Living the Blessing whilst marked with Death

Today I stumbled across a video that has a certain relevance to me and my family. It’s about a particular type of ailment and a particular type of attitude towards life. Seemingly the one thing contradicts the other, but in truth they have so much to do with each other. An existential philosopher like Heidegger tells us that death gives life direction, and therefore we need to learn to die well in order to live well (as you find in the Christian literature called Ars moriendi). Life and death is interdependent.



Remember to live (memento vivendi).

(and please forgive me for blogging something from Opera...).

Mission accomplished

Today, I did not take any pictures. Instead, I spent the morning with the staff of the Bentley Historical Library discussing solutions for digital records management and long term preservation. After lunch, I had my presentation for Nancy's class, followed by discussion and a lot of good questions from the students.
After having finished this, I went to my hotel for a nap - and at 7 Nancy and Elisabeth picked me up so we could go out for dinner. Today burger and beer was on the menu. I like it here!

Michigan, day 2

Who would have thought that I would actually consider going back to Michigan for tourist reasons?? Well today, we went to the Henry Ford Museum which was a place that I need to get back to. Period. As usual, I took too few pictures, but at least I got one of the car that Kennedy was in when he was shot.
After the museum, we went to a humongous plant where they make Ford trucks. Very impressive.

The day began with a very interesting visit at the Gerald Ford presidential library where the staff had been so kind as to find some records pertaining to Denmark.

The day ended with dinner at a nice restaurant with Nancy and two of her colleagues. Absolutely enjoyable.

Tomorrow I am going to write something that should give the impression that I am actually here for work....

Lack of generosity...

I hear that confessions on the internet is a new trend. If you feel guilty about something, you can go to certain websites and write your confessions. Well, I think I will do it right here on our blog. So here goes:
Yesterday, when I boarded the plane to Detroit in Amsterdam, I was not particularly looking forward to 8½ hours on a plane. However, at least I knew that I would have an aisle-seat because I had checked in on the internet in advance, and thus secured the much valued aisle-seat. I REALLY hate not sitting at the aisle, especially on long flights. That little luxury of being able to stretch your legs as well as get up without having to ask one or more other passengers to move is important to me.

Anyway, when I reached my assigned seat, a man was already seated there. I looked bewildered, but he immediately explained the situation: He travelled with his wife, who was seated in the window-seat and he had been assigned the window-seat in the row behind her. Would I mind to take his window-seat so that the two of them could sit together? ARRRGH!

I simply could not find it in my heart to exchange my beloved aisle-seat for 8½ hours of no leg room and general claustrophobia. So I refused to swap seats, and felt awful about this lack of generosity for at least 15 minutes. And I guess there is still a hint of guilt..... But boy, did it feel good to be able to stretch my legs and get up without asking anyone? You bet.

Michigan, day 1

After arriving in Ann Arbor, MI, late last night, I had the pleasure of spending today exploring with Nancy, who arranges my stay here, and Elisabeth, a Danish colleague who happens to be at the University of Michigan at the moment. First on the agenda was service in an African-American Baptist Church in Detroit. It was a great experience and we were warmly welcomed.

After the service (we left after 2 hours and 15 minutes...) we went to a mansion built by a "lumber-baron" where we ate the most delicious brunch I have had in a long time. Yum! The building was very "nouveau riche" and interesting as such. But the decor was absolutely over the top. Unfortunately, I only took one picture, that doesn't really convey what the place looked like.
Then we went on to the Detroit Institute of Arts, where we admired the Detroit industry murals by Mexican artist Diego Rivera. We also looked at native american art, before it was time to relax with a cup of coffee in the court yard.

Dinner was an Italian sandwich, followed by a cup of coffee at Starbuck's...... mmmm

Snapshots from this past week...

What is better than writing something in our blog, instead of working? I’m quite bored with writing about Christian nurturing among the Sami.

(Bachelor's party) (Early morning in Oslo) (Karl Johan street late night)

So here is what happened the last week:

• Thursday: Don’t remember (well, who can blame me. I turned thirty a couple of years ago).

• Friday: Don’t remember.

• Saturday: We joined in with a number of people and had a bachelor’s party for a friend who’s getting married. We did some shooting (Jan got a diploma!), went bowling (kind of boring) and ate a nice Mexican meal.

• Sunday: I stayed home, proofreading a chapter of my research report and travelled to Oslo. Jan went to church.

• Monday: Work. Bought Jan a book on Islam (he kind of needs that). I met Johannes in the evening. I’m not sure what Jan was up to, all I know is that he went to bed early (probably around 20:00) since I was not there.

• Tuesday: More work, stressful work. In the afternoon I returned to Copenhagen because I had my Danish language course. Jan goes to night school to improve his managing techniques, so he went to some classes at the Danish School of Education.

Back to work (kind of) ...

Snow...eeeew or yay?

After work, I fell asleep on the couch. When I woke up, I realized that there was something unusual going on outside. It was snowing! Usually I don't like the snow, mostly because it makes it so difficult to get around when you are biking. But since this winter has been unusually mild with only two insignificant incidences of snow and less than a week with temps below zero (32 for you Americans), it felt almost good to finally see a little bit of winter. Even if it is spring according to the calendar.