We took a walk around a nearby prehistoric fortified hill of Vanhalinna. It dates back as early as 1000-500 BC which is very early up here. The site serves quite nicely for a two hour walk around, although there isn't much left from the fortress. We did, however, see some heirs of the original residents.


On the bottom of the hill the first flowers are blooming.



On the sunny side of the hill the decendants of the original inhabitants are still keeping the hill alive. I shot the other one from a bit of a distance; one to be polite, two because it's so fast, and three because of its poisonous bite.



Up on the top, it's easy to see why did they built the fortress right here. It offers a great view over the fields or the area.



Today it was so windy it blew Olivia's hat off. (Click the image bigger to see it fly) =)

Happy Easter

We potted some flowers in decoration for Easter and spring. It's been beautiful to see first the snow to run short and then disappear giving room for the first flowers push up. In a month it'll all be so summery and nice.

The bros and I took a walk to woods and found a monster forest as they named it. We saw no monsters or any other creatures living in woods, but the truth is that they surely saw us. =)

Life framed by death

Life is framed by death. The true value of life can only become visible in contrast to death. Therefore seeing death is crucial to value life.

The starkest frame to life is its biological end by death. That's the borderline ending everything that now seem alive and true. Death and life are equally real, and the line that separates us from the dead is absolute. Perhaps because of its absolute nature and cruelty by which death removes our dearest from us, we relate to it with fear and avoidance. Acknowledging its ever-so-near presence, we attempt to remove it from our awareness and live like death would not exist. By this we create a lie that originates in fear and leads us afar from living on the value of life. Fear of death causes us to lose life. Realizing death in the lives of our dearest ones brings up a need to be close to them, to love and to be loved, - and suddenly we are face to face with true value of life. Unfortunately the moment was sparked by fear which then overshadows its beauty. For a short moment, however, we love desperately, knowing that in another moment we go back to living as if death didn't exist, consuming the life in everything else than enjoying it's most valuable content.

Death is present in our lives in other ways, too. It becomes visible in all limitedness such as the mentioned inability to really live. We were created to live loving, to connect with people in love - to love and to be loved. That's life; whereas, everything falling short from it is death - and death is what we do, all the time. Lying to ourselves about necessities and obligations - which we undeniable have, but a lot less than we often admit. Therefore, we are unable to truly live, and this inability is part of death framing our life.

Seeing death is painful, but as we come clean as insufficient, unable, and incompetent, our only hope is in grace that grants us right to keep on possessing the gift of life. Whereas, love is life at healthiest, grace is life in genuine as sick people as we are. Grace holds all the powers by which we can receive love, and by living in grace we can share love around us. Realizing death through our own inabilities leads us to the most genuine state of life: Grace, from which focusing to the true valuables of life is a lot easier.

The giver of life promises our life to continue after the biological death, but seeing death and realizing it powers gives live before death the value it deserves. This is how death serves as frames leading our eyes to the beautiful artwork the creator trusted in our hands.

The purpose of Life as Suggested by Our Trinitarian Roots.

Something to sketch out some ideas that has been circulating my (so weary) head.

The purpose of life is to live. woah. So simple, so true. The deepest purpose of your and my lives is for us to live the life. That's the reason we were given the life for - to live it.

We show symptoms of missing the whole point by focusing our lives with questions such as: "what do I want to do with my life" - as if there would a better usage of life than living it. "What do I want to use my life for?" - just like anything other than living it would be a higher goal. We are curious people and we ask questions, but perhaps a better way to phrase it would be "what is the fruit my life carries while I'm focusing on living it". But there no higher goal for me to reach, than to live the life I've been given.

Life is the most valuable thing we posses. In fact it's the only thing we possess. We do have some administrative right over some items such as houses, computers, etc through the common agreements in our communities, but all these rights we let go as our biological life ends. Whereas; the life we possess, we keep possessing as long as the Giver of Life so chooses, and what we know is that by His design we are eternal. It is a gift to us on a momentary basis, yet the only thing we actually do have.

So, I conclude that the life we possess as a gift from the Giver of Life, is the only truly valuable thing we have, so the only truly valuable purpose of live is to live it.

Now, living a life cannot be understood apart from people around us. The life in each one of us is something we share in common. We've got the same Father, Three-in-One God, that created us in His image. I'm not one to explain out Trinity, but I do deduct that three persons can be one, only trough perfect mutual love that creates a relationship in complete honesty which brings about absolute openness - resulting in unity that voids any separation.

Our origin is in God consisting of three persons in one through love-honesty-openness, who created us in his likeness, into his presence. (From this presence we were cut out as a logical consequence from our self centered activity, by which we brought a secret to openness, a lie to honesty and shame to the perfect love.) In respect to our origin, to truly live is to function upon love-honesty-openness, which is a unifying principle that cannot be applied self centered or alone. To be created in likeness of God who is One unity of three persons, obviously defines us as something with relationship to others. Any observation on human life immediately reveals that we cannot live on our own. Wherever you go you find people together, in families, villages, communities, nations and international affairs. Moreover, if you put 20 people to a room, and no matter how strangers they previously are, within 30mins you've got groups that feel like belonging together. On the other hand, our disease of selfishness is always there to destroy our relationships.

So, the purpose for my existence is to live - in ever growing closeness to three-in-one God, - in ever growing closeness to other human beings - brought about by functioning upon the principle of love-honesty-openness.

The most valuable thing we possess is life, and living it brings it best fruit in lifestyle that cherishes life in and around us. You and I exist to live, and the deepest living happens with the deepest love.

What would it mean to you on practical daily basis, i don't know. I know a few things it means to me, and I know that on many of those few things I keep failing miserably, and my dearest ones bears the worst consequences.

But we are called by our Father - the Giver of our life, to the process of restoration, and by his grace we can go on traveling towards our home, the presence of Three-in-One God, where we'll be restored perfect from the disease that currently blind us.

done with christmas =)

We are not having Christmas all year long, as the blog may suggest. It's more that our virtual socializing has channeled more through facebook, besides that other engagements of life has been keeping us quite busy.

We have had the most beautiful winter for many years with plenty snow and freeze. These to coupled created an excellent slope to the river banks, which we've tried to take the advantage as long as it lasts - which can't be for too long considering the ever warming sunshine.

Here's a couple of shots from Sunday, mainly shot by Sarita.

A couple more of lately pictures.
The kids are all excited and enjoy every bit of expecting Christmas. Last night, they decorated the Christmas tree - under momma's supervision, of course.



It was Benjamin's turn to fix the star this year.


This year, the traditional gingerbread house was split into three cabins that each one got to decorate for him/herself. This is Olivia fighting the temptation of tasting the icing sugar...


(...the temptation was heavy indeed, and didn't let her go until momma saved the village back to shelf...)

Merry Christmas

We wish you a joyful and blessed Christmas time and a happy year to come!