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And last Friday I spent a few hours making dinner for the people I live with. And we all helped out with the dishes. And there was music in the kitchen. And then I met my other friend in a wine bar where we’re trying to become regulars, and the owner gave us stickers with a picture of his dog.

And there was a bit of a storm outside, and the snow flakes landed on my lipstick and I was laughing when I walked home. This week I’ve spent every day in my painting shirt and I’ve helped my friend decorate her walls and in the mornings I have coffee in different cafes and in the evenings I fall asleep earlier than usual since I started to work out, and life. Life is shaping up. Ups and downs, there’s been a few, and it doesn’t really matter. I’ve been happy for quite a while. The faster life starts running, the slower I walk.

In a wine bar in Stockholm.

The shame of having to try

Why are we ashamed of effort? Or is this just me?

I was watching a video where this girl talks about preparing for a preaching. She was going to talk for about 35 minutes at a conference, and she prepared for it a whole year. First just by keeping it in the back of her mind, but later by starting the actual, practical preparation. She felt like she was supposed to talk about the Bible, which is kind of a big topic. So she spent hours researching, looking at different overviews and thinking about ways to put the whole story into her short teaching. She got up extra early, stayed up extra late, and fell asleep while reading. She preached the story for friends and family to get feedback before landing in the final product, the best way to express what she wanted to say.

And all I could think was: That’s a bit embarrassing. I wonder if the other speakers put in that much effort. And if I did that, I wonder if I would tell everyone I did, or if I’d say ”Ahh I just threw it together, it wasn’t that much work.”

It’s a bit of a subconscious thought pattern, but I was wondering why those thoughts do come up. Why do I feel some kind of second hand embarrassment over someone putting effort into something?

If I give someone a gift, I always act as if it’s not a big deal. As if it’s just a second hand thought. To make sure they don’t feel bad. But why, is that not just a bit rude?

And when doing things, I think my brain naturally plans according to me putting the least effort possible into something. “How quickly could I get this done?” I think it’s leftover thoughts from school, back when I needed to schedule homework and study for tests. “Okay, if I write that in three days, spend a week studying for that, and plan for that presentation the night before, I’ll have time for everything”. But it’s become a bad habit. And the problem is that when I’ve started to think like that, it’s difficult to put in more time than what I’ve calculated for something. If I have a task due in a month and know I could do it in three days, it’s not like I’m gonna do it right now.

It’s practical, to be able to evaluate approximately how much time something will take. But I was thinking, when listening to that woman talk about her preaching, that I should also spend a lot more time on things. When I can at least, and I usually can. And I should care more, or rather admit that I care. Always, so much. There are journalists who follow stories for years, painters who spend hours on the smallest little corner of a painting, people who spend weeks preparing for a dinner party that then passes and turns into a memory. I love that.

So, my thought for this new year (kind of new year, I’m not accepting that it’s almost February already) is this: Let’s care more. Let’s put months of preparation into small artworks, or speeches, or moments. Let’s be overly attentive, overly loving, more than trustworthy. Instead of thinking, how can I get this done in the fastest way possible, think: how can I get it done the slowest? What would that look like?

In Stockholm, skiing in circles

In the middle of Stockholm there’s a stadium, originally built for the 1912 Olympic Games. In the winter they open it up for skiing, for free. You can just go there and ski in circles on tracks laid along the 400 meter running tracks.

I thought I’d get dizzy from just going in circles, but 400 meters is still enough that it’s not too annoying. The difficult thing is keeping up with how far you’ve gone, after a while I started doubting if I was counting the laps right. I should have made lines for it in the snow at the starting point. Like counting how many days you’ve been in prison on a stone wall.

Anyway. I made it 23 laps before the clock reached 21.30 and they closed down for the night. 25 laps would have been 10 km, so it was annoying. But that’s okay. I’m very happy these days.

Sunday thoughts (13)

The weakness (but the strength)

I’ve gained some of my power back. Which sounds.. I don’t know, like a stereotypical gym bro? Or a cheap self help book. “Get your power back”. I don’t care much about power, a few blog posts ago I wrote about being weak vessels so that God can shine through us. We don’t have to be anything in ourselves. 

But I have, if not changed my mind, maybe entered a different, less passive season. I keep listening to preachings about how amazing and beautiful God has made us, and I think there’s a point to that which we often miss. There’s a C.S.Lewis quote about Gods love not coming from who we are, but from who he is:

“He loved us not because we were lovable, but because He is love.“

But that also sounds a bit like we’re just horrible creatures. Crazy, that God loves us anyway. And of course, we were all made dead in our sin. We’re all kind of horrible.
Or what is the nature of man? We’re horrible, because of sin. But we’re beautiful, because of redemption, and because that’s how we were made. That’s the thing. We’re not horrible creatures who then became beautiful through Christ. We were always created to be beautiful. Then sin comes in and poisons that, but it doesn’t change that God made us wonderful when he wove us together, when he created our minds and hearts and eyes.

I don’t want to argue for any kind of self sufficiency, our identity should never just be perfect without God. But the way God made us, and rebirthed us, is so stunning that maybe it should change how we see ourselves, completely. Foundationally. Not just in a sense that now we’re not horrible anymore, but in a sense that Gods amazing opinion of us is what becomes our own. That’s not pride, that’s listening to authority. 

I’ve talked about this with a lot of friends lately. That some christians live as if in an abusive relationship. They meet God, and then they get more insecure about what they do. The fear of making a wrong decision can paralyze us completely, we’re like a woman not daring to leave the house without explicit permission from her partner. Less confident, instead of more. 

And we can live our whole lives like that, passive, as excused by “waiting for the Lord”. 

But it also doesn’t matter so much what you do. And you have permission to do stuff. I don’t think he will be angry.
Or maybe it’s because it matters so much what you do that God loves to see it. Your choices, your relationship with him, your communication and renewal and love and obedience can lead to relationships and projects and art. 

Sometimes we sit around in hesitancy for months or years, waiting for a clear word from the Lord that will open the door immediately. And sometimes that’s what we’re supposed to do. But sometimes that just wastes the time we could have spent running around and enjoying the house of God. If it’s just fear holding you back, fear of failure, or fear of doing wrong in the eyes of the Lord, then it’s better to take that time and prepare and build and do what it is you (you as in plural, as in his spirit is in you) want to do. 

(Fall in Greece)

Throwback to November.
Thessaloniki is a million coffee shops. And coffee stands, that also serve pasta and cocktails, open 24 hours. Down by the ocean the restaurants were pleasantly empty after the summer crowds had left, and you could find a table to have a cheap glass of wine and look straight out at the ocean. Mount Olympus was right there, the pale shape of it half hidden behind the clouds.

We went hiking, not up Mount Olympus, but by some random mountains a bus ride away. We could see Mount Athos across the water, which is an autonomous region where women are not allowed. And they haven’t been, for like a thousand years. The only people who live there are the monks in the monasteries on the mountain.

But we hiked on our little peninsula, next to it, past olive trees and places of prayer. We were a bit frustrated, me and my friend I was traveling with. That feeling you sometimes get when you travel — like you want to find something. Like you’re there for a purpose, but you don’t know what it could be. Hiking helped. And the bus ride there helped, a couple of hours of just listening to music and seeing the landscape pass by.

We’re already looking for tickets back. March, maybe?

Happy holidays ⭐️

A christmas, like most other christmases, which is exactly how it’s supposed to be. 

(The snow has been heavy, lovely)

”Paint the sky”

Late night acrylic painting.

The lack

I’m in a cafe in a city the south of Sweden. They serve specialty coffee, todays special has a citrusy hint to it or something. And they’re surprisingly kind about my big backpack and the suitcase I’m dragging around, letting me take up space in their clean, modern cafe.

I’ve been staying with a friend for a couple of weeks, and I left her place this morning.

Now I’m in the middle of nowhere. People keep calling me and I keep not answering because I don’t want to explain that I have nothing to explain. There is not a lot to my life these days. A lot of things have been taken from me. And it’s fine. But I have nowhere to stay. No job. Less and less money left. No set path for my future. Whenever I want to start something, I feel God uprooting it. I have left a lot of things and not entered a lot yet. 

But also, here’s the thing: this evening I’m taking the night train to stockholm. In the morning I’ll head to the airport. And then I’ll fly to Greece. I booked a cheap hostel, and a friend is coming with me. Im going to walk the streets and swim in the oceans and read the letters to the Thessalonians in the actual city of Thessaloniki.

I’ve been in a time of not having a lot. But at the same time I have had, constantly, just enough of everything. The lack is not actually a lack at all. I have had food for every day. A place to rest my head every night. My life will become a bit more stable, and I will like it, and I will be grateful for it, and I will rest. But I also rest here. In the sun shining into this cafe. In Greece, tomorrow. Everywhere. Everyday, is fine.  

The dichotomy of it makes me think of one of my favorite poems, We were emergencies by Buddy Wakefield. The last line goes like this:

You call 9 – 1 – 1.
Tell them
I’m having a fantastic time.

It doesn’t look cold, just golden.

October. My hands hurt from the cold when I don’t keep them in my pocket. I went on a walk down by the water, and it was so windy that my eyes teared up completely. On the way home I stopped by the supermarket. People looked at me weirdly as I bought milk and bread. I think I looked a bit crazy, windswept, hair messy from the wind and eyes like I’d been crying.

I haven’t caught up completely with the cold, and neither has nature. The moss down by the water was summer green. Most of the leaves as well. I took photos, because there’s something about it that I like so much. The sun, the water that starts without a border. There’s no beach, no rocks or sand. It almost looks like forest, and then just ocean in it. When it’s windy the waves rise and wash over the moss. I want to live in that little place.

Anyway. Blue autumn skies. October is cold, and sad, and bright. 

Tuesday morning prayer

We’re having fun, aren’t we, you and me? I read something about laughing with you when we get to heaven, us telling you our story, and you telling back the things we’ve missed. And isn’t that crazy, you’ll hear about it then, and you’re already here now. There really is no fear. What could go wrong? What power do I have to mess things up? I’m here for such a short time. Soon I’ll talk to you about memories from this earth. I’ve enjoyed walking here, so much. I’ll keep enjoying it. The flowers, the people, the cities. You’ve done a great job, I love it all. The waterfalls and the street markets. The sorrow and the late night laughter. What a nice world you’ve made. Short, like a good night story. Long, like meadows and growing old.