Nine

the best of all possible worlds. (Leibniz) this one. here. this is the best of all possible worlds. with this formulation, it is not important, how many or how placed the worlds are in relation to each other, whether they are reachable or only hypothetical. of course, one might challenge Leibniz’s criteria for comparison and all sort […]

Six

This is a poem that has worked out its theodicy from the depths of experience and witness. Or should I say here, the theodicy has been worked out for the time and place of this poem, of this theologian. The good forces encircle and cover the the one who will go through the dark and […]

Doors to forgiveness

Grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth (Rev 1. 4b-5a). God is our beginning and end (Rev. 1.8), the first and the last letter […]

The perfume incident

Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. Jn. 12.3 NRSVA Some years ago I came to a church vestry. It was November-ish. There was a distinct smell of spruce and candle-wax in […]

Ambassadors in silence

The readings are here. Silences. So much can be said about silences. First of all, because silences are, well,… silent. They do not speak back. There are silences huge as houses, and silences so tiny they go unnoticed. There are awkward silences and companionable silences. The elephant in the room, and shared happiness. The silence […]

Divine horticulture

The reading is here. There is no nice way to say this. We are all going to die. And that is that. Lent is a little about thirst and hunger. People discuss what they may eat and what not, how to fast and why, compare notes and feelings. And people want to know — or […]

by your word

stretch out your hand reach out through the blind wall that surrounds the sandy beach in a snowstorm that might or might not be your innermost being your heart: a fisherman tired beyond description of eternal washing of nets dead fish and seaweed rotten birds and shells and plain simple dirt tired of catching the […]

the witness of castaway

I am effectively church-less. I have been made to leave the church I served, when the pastor initiated not extending my evangelist credentials on the grounds that he did not see a necessity for my ministry in this particular congregation. He initiated the process behind my back, never mentioning it to me. I had to learn […]

good friday 2015

for those who wonder – i live because Christ does. there is no other way, no alternative, however crazy this sound. every good friday, for the past 20 years or so, i think of Christ’s death. of the narratives that are read and repeated endlessly for at least 15 hundred years. whom he met. who […]

give god a place

the purpose of advent is to prepare for christmas. the purpose of christmas is… what is the purpose of christmas? one answer, rather unpopular, would be: to remember that god came into the history as Jesus, and did all those great things. another answer, slightly more popular, would go thus: christmas is the time for […]

opening the Advent 2014 calendar

as Dylan Thomas wrote in his Under Milk Wood, time… passes. we can hear it and we can feel it, and we have to live it. time passes. every day, every hour, every minute bring us closer to the solution of the puzzle that is life. time passes. whether we be happy, or sad, satisfied […]

Twenty-four. Magic

today i happened across a tv-set, which showed some episode of the ‘blinky bill’ – apparently an australian cartoon where the main heroes are anthropomorphised coala and platypus younglings in search for a) christmas tree and b) snow to c) bring it to no less athropomorphised wombat adult. the quest ended with a christmas eucaliptus […]

Twenty. Gifts

i am part of a denomination which has a very strange attitude to women. women in general are, not unlike the children of the victorian era, to be seen, but not heard. women who think about ministry, however little, are to be walked through like they did not exist at all. yes, there are few […]

Fourteen. The unexpected

in the synoptic gospels, there is this narrative about John the Baptist standing in the river of Jordan and calling out to all people to stop in their tracks, think of what they are doing, and repent of their evil ways (Mt. 3:2-3etc). John was no softie. he’d grown up in the desert. he knew […]

Eleven. The trouble with Jesus

he does not know too much. he knows everything. can you trust someone who knows everything about you, your life, your motives, your desires, your …whatever? he knows all that and still loves you. can you trust this person? make that leap from being unknown to being fully known? can you live with everything being known about […]

Six. Increase

there is this story in the bible. actually, there are more than one stories of this type in the bible. the stories of increasing the existent food resources. (as found in 1 Kings 17:7-16; then in Matthew 14:13-21, Mark 6:31-44, Luke 9:10-17 and John 6:5-15 – four parallel versions; and Mark 8:1-9 and Matthew 15:32-39 – two parallel […]

the bit about why all religions are the only ones

there is the russian saying (at least my mother said it was a russian proverb, but the russians say it is a proverb of sb else further east) – the crow calls her little crow chick the whitest, the mother-hedgehog calls her pup hedgehog the softest. and is it not the same with religions? nobody […]

the dead, liturgy, control issues and living backwards

‘when people get to pray for their dead to rest in peace,’ she said, ‘they feel more at rest.’ this was part of discussion of the things to be done on the last sunday of the church year. the argument of why there should be another worship service dedicated to prayers for the dead ran […]

when all else crumbles

this remains. like the breath, like the blood that flows through the veins, like the earth under us and the sky above, and infinitely, untestably more. even when things fall apart, or when church happens to one, even then Christ is not far. he is actually very, very near. because church happened to him, too. […]

the wager

In his Pensées Pascal writes: 233. Infinite- nothing. — Our soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, dimension. Thereupon it reasons, and calls this nature necessity, and can believe nothing else. Unity joined to infinity adds nothing to it, no more than one foot to an infinite measure. The finite is annihilated in the presence […]

if i get lucky

interestingly enough, the idea of translating This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti seems to be a very good one, and a timely one, too. so, i’ll probably work on the translation the same way i did on The Left Hand of Darkness by Le Guin (does anyone have the question, what’s with me and darkness here? i […]

the ownership, or this is _not_ my church

‘this is my church,’ she said vehemently. ‘i come here when i feel like it. and the last time i did… i think it was some two months ago, there was a woman preaching, and i do not like churches where the women are in the leadership. and she did not speak with he feeling,either, […]

for the approaching synod

i still have not figured this out completely, but here are some thoughts: a) the lutheran church in latvia has reached a very unstable point in its development – a point of breaking, even. it reminds me of a willow with a lot of rotten wood, and very few living strands that ensure the flow […]

a turning point

standing behind her, the god she thinks can be lost or found. standing behind her, the god she thinks she could carry or take from someone. and two angels – messengers – before her. and beyond them – an empty grave in its darkness. behind her, the unbeknown god stands up in splendour. what does […]

shadows

frying chicken today (another epic event, resulting in a huge burn on my wrist), i suddenly had this memory-vision. of my maternal grandmother frying chicken, on the old wood stove, and us – my brother and me – waiting. i do not remember my mother’s mother very well. i do not have stories she told. […]