Child Rapist Sentenced to Life

While not mentioned in the article, this serial rapist was raised in the Laestadian faith, whose doctrine of forgiveness has been discussed many times before on this site and many others.

I hesitated to write this, knowing the victim and his family must be eager to move on, but readers of this blog will know why silence only serves abusers. I salute this boy and his family for pressing charges and protecting other children. I hope they inspire others to do the same.

Swinging Laestadians

I enjoyed this recent post by Mauri Kinnunen about a 1937 article in the Chicago Daily Tribune, in which joiking is compared to swing music, and cocktails prove disappointing to some Laestadians. It may be a stretch to compare joik to swing, but both are characterized by energy and improvisation.

Go read the article, then come back and enjoy these clips.

Instrumental "cocktail swing" recorded in Sweden in the same year as the article, 1937:

Marie Boine inhabits this spine-tingling "Goaskinviellja / Eagle Brother" at the Oslo Opera House in 2009:

The Right to Dance

A reader writes:

My cousin's wife shared this link. She is a folkdancer. This is a parish in Helsinki who took part of this campaign and they challenged every parish in Finland. This is an example of how dancing belongs to everyone, everyone can dance in some way regardless of physical abilities, and everyone has the right to dance. You can see the priests, some of them female, are dancing in this video!

Do you dance?

International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day, and I have been reflecting on the many ways in which we have more freedom, equality, safety, representation, and self-determination than our foremothers, and more than many of our sisters in religious states. These freedoms are always at risk of being curtailed or limited. Progress is not linear.

Tough love

This was posted on a friend's Facebook page.

What do you think of the dad's "tough love"?