Live, and Be Alive

On this anniversary of death brought to us by the very worst of fundamentalist religion, how about a celebration of life that has absolutely nothing to do with religion?

Do you have two legs at your command? Walk through forests and neighborhoods, leap and run for joy. Climb stairs with loads of laundry as some climb mountains with backpacks and dreams.

Arms and fingers that bend and move to your wishes? Feel what they touch, note the textures of the world around you. Caress and sense, support, sustain. Is this intricate mechanism of muscle and tendons, bone and joints best purposed for a clenched fist or an outstretched hand of friendship?

Do your eyes convey the light and vision of what's around you? Look, then, and see. Find the beauty in every scene and face. Know that billions of neurons are locked in complex arrays of interconnection to interpret what your eyes have chosen to look upon. Make it worthy.

Reminder

Any more questions for Hanna Pylvainen? You can email me or post a question in the comment section below. You need not have read the book to participate!

Also, a heads-up if you are in the Seattle area:

Friday, Sept 28
2 PM, Finnish Film. Kiellety hedelmä (Forbidden Fruit), 2009. A teenage girl from a rural Laestadian community decides to break out and test her freedom in Helsinki. $5 donation. Swedish Cultural Center.

Happy Labor Day,

—Free

Ask Those Questions, Sinners!

Readers, Hanna Pylvainen has graciously agreed to answer questions here on the blog about her book "We Sinners."

(Insert totally-worldly happy dance.)

So here's the deal. Email me your questions for Hanna, and I'll consolidate and forward the best, then post the Q&A here.

Her publisher is also offering a book give-away (details to follow).

— Free

To leave isn't freedom . . . or is it?

Yesterday, my sister called as I was playing tour guide to visitors from Lapland. She said she had heard an interview with a Laestadian on NPR. That's a first, I thought.

Later, I picked up my husband from the airport and he said "did you hear the interview on NPR?"

I came home and found it here. Have a listen.

It is Hanna Pylvainen, talking about her book with NPR's Linda Wertheimer.

"When I left, I was treated by my friends outside of the church as if I was liberated . . . I was free, I had thrown off the shackles of this oppressive church . . . actually I was going through tremendous mourning. It was this exact feeling . . . that to leave isn't freedom, that made me want to write the book."

"You've Just Got to Keep Your Mouth Shut"

Readers, I hope your summer is going well. Ours was supposed to be "lazy" -- no camps for the kids, lots of sleeping in and going to the beach -- but somehow we've managed to pack tons of activity into the past two months. We've taken road trips, hosted out-of-town visitors (including three former Laestadians), attended Sami-related events, and travelled to a family reunion. All of it very enjoyable, including our stay on an urban farm in Portland where we were wakened by roosters. (The sound was charming at first, and then . . . frankly, annoying.)