Text: Riik­ka Lin­nan­mä­ki

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

I like many kinds of art, ver­bal, vi­su­al and vo­cal as well as their com­bi­na­ti­ons. When I lis­te­ned to an SRK book of po­ems, Äi­dit avaa­vat ik­ku­noi­ta (Mot­hers open win­dows), on the Kuu­le! ap­p­li­ca­ti­on, I mar­ve­led at the abi­li­ty of po­et­ry to high­light the va­lue and sig­ni­fi­can­ce of child­ren as part of dai­ly life and as a sour­ce of joy. I sel­dom lis­ten to po­ems, though I oc­ca­si­o­nal­ly write po­ems my­self. Po­ems can exp­ress so much in just a few words, use no­vel ima­ge­ry to ref­resh our thin­king, and the­re­by al­so bring ea­se of mind in­to dai­ly life. Do you like po­ems?

Po­ems may con­tain bril­li­ant in­sights: ”In their hec­tic pur­suit of hap­pi­ness, half of the world are fol­lo­wing a fal­se track. Pe­op­le think hap­pi­ness co­mes from pos­ses­sing and re­cei­ving things or being ser­ved by ot­hers. In re­a­li­ty hap­pi­ness con­sists in gi­ving and ser­ving ot­hers.” Hen­ry Drum­mond (1851–1897) was ab­le to desc­ri­be the es­sen­ce of hap­pi­ness cen­tu­ries ago.

Hu­man mind tends to dwell on wor­ries and dif­fi­cul­ties. A per­son’s mind may even get hoo­ked on ne­ga­ti­ve news. Being well-in­for­med can give us a mo­men­ta­ry fee­ling of se­cu­ri­ty, but in the long run it can be­co­me op­p­res­si­ve. Bad news are pub­lis­hed cons­tant­ly, and pe­op­le the­re­fo­re need so­met­hing po­si­ti­ve to coun­te­ract their wor­ries and hards­hips.

Have you found ways to int­ro­du­ce so­met­hing po­si­ti­ve in­to yo­ur life si­tu­a­ti­on? I find that art is a good way to let off steam and to open new win­dows in­to fresh ways of thin­king. My view of art is wide, and I qui­te ag­ree that phy­si­cal exer­ci­se or so­met­hing el­se may work just as well!

Pain­ting my­self or ad­mi­ring art done by ot­hers ma­kes me feel good. For me, co­lors are po­wer­ful sym­bols of emo­ti­ons. It is good to find that I am ab­le to pro­du­ce so­met­hing be­au­ti­ful, alt­hough my work may not turn out exact­ly the way I ori­gi­nal­ly in­ten­ded. Pain­ting is like a jour­ney with no fi­xed des­ti­na­ti­on and no se­ri­ous as­pi­ra­ti­ons. I so­me­ti­mes feel ir­ri­ta­ted by fai­lu­re when I paint, but for some re­a­son I have been gi­ven a cre­a­ti­ve and mer­ci­ful at­ti­tu­de to­ward my art. If I can­not cor­rect the ”mis­ta­ke”, I tend to think that ma­y­be that is how it was me­ant to be, or el­se it is my per­so­nal view or in­terp­re­ta­ti­on. I wish I could be equ­al­ly mer­ci­ful about ot­her as­pects of my life!

I lis­ten to mu­sic a lot, and I al­so re­cent­ly star­ted to play the flute. I re­com­mend this to all pe­op­le: you can le­arn to play at any age. It is re­war­ding to see that one can make prog­ress! Pla­ying mu­sic is al­so good to yo­ur brain both men­tal­ly and phy­si­cal­ly. My aim is to le­arn to play so well that some day ot­her pe­op­le could en­joy the mu­sic I play. I en­joy be­au­ti­ful mu­sic and feel touc­hed by it, so­me­ti­mes very strong­ly.

Re­a­ding is pret­ty ad­dic­ti­ve, but it al­so ex­pands my view of the world. Of cour­se it al­so de­pends on what you read. It is in­te­res­ting to en­ter in­to the life of so­me­o­ne el­se and to le­arn from the ot­her per­son’s ex­pe­rien­ces – or at le­ast to de­ve­lop one’s em­pat­hy skil­ls while le­ar­ning about ot­her pe­op­le’s thoughts and emo­ti­ons. Do you have time to read? Luc­ki­ly, there are al­so au­dio books avai­lab­le these days!

Could I en­joy the kind of jo­y­ful things that I read about in the po­et­ry book men­ti­o­ned abo­ve: child­ren’s laugh­ter that ri­ses high up to the cei­ling? The Bib­le en­cou­ra­ges us to re­joi­ce. I have found that the gre­a­test joy is a clean cons­cien­ce: pe­a­ce with God and pe­op­le. We would do well to che­rish that pe­a­ce.