DANG!

Sarita and I've been married for nine years today.

It's been an awesome journey featuring three wonderful kids and tons of great moments - but what would you expect when you get to live with the sweetest girl on earth...

here they go again

Minus-sign is in dock for a while and now the boys are here to salt your wounds.

Check it out, it hurts. :)

good job, niku, juhana, and the rest.

hammer it!

the boys were watching children series on TV and Olivia wanted to have some fun. What a bitter sweet little sister there's growing.

some *bloody* starter for the summer

There is an interesting/revealing/regrettable episode at RV-lehti, (Pentocostal rooted, christian weekly magazine) where my dear friend esa turned out be the unfortunate launcher. It all began with the tiny "how is it for you" - column, where various pentecostal leaders are confronted with varying questions - often touching ethical choices that they personally do.

Last week they asked Esa about eating blood containing foods - of which traditional finnish menu includes a few. What does that has to do with ethics, someone might ask, but it does in Finnish Pentecostal world, anyway. And that's the interesting part of the episode.

Different to many other evangelical christian churches, the pentecostals quite commonly do abstain from eating blood. Similar to many other revivalist denominations. The scriptural foundation of this is found in acts where the gentile Christian converts are advised by the Jerusalem council not to eat food offered to idols, and blood etc.

The other evangelical denominations do have the same passage in their bible as well, but the difference in the application comes from way they generally relate to the reading of the text. To simplify it to simpliest core, pentecostal try as much as they can to take the text as it first seem to read, and apply it, whether it makes sense or not. And when it says "don't eat blood" what else could it mean. This was the revealing part of the episode...

Well, Esa tickled the crowds from right there, saying that he might well eat blood, and since the column is so tiny, he based it on a couple of sentences, which apparently were too little to gain credibility. This week the "readers forum" was packed with some bitter replies to "the leader of our youth" who leads the kids astray. That's the regrettable part.

The issue might have been a bigger deal than Esa expected, and the reaction shows that it touched quite sensitive spots in lives of many. One is of course - the always so sensitive - personal ethics, where each one of us is quite touchy. The other one - the one that blew it up in flames - has to do with the shallow nature of the literal reading. If your understanding of the foundational elements - such as the bible in the life of a believer - is hanging on your deliberate choice of not understanding it, you are prone to get upset if someone is challenging you with understanding that has lead to opposing applications. All you've got left... is your anger and attack to the supposed motives of the challenger.

It's just so disgusting when it's only issues such as this that ignites the anger. Just like there would not be real issues to be mad at in the world we're living in.

Other unfortunate side of the episode, that makes me feel sorry for my brother, is that he was not given a coverage to better explain his view on this week edition, when the replies so openly attacked his name and person. Cheers to Esa, and let's have a moment of silence for the sake of the holy wrath, that occasionally reveals itself in such unholy ways.

Sarita took the boys to swim at nearby stretch of a beach (the beach spreads 20 meters total, but it's at walking distance, and enough to dig holes until your skin peels off...)