grandma Brownell's kitchen, fireflies, screen-porches, Fontana Dam, Smokey Mountains, and even Granddaddy's own forest-green 1959 Buick LeSabre with wrap-around glass, green Naughahyde and Pep O Mints everywhere...Reminds me of sisters, of playing "cars" on the dirt-piles in front of our house Dad ordered to construct our suburban lawn but that we kids turned into Interstate highway networks stretching into the neighbor's yard...
In the early 70's the toy Edsel looked like this, during the Blacklight Poster Years, when Karl Bowman and I made plastic dragster models, when Greg Chapman and I looked at motorcycle magazines, when Paul Martin and I sat on beanbags in his room and listened to Whole Lotta Love by Led Zeppelin on his direct-drive turntable and a red light-bulb blinked to the music and we drank Dr. Pepper...

Welome to the department of redundancy department....

2006-09-27T15:49:00.000+02:00

Being new in Blogland, I seem to have posted 2 different versions, typed at different times, of the same event, related below, with minor differences due to thinking I'd discarded the first version...So, Collect Them All!...Finn Fem Fel!..."Dude! I have the earlier lost version!..."The bootleg...

Love to all...

More...

2006-09-27T15:45:00.000+02:00

Jazz Hörnan on stage...

2006-09-27T15:14:00.000+02:00

25 September...Hans Dietrichson Trio with special guest Ulf Lundberg on saxophone...I love this guy's humor, and his sax-playing, too!...Performed some original compositions, like Pånyttfödese...New birth...a hard time in his life culminates in a newfound desire to play music again...And we are glad!...Mikke Eriksson on bass, with strong, clear solos and a smile, back behind the old grand piano...
We kicked off the new season of Jazz Hörnan in a new way...We got the idea from our friend Peggy to have the whole thing up on the stage...We wondered if we'd lose the cozyness of our usual setting in the foyer-café, if people would know what to do once inside the Big Room...Helena really wanted to go for it...So did Hans, so did I...2 hours left before start-time...We go for it!....Moved the whole café--green plants, sofas, tables, chairs, rugs, pillows--up onto the stage, with room for about 25 people...To guide folk there we put out värmeljus candles, like landing lights at Arlanda, guiding towards the stage and toward the fika...Pink-magenta glow on everything...The angels glowing, too, golden above the music...
Hans was a happy guy at that real grand piano, it's what he prefers, got sound-nuances out of it no circuit-board can reproduce...He performed a few original compositions, too, such as Den som söker...He that seeks...Reminded me of another favorite artist, Esbjörn Svensson...Helena sang some standards, but in her unique way: Moon River, Spring is here...All agreed the sound was better, clearer, balanced, it all felt even more intimate and cozy, I guess because we were all huddled around the band on this wooden raft of warmth and good humor...Next time, we'll do it again, maybe put some extrs tables down on the main floor for those who prefer to arrive more incognito...We were happy!...Fika by House of Michelle, a partner of House of Hanneke...
Patrik Jonsson on drums...Solos informed as much by rock and blues as jazz...Couldn't help but notice the cross backlit over in the corner..The Jazz Corner has a cross in one corner, glowing behind the music, which really is what it's about I guess...In the beauty of the music or whatever artistic medium, one touches ultimate questions and eternal truths, and the concert venue and art gallery become meeting-places for all sorts of people around universal ideas, eternity in our hearts...

Jazz Hörnan up on the stage...

2006-09-27T14:12:00.000+02:00

New Life Church, 25 September...We kicked off our monthly jazz soirées with a guest, Ulf Lundberg, on saxo, filling out the cool sounds of Hans Dietrichson Trio...I love Ulf's humor!...He led the band in some trad songs, but also in two of his own compositions, one was entitled Pånyttfödelse...New birth...after a difficult chapter in his life concluding in a newfound desire to play music again...We're glad he did!...Mikke Eriksson on upright bass with some strong, clear solos, a smile now and then: man do we love bass!...
We got the idea from our friend Peggy to try something different this time, to move the whole café--instruments, green plants, sofas, tables, chairs and all--up onto the stage in the Big Room!...Everyone will be together up there!...Momentary hesitation, would we lose the intimate coziness of the foyer-café?...Looked at Helena: "You want to go for it, don't you? So do I!"... We got 2 hours till start-time: Let's go for it!...Move out all the other furniture, inviting people to come on up front..Set out värmeljus like landing lights at Arlanda, leading to destination fika...Pink-magenta glow on everything, the angels over the arch shining golden, celebrating the beauty...We had 25 people up there, and it was even cozier in spite of the big dark hall, I guess we were all huddled around the band on a wooden raft of human warmth and good humor!...
Hans performed some of his own original compositions, including Den som söker...He that seeks...A more modern, urban sounding piece, somehow reminding me of Esbjörn Svensson, another favorite of mine...Helena sang Blue Moon and Spring is here...New folk were there: our French friend Isabel came with Beth, other new faces...Fika by House of Michelle...Hans was a happy guy at the real grand piano, had sounds coming out of it we haven't heard in a while!...HDT sold all the 7-song CDs they'd brought, too...
Patrik Jonsson on drums, with a back-lit cross behind...Cool jazz in magenta with a glowing cross, that's the deal here!...Patrik provides the beat but also launches into solos informed as much by rock and blues as by standard jazz...Showed us pix of his apartment in Hökarängen...All thought the sound was a lot clearer and especially the sax wafting up into the architecture ...We're gonna do it again next month, set out some extra tables on the main floor...it was hard to remain anonymous climbing up and edging into the sofas!...Walked into the Glenn Miller Café in the middle of a set 3 weeks ago and was immediately 5 inches from Fredrik Norén the drummer and facing 45 other faces jammed in there, I coulda played one of the toms and a cymbal myself...We had more room than they did...

Good to try new things!...And what a beautiful rebirth of another season of Jazz Hörnan...

Open Mike Night at Eesti Nelipühi Kirik...

2006-09-25T11:48:00.000+02:00

So, Ingrid and Margit in our cell group invited us to come over to Open Mike Night at their Estonian church, over on Upplandsgatan, sing some songs, do some comedy, meet their friends...In the cellar of the old St. Petrus Kyrkan, a nice little low-ceilinged sort of "grotto", could be a cool jazz venue...They open up once a month...got great non-alcoholic mixed cocktails (go with the Chalapa: orange juice, grenadine, kiwi and cayenne pepper...you'll sing some wicked RnB with that one!...) Chance to meet some of the many Estonians living in Stockholm: Raymond, Kristofer, Kristin, Elin...Learned the word for smörgås (sandwich)...Vöijleib...Now I can go to Tallinn and order lunch...
Sang some Francis Cabrel (French in a room full of Estonians in Sweden: nearly pulled a muscle in my brain), Springsteen, U2, and a favorite blues number by Los Lobos...In the skit below I popped my D-string (on the guitar, you weirdo!) and so the Cabrel song afterwards was the space-jazz version with a Cm9/6 chord where the C shoulda been...
We wrote spontaneous 8-line song-ettes for a game...ours was in 3 languages and as many keys...I had ten pennies and my cat ate my new hat, which is not half bad in estonio-svenska-engelska!...
Bustin' a Baltic groove in Franco-Estonian, y'all, Ingrid barely visible in the middle of Tallinn's Really Hot Chipotle Peppers...

So FUN !!...Open Mike Night!...We'll be back!...Cool to bring people and cultures together, listen to the Estonian, which reminds me somehow of Finnish with the music turned on, laughter is international...Thanks Ingrid, Margit, Elin, Kristin and Suune...Teretulemast!...

Open a window...

2006-09-22T13:01:00.000+02:00

Window in Dyvik, a house where love lives...
Backpack, ryggsäck, sac à dos...constant companion, I sort of "klang" and "clink" as I walk in the city...Thai silver whale-lock, City-paper, carabiners should I suddenly have to scale the side of a granite cliff-face in Vasastan...

Woke up...

2006-09-21T13:17:00.000+02:00

Woke up today...dreamed that we started serving spaghetti bolognese for fika in New Life, and also tacos...have sore throat and a voice like the SVT1 News-guy from the bottom of a zinc mine in Lycksele...These things happen when you share fried banana with your daughter on the same spoon as she sneezes and sniffles...beautiful September days here with fast-blowing clouds...there are moments when it seems I just seconds ago landed here, the wondrous thrilling foreign-ness of it all hitting like a Scania truck with moose-bars...Thank God for every new waking moment, or at least, half-awake moment...alltjämt odla tacksamhet, vid varje stund...toujours cultiver la reconnaissance, à chaque instant...Nostalgia ain't what it used to be, but I am thankful for here and now, and will be thankful tomorrow for the there and then...

De ljuvliga sensommardagarna...

2006-09-20T17:10:00.000+02:00

Café Tubby, Årstaviken, between Hornstull and Skanstull, open as long as the sun warms the dirt, ja mon!...
Bike ride to Isättravik, Åkersberga...

Den lilla röda båten och det lilla gula huset...

Hey you guys in Billings, Montana...

2006-09-14T12:11:00.000+02:00

What is the deal?... I hear you were all enthusiastic on meeting our dear friend and sister Bettan when she arrived there at Rocky Mountain from Stockholm, she wanting to experience life there and learn more about herself and the Lord, and then...what? Will you be more than just the fulfillment of one more stereotype people over here where I am have about Americans in general: shallow, superficial, all enthusiastic, go-for-it, at first, then you don't follow through and truly invite people into your homes and lives?...I think you can do better than that! I know you can!...Er, I think I know you can...Besides, you don't know what you're missing...You should get to know this person we here know and appreciate so much!...C'mon...You'll all be the richer for it!...Do people from other lands have to only hang out in the cosmopolitan big cities on the East or West Coast or Chicago to meet open-minded, world-aware folk?...Prove the contrary!...Show 'em something deeper...

Hoppas bara att det här lilla ordet skulle lyckas ändra något åtminstone en smula för internationella förhållandens skull, och att våran syster verkligen ska kunna trivas...idag så påbörjar vi en riktig folksstödsrörelse...Heja!

When shrimps learn to whistle...

2006-09-11T15:02:00.000+02:00

Hey! The title is totally unrelated to anything, just a left-over Leo Kottke song I recently remembered...Been away from this space for almost a week while my 4 yr old desktop is out for repairs, have been doing this kinda thing down at my corner in New Life Church, basement in Kungsholmen, Stockholm...Window in Johan's office offers view of sky, building-top, dumpster, and Volvo bumper...Sun's a lot lower even in the last 2 weeks now that fall is about to fall, it will catch you right in the face at the end of a city street round about 7pm, but the folk are still out everywhere...Got Cassandra Wilson's Thunderbird album and Brian Eno's Another Day on Earth intertwining constantly in my soundtrack mind--may be you also have a sample of music in your head at any given moment, I know I do, life as a perfectly scored film, preferably involving Nordic scenery and ultra-modern airports...

Thoughts go out to friends everywhere, thankful for you!...Be back shortly...

Na na na na na na na - NA! Today is your birthday!...

2006-09-03T22:57:00.000+02:00

Well, it was Friday, actually...49 years...1957...A great year for Chevrolets!...I am thankful to be here!...Birthday gifts, the first one being a new year, a new day never-before lived...An SMS from my friends Hans and Helena, expressing love and affection on my olive-green vintage Nokia screen...CD from itunes from Patrick: Cassandra Wilson's Thunderbird...A Saab-full of friends I am taking home at 1:00am after we help with inventory at the Västermalm ICA store: Khole puts his hand on my shoulder from the back seat and prays for me as I look for the Sollentuna exit, then reads Psalm 49...Myriam, Maria and Jae-sun chime in with Swedish happy-birthday song with modified words...Happy Birthday from Laura at breakfast...From Patrick, too, as he leaves for school in Täby...New Asics Gel-Odyssey walking shoes, my NBs are shot...Hugs! Oh how I love them: Iris, Kjell, Charles, Helena, Jakob, and hugs on the moving sidewalk down to the Blue Line subway...Cards!...Webcam from Beth...Mechanical pencil from Laura...A phone call from Claire in Lyon, France...Good friend and neighbor Tim and daughter Miranda come over for fika and conversation, with a Swedish Far Side book...Email cards with bouncing airplanes...Prayers...Thank you!...
Next day, ran in the St. Eriksloppet, 21K through central Stockholm, with 6500 other people...Perfect weather, get to see many interesting parts of the city at asphalt level, got rained on, my friend Johannes is by a bridge in Kungsholmen rooting for me...Neo-bohemian Hornstull and Tantolunden areas at Km 15, like running through Haight-Ashbury in 1969...I sing-screech "I must be CRAY-zeeeeH!..." to packed café-terraces and wave to the older woman Heja-ing from her 5th floor balcony...Come in at 2:06:23, not what I'd hoped, but somehow still quite happy and grateful...Family there to meet me and sit among the human sea of red faces, Asics Gel and Mizuno Wave, sweat, and Gain O-Max cartons...Stockholm-beautiful evening begins...walk a bit crookedly to the T-Bana...Happy Birthday!...
Laura in Kungsträdgården, 2 September 2006...

Dragonboat races...

2006-08-31T11:15:00.000+02:00

The sound of drums outside my kitchen window at breakfast...Pink Floyd on the sound system across the canal in Ekbacken Park...Lots of young voices...It could only be: Dragonboat races!...A twice-yearly happening here on our canal in Åkersberga, not even 30m from our front door...
Images of young Sweden...I have devoted a lot of my time to youth, in ministry and in school commissions, in different lands, over the past 25 years, I still get such a kick out out of them, it's energizing, and they are so gracious to let me hang out with 'em now and then...
It's beautiful...

Clouds...

2006-08-30T15:57:00.000+02:00

The clouds over our part of the word, that is, central Sweden, over here by the Baltic coast, have been just amazingly beautiful these past weeks!...I have always been struck by the immense hugeness of the sky in this land...I at first thought it was just due to the lower, more even landscape, compared to the jagged Alpine horizons I was used to, and that is part of it...Patrick tells me it's also because the earth is actually not perfectly spherical, a bowling ball shape, but instead sort of flattened near the poles, so that the curve of the horizon up here in 55-60 latitudes starts to be flatter, thus så där voilà! bigger sky!...We're living on a beautiful blue, er, tomato, or perhaps, onion!...

Back to the clouds...lately they have been giant white-blue-grey cumulonimbus, massing into thunderheads and producing storm fronts...I love lightning and thunderstorms, comes from growing up in the bottom end of Tornado Alley USA...My reflex is to run OUTdoors when it hits!...And those marching cumulus ranks across the big, wide Nordic blue sky...Sunsets are 360-degree celestial Omnimax, something in all directions...The best are those late-in-the-day cumulonimbus-thunderhead towers off on the horizon, absolutely colossal in scale, over the little tiny cars and trucks on the thin ribbon of Highway 276, the toy blue Roslags train, the little red Lego houses...

I once checked out a book of black-and-white photographs of clouds and skies over France... The point was to show the timeless nature of the cloud formations over the towns and villages whose lives went on year in, year out...It was powerful...I often look up and see timeless skies with cirrus, nimbus, and stratus, always up there over us, while we are born, and live, and move on, while countries make war, while people become free and are fed, while cars go from big to boxy to roundy-smooth to New Edge-angular, while we fall in love, learn to play piano, and move our lives all over the earth, animals disappear, people work for justice...

Up above the clouds, up among the cumulonimbus towers, in the open, clear sky, above the storm front, with only the sun and this Boeing 767, it is a bigger reality...Both sides now, she sang?...

Something about eternity, some kind of ecstacy got a hold on me, Bruce Cockburn's early song comes back...Lots of big thoughts from watching these late-summer clouds over Stockholm...I think of how significant and precious we are, every one of us, here on this marbled blue onion, to God, the One who is not just above all but here with us, has come to visit us...These beautiful clouds remind me of God's eternity, of His power, and that He goes on and on...Then I return to my train-and-bus trip, my work here "below", my family, my neighbor, my city, and I know it is all significant, it is a gift...And I thank my parents for teaching me the names of the clouds...

Surströmming at Larssons'...!

2006-08-21T23:37:00.000+02:00

And so it was...Nils-Erik and I opened this year's Red Wolf brand fermented herring at Larssons' home in Näsby Park, and Majvor took us through the steps to a great surströmming experience: How to build your own...Hard-cracker bread, boiled potatoes, chopped onion, butter, a slice of Västerbotten cheese, lay those slices of herring across the top like Stockholm sunbathers on rocks by the sea, another cracker on top, sanndwich-like...then enjoy!...Honestly?...It was really good! And I'm not just being my usual culturally polite!...Truly tasty!...Not at all the traumatic sensory melt-down and flee-for-your-life yuck-fest some have described, not at all (I realize this a highly personal thing...)...As good as marinated herring (sill), a lot saltier, doesn't taste anything like the scent given off..Speaking of which: the mythical smell, which I had braced myself for, especially as the opener penetrated the can, was not nearly as strong as I had expected...I have eaten much more odiforous cheeses in central France that instantly cured all respiratory ailments...And that fruit in Thailand whose smell could take the paint off walls, yet had a faintly sour-banana taste, in fact...So, shake your heads amusedly but I really like surstömming...My life is now divided into Before and After, I can never pretend to not know what I have come to experience personally and for all time to our children's children and to our collective human destinies united in one accord as we embrace the dawning of endless tomorrows of sun-lit hope reaching the heartlands of our enlightened spirits boldly joining hands and voices exalting, willy-nilly, one brother- and sisterhood of joyful serendipitous release of celestial energy towards an ever-expanding future and yes, I think we'll do this again!...Thanks, Majvor and Nils-Erik!...Always great to see these friends...

So now you know!...

Da fish...

2006-08-21T17:33:00.000+02:00

No, not there yet, going to Larssons' in a few minutes, for our own Surströmmingspremiär, but it seemed to me that I gave it a rather unfair description yesterday in this space, pre-gustative-ly as it were...I actually read on a school calender entry today that this herring-based specialty is actually not rotten, as even some Swedish friends, non-surstömming-aficionados, have said, but fermented, like sour milk (filmjölk), not milk-gone-bad, and that it was canned after careful preparation in controlled-temperature environment sometime in the beginning of summer, not last year, and the can will not be bloated, but still probably will be opened outdoors...I will compare it to my other references in odorifous-yet-tasty gastronomic events: eating the dorian fruit in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and the Époisses cheese in Ste. Anywhere, France...We'll see who wins...

May this essential clarification change your life!...

Days of falling apples...

2006-08-20T19:57:00.000+02:00

Wild apples falling on backyard lawns and roadside fence-lines...late days of summer here in Mellan-Sverige, school starts tomorrow for my kids, the rest of us sort of back in the rhythm of work, sort of not, trying to fit that last picnic in, that last swim, even as black sweaters appear on Stockholmers everywhere...Fascinating, this time of transition between seasons, just at the edge of the change...In the City we'll hold out as long as possible, sipping our dubbel macchiatos on the outdoor café-terrasses till our shoulders are too cold, the sun hanging lower at the other end of St. Eriksgatan...Maybe September will be nice again this year...I can easily imagine the whole scene covered in blue-white snow again, but that's because I love Swedish winters...I won't take you there just yet!...

Tomorrow I will celebrate that epic moment of La Gastronomie Suédoise, in the company of our good friends the Larssons: Surströmming...Herring in the most advanced stages of, er, nuclear fision, canned sometime last year with no preservatives, served from bloated cans out in the local birch forest as far from the house as possible...Please extinguish all smoking materials...I will try just about anything (except fromage corse) at least once, and I usually like it, being the curious, open-spirited Michael Palin-wannabe that I am...I'll let you know how it, uh, goes...

I love Sweden...

2006-08-14T22:52:00.000+02:00

A day off after 2 or was it 3 intensive weeks, hanging out with 150 kids out in Tensta with our Sommarkul outreach, followed by a week of Open Café evenings at New Life, my church in Kungsholmen in downtown Stockholm, music, new friends, people off the street, prayer, shooting the breeze...preached yesterday at New Life on Psalm 139, one of those passages that are just part of my very soul now, it was intense and I loved it and apparently more than a few were touched deeply, I am thankful!...Came home and my son Pat made this blog look like this...Even got my friend Sam's artwork in the title box...So today was that day off I mentioned further up in this-stream-of-conscious...Beautiful day-after-a-rainstorm here in Åkersberga, all smelling of damp woods and cleaned off...Went to Dommarudden, an "insjö", a lake nearby...The spruce and pine and birch woods, the red-with-white-trim old buildings and stugas, granite rock-masses all around crystal-clear water with the grey-blue almost-threatening sky above, 2 guys fishing off a dock like in the Norrlands Guld commercials...Family goes off to the swimming spot, I go for a run first, one hour out in the country around this outlying-not-quite-a-suburb-of-Stockholm-town-in-the-forest, horse farms, open fields, just the right temperature, cool wind...Get back to Dommarudden and family and pull off my Asics and jump in the cold water, up to my neck in wonderfulness, I can see my feet on the coarse sand on the bottom, guy casts his line out further up, horizon of dark evergreen and granite cliffs over silver water-surface...I am still amazed we are here, 2 years later, such a beautiful place, such a beautiful city way over there, such incredible new friends we work with, such nice people we have met, a lovely land I have traveled in from north to south and west to, uh, out in the Baltic...This spot on the wild edges of Österåker, in this clear water, yet one more reason...I love Sweden!