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Happy Lucia, everyone!
For those of you new to this journal and not Scandinavian, Lucia was a Sicilian saint or a brave medieval girl from Värmland, Sweden, depending on who you ask. ( Further explanation of the Lucia tradition cut for those who have already heard it or don't care. )
For those of you new to this journal and not Scandinavian, Lucia was a Sicilian saint or a brave medieval girl from Värmland, Sweden, depending on who you ask. ( Further explanation of the Lucia tradition cut for those who have already heard it or don't care. )
Comments 5
I think there are plenty of reasons to avoid sin beyond not going to hell. Such as it being quite a good thing to stay away from stuff that harms yourself, the world around you, and/or your relationship with God
Any Christians that have made my blood boil have usually started with God as something to be feared.
and as for the reaction to the Muslim New Years - I just don't understand people sometimes. I think My reaction would have been along the same lines as yours.
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Aw. *blush* Thanks!
Any Christians that have made my blood boil have usually started with God as something to be feared.
Yeah. I work from the assumption that God is good. Incomprehensible sometimes, but good. Scary dictators aren't good, and it's highly immoral to follow them.
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WHAT?? You must tell me more about this, because it's the first time I've ever heard about it! I know that people used to celebrate this day before Christianity, because it was thought to be the darkest day of the year, but I never heard about a Lucia-like legend about a värmländsk girl. :-)
The final straw came when she told her parents about him and her mother complimented her on how brave she was for making friends with a boy in a wheelchair.
Oh god. Have you seen the Swedish movie "Miffo"? (A romantic comedy between an upper middle-class priest and a social welfare-dependant girl in a wheelchair, if you haven't.) I actually liked it, even though there's plenty of that attitude going around in it, because it's pretty obvious that the people saying such stuff are small-minded, superficial and bigotted. Still, it was pretty boggling that every time one of the main character's friends or family would intervene and tell the protagonist that dating this girl was such a bad idea, etc etc, the ( ... )
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Yup. Selma Lagerlöf wrote the legend down, and I used to think she had made it up, until I found out that other authors from Värmland had mentioned it too. (I think Pelle Ödman was one of them.
The Värmland Lucia legend recapped.
Oh god. Have you seen the Swedish movie "Miffo"?
Yeah, I have, but I don't remember much about it. You're right, though, there were many other things they could have mentioned - social class for one thing.
I asked my communion priest what he thought about the hell and heaven thing when I was fourteen, and he pretty much thought it was the "absence of God". I kind of like that notion.
One priest I know once said that if they mean those people just cease to exist, that's one thing, but otherwise he thought existance without God would be much worse than fire and brimstone. Thinking about it, I can kind of see that. I mean, not existance without belief in God, but existance where God has abandoned you.. that's ( ... )
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Thinking about it, I can kind of see that. I mean, not existance without belief in God, but existance where God has abandoned you.. that's kind of scary.
Exactly, especially if you see God as Love or Hope or Goodness or just pure positive energy. I see it more so in this life though, than in after-life, because frankly, I have a hard time buying any concept of eternal after-life as well...
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