Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

The midday mass and a prayer

@brittarnhild

Every Wednesday at noon there is a mass in one of the small chapels in the cathedral. The mass is during lunch hour, so I eat the two pieces of bread in my lunchbox fast, and walk over to the cathedral. A hymn, prayers, reading from the Scripture, communion, silence, the blessing.

And then it is time to go back to work.
Or walk around in the cathedral for a while.

In prayers.

A dear friend is fighting cancer.
It looks like it is going to be a hard fight.

Please join me in prayers for my friend and his family.

 

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My blogs which have been updated today:

maskerade

dagens lille grønne

Vandring gjennom året

Akeleiehagen/The Blue Garden

Blåklokkeveien

 

 

 

 

When the world dressed herself in her new winter coat

@brittarnhild

I have mixed feelings about what to blog about today. I am Norwegian, I live in a country who send refugees back, out into the icy cold, back to war, back to religious persecution, back to a future with no hope. I want to shout out to the world, but most of all to the politicians in Norway who are in charge of this inhuman policy. I want to tell them, again, that I am not afraid of losing some of the social benefits I have as a Norwegian citizen. I am ready to share. Share it with my sisters and brothers of the world. I am ashamed of being a Norwegian. I want to hide. I want to.......

.......well, this is not a political blog. The voice I use here is different. I want to share beauty. I want to continue to believe in a world where beauty exist. I need the beauty of creation to maintaining hope.

So I put some warm clothes on an walk out in the winter wonderland outside a hotel somewhere not far from Oslo, where I am spending the weekend.

And I try to fill the air with prayers.

For my Syrian sister. For my Pakistani brother.
For the leaders in Norway, in the rest of the world.

For myself.
Most of all for myself.

 

Say Grace for it all

@brittarnhild

From a blog reader I got this prayer:

You say grace before meals.
All right.
But I say grace before the play and the opera.
And grace before the concert and pantomime,
and grace before I open a book,
and grace before sketching and painting,
swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing;
And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

 

It's by G. K. Chesterton, from an early notebook (mid-1890's)

 

Thank you Carole.
I will bring this grace with me through the year.

A word for the new year

@brittarnhild

I know that many of you choose a word for the new year. A word to colour the days, to help you keep focus. I have never done that, but as I sit here today, on the first day of 2016, I know that there is something I hope to give focus in my life the year to come. There is a path I want to walk. A path which will take me through good days, and bad. Trough joy and tankfulness, through sorrows and all the "whys" in our lives. I just saw on facebook that Amnesty has set the word "act" as a headline of 2016 - let us act together for a better world, for justice and peace. I could adapt that word, but I am not. I could choose joy, peace, justice....... Many Norwegian choose godhetstyrann for 2016, "godness tyrant", refering to one of our blue ministers who accuse many Norwegians of being good in a kind of false way (this came up in a discussion about refugees) I want to be a godhetstyrann, I hope that I already am one. But it is not my 2016 word.

 

My word for 2016 is bønn, prayer.
Inspired by the nuns at Turvey Abbey, and all other nuns and monks in the world, I want bønn to colour my way through the new year.

The world need bønn. Let is join hands and pray.

Afternoon walk into evensong

@brittarnhild

 I got a message on facebook from an American friend. She loves languages and had just discovered that in Norway we don´t say "boyfriend" or "girlfriend", but we use the word kjæreste, which is gender neutral and means dearest. Terje has been my kjæreste for 37 years now, and the other afternoon my dearest and I walked hand in hand through St. Stephen´s Green.

 Walking like this, in the low afternoon autumn sun, hand in hand with your kjæreste is like getting a double doze of life. You live though your own heart, and also through the heart of the one you love.

As dusk fell, we went over to St.Patrick´s Cathedral and evensong.
Oh. how I love the anglical tradition of evensongs.

 

 

World Day of Prayer

@brittarnhild

Today, the first Friday in March, is World Day of Prayers. This ecumenical day started in the US is 1887, by women who looked around and saw the needs.

In my praying book I have written down a name today. A little boy, who needs prayers. No name mantioned here, but God knows him, loves him.

My duty, duty of love, is to embrace this little motherless boy in my prayers. Today. And in days, weeks, months, years to come.

 

 

Do we believe in prayers

@brittarnhild

I met a woman on the bus this morning. We know each other a little from church, and we have a friend in common. Our common friend is fighting brain tumors and we are all worried for him.

"I sat down at my kitchen table last night" the woman said. "I lit a candle and I prayed for our friend. We all have to pray for him. He needs all our prayers. May be we should form a praying group and meet in the church"

 

My friend is in my prayers every day, and now I am asking you to pray for him as well.

 

Then give the thanks to The Lord

@brittarnhild

 

 

 

Take a minute. Still your mind. Tell yourself what you are thankful for just now. Then give the thanks to The Lord.

 

An Update

@brittarnhild

Last nigh we got an update from Erlend, the director of Streetlight. Here is what Streetlight says on their facebook site:

We established contact with Erlend through Facebook on saturday 5.30 pm, GMT+1 hours. He was then located in the city hall where government has rigged a satellite station for citizents to contact relatives.

Erlend says that the orphants, the three norwegian volunteers and rest of the Streetlight family are safe. Yet the whereabouts of the 90 schoolars belonging to the education-program are still unknown. All of them living in the slum area, Seawall which was evacuated before the typhoons landfall.

Local Streetlight workers prepared together with Erlend for the storm, taking all precautions possible at the time. But all supplies got taken by the flood and the organization with its 30 orphants is left with nothing. They took shelter in one of the houses in the organizatons location, partly built in concrete and thereby concidered the safest place to hide.

As the water level reached the second floor, the only hope of survival was to break a hole in the seeling and climb onto the roof where they had to hold on not to be blown away by the 186 mph winds raging around them for over an hour. Below them a 16 feet flood hammering against the building walls. This way the residents of the orphanage togheter with Erlend, a group of infants and their mothers kept alive through the devastating power of Typhoon Haiyan. They were able to save 68 lifes, among them a man without legs, pulled up throught the gap in the roof. The orphanage is, with its only two remaining walls, the only building still standing in the area. Everything else flattened.

The destruction is catastrophic and many people needs help. Initially in terms of clean water, food, medications and clothes. Erlend says all got washed away by the flood throughout the city. The conditions are extreme and people are killing each other over whats left of food. Dead bodies are everywhere and it's only a matter of time before an epidemic breaks out, he says.

Erlends father, Leif Johannessen, is preparing to leave Norway on monday to reach Tacloban and assist in what will be an extensive relief campaign. He will bring a satellite phone to remain in contact with the outside world.

Our account number: 4202 31 56606

 

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Thank you for your support and concern,
and please continue to care for the people of the Philippines.

I am following several organizations on twitter, among them United Nations @UN, BBC Breaking News @BBCBreaking, World Food Programme @WFP and UNICEF @UNICEF. While the official news last nigh were 1200 dead, Erlend wrote that it was 10,000. Today the official reports say the same.

This is heart breaking.

Please give money, to Streetlight, to Save the Children or to one of your local organizations. 

You can give your support

@brittarnhild

Ingrid´s plans are changed. There will be no internship in The Phillipines, at least not this time. The devastating super typhoon Haiyan hit the island will a raging force last night. Until 1am (Norwegian time) we were able to read and watch updates from Streetlight on facebook. Then power went out and the telephone lines died. Since then we have no news.

Ingrid and her co-students are disappointed. Quite a few tears have been shed today.

For their lost dreams, but most of all for the people suffering because of the typhoon.

They are disappointed. And they are strong.
Now they are in the process of drying their tears and all their thoughts go to the children in Streetlight, the people in Tacloban and The Philippines, and they turn their commitment towards the country they were to stay in the coming weeks.

Over the last few moths they have raised funds, money which they would use on the Streetlight children while they were there. To take them on outings, to spread light in their lives. Now these monet will be used on emergencies. And they are working on raising more.

If you are in Norway you can go to the facebook page "Støtt barna i Streetlight til en bedre fremtid". Or if you are anywhere you can find a local organization which supports The Philippines.

THEY NEED YOUR HELP TODAY!

 

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And if you want to give Ingrid and her friends your support, if you want to cheer them up,
why not leave a comment here and I will make sure they read it.