away from vanity fair.

Women are a mystery and half. We are meant to be.
It is the way we are created as God's image. To invite in to the adventure,
to fight for a cause, to explore and to engage.
It is not easy to be a woman, as it's hard to find out what is enough and what is too much.
What it is to be a godly woman. Don't want to give in for the pictures and demands of social, cultural, media's, etc. agenda for women. No thanks for cheap beauty, no thanks for cheap grace.
We are not for sale.

Woman is a picture of the great I AM. I think often woman is most beautiful when she knows who she is.
When I grow up I would love to be a godly woman.
To reflect the beautiful, wild, mysterious,
kind, loving, caring, fierce, lifegiving God.

awaken the dreams ancient Eden...

What a miserably gloomy grey rainy Saturday. The weather almost dragged my mood under the weather,
but then I went for a run in a forest and felt the oxygen and adrenaline kick me back above surface.
I also had a good chat with God (in my thoughts, didn't hear him audibly but more like voice in my thoughts and pictures to my mind's eye)...
I also came back from the Netherlands recently and while running I continued processing some thoughts born while journeying.
Now here, trying to connect the dots.

Finnish phrase goes that "the forest is a church for Finns". As much as I like the forest I never fully got that phrase. I guess church is more about relationships and more sharing life stuff for me nowadays and in the past boring religious obligation. (...to put it with slight exaggeration...) Well maybe I do find forest relaxing, full of beauty, place of quiet and full of treasures of nature. But today, I also realised that it is after all, as forest would remind us of something. A place of state of mind.
Does forest, wild, beauty of creation, awake in us distant memory of the garden of Eden? A place where God came to walk with his people in the coolness of the evening. Place that man was to take care and to rule. Mystery but familiarity in same landscape. Hiding place. Adventure.

In a similar way I think Holland made me sometimes feel that I am only a shadow of something I could or should be. It was interesting thought process to follow. It was both inviting and on the edge of self judgement and comparison. I think in the end the love and blessings around me turned it all to be more inviting and exciting. In a same way that creation waits that one day again, we will be what we where meant to be, and more.

Blessed are those...

Blessed are those whose strength is in you,
who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
ps. 84:5

Three days and it's time to fly again.
Fly, not flee. Be still O my soul.

How did you do it?

With my hands tied behind my back, by driving four white horses and singing amazing drace while it rained muffins and moon was getting high from daffodils. It would have not succeeded if the Little Mermaid would not had flied by just when I had to speed through red lights and then I remember to call President Obama, only to tell that I thought his grandson to be had some slight resemblance with pomegranates I sold to my friend Tobias who lives in Bali. While we were listening to Nikki from Dutch Idols to sing "When the spirit of the Lord" president Obama had to go rescue cats from bee hives and he hang up on me. Afterwards me, The Little Mermaid, only by mere luck, quoted C.S. Lewis correctly and won the whole race.

And remember that real life is even more fascinating than any fiction and the most random of it all. That's how.

music to your ears.

Listen to this:

http://www.myspace.com/scnia

If you want to hear

beautiful new music

from talented young artist.

Sonia is a friend of mine

and about to move to Australia

in few weeks.

d.r.e.a.m.s...

... today I missed my friends and family in too many places, yet still longed to travel to new places and get to know more people...

...I did dream today

that one day i would live to know people

who would like to

...host theme parties...

...dance wildly all night...

...pray in the morning at noon and when ever...

...cook and host low budget dinner parties...

...search for rhythms of fast and feast...

...worship and intercede with beats and drums...

...explore art and photography...

...discover jewish culture and customes and festivals...

...read bible and host book clubs...

...travel to macedonia, ibiza and israel...

...study godly woman/manhood

...drink gallons of tea/coffee and have crazy midnight discussions about theology, philosophy, world politics and other random lovely

things...

...seek for justice...

...play football (with local kids)...

...get to know people in the neighborhood and learn to love

them...

...search for balance between work and play...

...with me.

notepad.

"Graham Cooke writes that, "When we become a prototype (pioneering church) and the Holy Spirit begins to move in power, we will also come into a different level of warfare." (A Divine Confrontation)."

"True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not the enrichment of the leaders.
Robert Townsend – (Up the Organization)"

"The fact that we focus on creating members instead of missionaries grows from our lack of being captured by the heart of God for people."
Reggie McNeal, author of A Work of Heart"

"It's striking that the word Paul uses in Ephesians 4 for "equipping" the saints is the same word used in the gospels for mending a net, or for repairing a wall, or setting a broken limb. "Katartizmos" means to restore or repair so that the original function is restored. (The New Apostles By Len Hjalmarson)

"Larry Crabb, in his recent work, "The Safest Place on Earth," comments that we have a choice: we can be either managers or mystics. Most of us feel somewhat out of place in community: we don't always feel safe and community itself is a mystery. We prefer structures we can understand and control. The problem is, God is less interested in predictability and control than we are! Or, from another perspective, He wants to be the one in control, and He doesn't always tell us in advance what He is up to!"

"But that doesn't mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift.

The text for this is, He climbed the high mountain,

He captured the enemy and seized the booty,
He handed it all out in gifts to the people.
Is it not true that the One who climbed up also climbed down, down to the valley of earth? And the One who climbed down is the One who climbed back up, up to highest heaven. He handed out gifts above and below, filled heaven with his gifts, filled earth with his gifts. He handed out gifts of apostle, prophet, evangelist, and pastor-teacher to train Christ's followers in skilled servant work, working within Christ's body, the church, until we're all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God's Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ."

(Eph. 4:7-13 MSG)

My concerns today: plans for travelling to holland, apostolic calling, structures, journeys of desire, reasons, ambitions, plans, visions, apples, cold toes, sweden, mysteries, church as family, sukkoth decorations and ending of ramadan, coconut thai chicken.

Recommended reading:
The Vision and the Vow by Pete Greig
So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore
by Wayne Jacobsen & Dave Coleman