I *love* science. My heart burns for it; that gradual peeling away of the layers of the universe, to peek behind and see how it works – following experiments with other experiments and, in doing so, revealing things so amazing, so wonderful and enormously thought-provoking. The discovery of the atom was followed by the discovery of nuclei and elementary particles; these were, in turn, unraveled into string/particle dualism and quantum physics, which led to the current efforts of using enormous supercolliders in trying to peek into string theory and the very fabric of the universe. And in combining astrophysics and quantum physics, using these two fields together, to peer out into the universe and examine galaxies, clusters, pulsars and nebulae, this has provided for me the most profound and near-religious experiences; it is with silent awe that I look into the darkness of space and ponder, like Abraham before God in the desert, the vast, vast billions of stars across the night sky.

On the other hand, I also know within me that ultimately, I really have the answers to it all. John 1 says “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God … Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” When Genesis says that God created heaven and earth, and man and woman and every plant and seed and animal in it, I believe it with all my heart. I believe God made the earth, created the universe out of the thin threads of the laws He set in place, and when He said “let there be light”, the universe exploded in light that would shine for a hundred trillion years.

But my head can not accept what my heart knows. If I try to turn faith into science and say, “God created everything” with absolute scientific assurance, then the next thought that rises in my mind is “prove it” – and I can’t. And yet, I cannot wrap my head around evolution and call that true, because my heart knows that it is not. I know God is true, so the conclusion that the world was created on its own, must be false.

Between my heart and my mind lies this gap, this great divide, which I don’t know how to overcome; one side of which says, “believe everything”, for man lives and dies by faith in God, and without faith no one can please God. And yet the other side says, “believe nothing”; this being my scientific side that absolutely cannot believe anything that has not been meticulously proven, again and again. These are not necessarily at odds which each other, but they do conflict, in purpose. The purpose of faith is to save a man’s soul and provide for his eternal well-being, upon which no science must dare to tread; similarly, the purpose of science is to unravel the mysteries of the universe without regard to any particular faith – it must never be swayed by beliefs, never led astray by man’s opinion or interpretation of the truth – it must relentlessly stay true to its original task, the gradual and meticulous uncovering of the reality of the universe, step by step, by inexhaustible patience and curiosity.

So when [some] evolutionists say that Christians are stupid for believing in the bible, I shake my heart at their arrogance and ignorance, and I fear that one day they will be proven terribly wrong. And yet, when [some] Christians declare that the big bang theory is just a lot of bogus, and they shake their head at me for believing that the earth is older than 6000 years, it pains me; because they do not know the love of science that resides within me and which tells me, quietly, that if the universe is not older than that, then we’ve made a lot of measurements wrong.

I hope that one day, science and faith will meet within me; that faith will declare through the heavens that God created everything that exists; and that science will tell me, in excruciating detail, how it happened. Obviously, we are not there yet; but if science is the searching for truth, then eventually, hopefully, it will lead us there. I wish that I could reply with absolutely certainty – the way other people do – to the question of how the world was created, but I can’t.

My mind and my heart do not yet agree within me. I hope one day they will.

I think my favorite Christmas song (yeah, there you go, I’m already singing Christmas songs…) is the one about the little drummer boy.

Come, they told me, pa rum pum pum pum
A newborn King to see, pa rum pum pum pum
Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum
To lay before the King, pa rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum
So to honor him, pa rum pum pum pum
When we come.

When I went through bible school in 1994-95, we all had ideals that soared mile-high. We were going to be the new Benny Hinns, ministers of the faith, apostles and prophets (like all bible school students, I suppose) and shake the whole world upside down.

I think, through the years, at least I have maybe cooled down a little bit. Those lofty ideals seem … surprisingly not remote, but actually rather unimportant. It is not important that I stand in big arenas and preach to tens of thousands of people. It is not important if I start a huge ministry. Riches, honor and fame, even in the subtle shape of Christian ministry, is not important.

It is actually quite liberating to realize that I am unimportant. There is a sense of freedom in knowing that my name will never be famous. I grew up in a small house, and maybe I’ll die in a small house – it doesn’t bother me. Maybe I’ll never be rich. Maybe I will only touch a few people’s lives in all my days on earth. It is not important.

What really matters is our devotion to Him – to God, our heavenly father. And as little as I am, with the few things I can do or say, if I can only do it for him, then it will matter for eternities to come:

I played my drum for him, pa rum pum pum pum
I played my best for him, pa rum pum pum pum
Rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum
Then he smiled at me, pa rum pum pum pum
Me and my drum.

Such as I have, I give. And even if all I can ever pull off is a small concert for him on my cheap little drum, he still deserves my very best. So I play for him, tears in my eyes, as well as I can on my drum. And if I do that, if I give him my very best, as minute as it still may seem… I know he will smile at me; and in that smile he will justify my entire existence.

Imagination is a wonderful thing; that dreamy world where a thousand different worlds unfold. What amazing stories that take place there, when one is allowed to just dream a little. And, with a snug satisfaction, all those adventures can be experienced without ever leaving your comfortable home. For instance…

• …I have walked down the busy streets of New York and London in the morning, feeling the air of busy commerce and traffic. I have taken the El to work, Starbucks coffee cup in hand, a hundred mornings in Chicago. Seen the sun rise over Lake Erie from Sears Tower, and stood on the pier of a little village in Maine looking out over the ocean. I have been the captain of fishing boats steaming out towards open sea.
• I have traveled through Japan, taking the off-road path through little towns far outside of Tokyo or Osaka. I have visited small villages and photographed the countryside. I’ve been in Morocco, Egypt and Israel, taking pictures with my camera. I have seen the mysteries of Nepal.
• I’ve been the friend of movie stars, presidents, famous preachers and foreign kings. I have worked with secret service, protected dignitaries, and led uprisings in far off countries. I’ve been a mercenary, secret agent, benevolent dictator, upheld the law; I’ve conquered nations, established justice, gone to war and fought for peace. I’ve led armored brigades against Napoleon and Alexander the Great.
• I have traveled in time and seen the early days of Egypt. I was there when the pyramids were built (in fact, I had quite a hand in the building process). I was there when Jesus died, I was a part of Columbus expedition to the New World, and I spoke in the senate of the empire of Rome. I saw the first barbarian tribes that moved into Scandinavia, and I stood on the Danube the day that Attila came.
• I’ve been a man of the world; romanced women, crushed their hearts and said “c’est la vie, ma chérie – it was never meant to be”. I’ve professed my love in a thousand ways, written poems and symphonies to put eloquent words to magical feeling, and I’ve sung duets with my wife at my wedding – to spontanous applause. I have received the Nobel prize; and I have given the Nobel prize to others.
• I’ve stood on the moons of Saturn and beheld the sky filled with gleaming rings; and I’ve watched the tiny blue dot that is Earth from the plains of Mars. I’ve seen the millions and billions of stars that is our galaxy. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser gate.

All of this is part of me, of the world I make for myself. Inside, in my thoughts, there are no boundaries for anything; I am king, servant, ruler of the universe, or humble saint. I have a grand palace with fifty rooms, and yet I sleep with the homeless on the street. I build intelligent robots that can love, and I shoot soldiers on the Eastern front. What a dramatic life I lead!

And then I wake up again, and realize that I still haven’t finished that little PHP function I was supposed to build. Oh, well, back to work ….. *sigh*

Some people in life are just naturally spontaneous. Like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh, they excitedly jump out of bed, ready to swing the banners of Carpe Diem and let the oncoming day hit them with heaps and heaps of fun. It may turn out to involve chatting with friends, having coffee in the sunshine in the city or taking lovely walks in the brisk evening air. At the end of the day, Tigger, having a feeling of contentment that the day was well spent, exhaustedly falls into bed and goes to sleep, dreaming happy dreams and resting for another day.

Setting definite times and deadlines for Tigger people, may, of course, be bothersome: It imposes a fixed point during the way when something has to be done, and it wrecks this casual mood of seeing what the day turns out like if you spontaneously poke at it in various different ways. It means that you can’t play at will in the Tunnels of Fun, because there’s an oncoming Train of Requirement that will not be negotiated with.

As for me, I’m not a Tigger person. I like planning.

I suppose it has something to do with my military interest, as well as my tendency to structure and organize. It’s a habit I have, organizing and structuring; whenever I’m faced with inefficiency, my natural tendency is to roll the sleeves up and methodically carve away at things until the organization is like a smoothly running machine. It doesn’t have to perfect – perfection is, in most cases, an inefficient (and unflexible!) use of resources – but I want it to purr like a cat.

A part of this is to make plans. I don’t know why it’s so much fun, but whenever a situation comes up that involves several activities (and possibly more people), I write an Operations Plan: A detailed listing of all activities and resources involved in the event, as well as checklists and a detailed timetable. It may also, depending on the requirements, contain small-scale maps of the target areas.

An example of this is when I travel overseas. The simple step of going to the airport may be illustrated in the following hypothetical scenario:

OPERATION FALLING LEAVES

Purpose: Vacation in Florida.
Timeframe: 3 OCT 2006 - 14 OCT 2006

STEP 1 - INITIAL PREPARATIONS

(list of things to prepare, including
   - packing
   - procurement of necessary items
   - and so on...)

STEP 2 - DEPARTURE

0500       Wake up
0545-0550  Leave home
0730       Arrival at airport
0915       Flight departure
...

And the list goes on.

This, of course, does not rule out spontaneity. Doing things on a whim, being spontaneous and having fun, is indeed possible with accurate planning; waking up like Tigger one day and saying “ooh, I know, let’s go there and there today” is possible just because I had the passport, credit card, exchange of currency and other items on my “initial preparations” list, and I also happen to have a set of contingency plans if anything goes wrong.

I call this “operational spontaneity”.

At the end of the day, I don’t fall into bed, content that the day was well spent; I fall into bed with the happy feeling that my Operations Plan executed so well. As I drift off into sleep, the last fleeting thought through my brain is a smug satisfaction that my contingency operations worked exactly as planned; the machine worked smoothly… just like a purring cat.

I’ve been tagged by a friend. Since I never did anything particular about Thanksgiving Day this year, let’s list some things that I am grateful for.

1) I am grateful for my car.
Seems awfully materialistic, but the fact is that I believe God led me to this particular car, and every day I feel grateful for it. It fits me perfectly. It is wonderful. And there’s a very tangible difference between something you went out and bought because you wanted it, and something that God led you to buy. There’s all the difference in the world, because I praise God for it; and I believe that is actually the purpose of creation – to inspire to thanksgiving and praise to God.

2) I am grateful for life.
In spite of sorrows, troubles, unfulfilled dreams or hopes, I am grateful for my life. It doesn’t always feel like a great pleasure – life on earth seldom is, I’ve noticed – but every day is another day that I can work towards the completion of all the things that God wanted for me to do. Like a great adventure; the mission of my life. Like the U.S. Army says “be all that you can be”. To complete the mission, fulfill my destiny… It’s HARD WORK (don’t be fooled), but if my life ever becomes boring, it’s probably just because I missed a turn somewhere.

3) I am grateful for the Holy Spirit.
“But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you…” (Jn 16:7) I don’t think anyone ever could have a better friend than the Holy Spirit. He has been with me from day one of this great journey, and his gentle help has led me all the way. I would be hard pressed to think of a more loving, more compassionate, more kind, more sensitive best friend than him. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for your wonderful help.

4) I am grateful for my friends.
I have had the great fortune of getting some very extraordinary friends. There are friends and then there are friends; there are people you know and work with and hang out with, and then there are friends that you go through war with. “For he who today sheds his blood with me, shall be my brother; we lucky few, we band of brothers.” There are people I’ve fought side by side with, who have helped me, and whom I have helped, through turmoil, war and destruction. Such friends are rare and precious. You know who you are. :)

5) I am grateful for… Coca-Cola.
Yep. And Quarter Pounders from Mickey D’s, and Snickers, and Belgian chocolates. And those lovely After Eights, and Pear Cider in a tall, cold glass; and good movies on television and playing piano in the middle of night. And for the internet, for emails and chatting with people, and for Mozart symphonies and great movie music and American country stations that you can record as MP3 and play in your car. I’m grateful for Wal-Mart, for Dunkin’ Donuts, and for Hotel Panorama in Gorzow Wielkopolski.

I guess the bottom line is, there’s lots to be thankful for. Not the least all the little everyday things down here on earth that can really make my day. Hooah. :)

I woke up a little early today. The idea was, that an electrician would come over this morning to look over some things with the heater, and I didn’t want him to show up while I was in the shower, so I made a point of getting up something like 6:45am or so. So when my mind rose drowsily from happy dreams into semi-awakeness, I briefly looked at the alarm clock and then decided it was time to get up.

So I got up. Went through the normal routine; I showered, shaved and brushed my teeth, clothed myself; spent a couple of minutes hunting down a matching pair of socks, as I always do; and in my rather good mood this morning, I was middle in the process of making breakfast for myself when I noticed that the clock on the microwave was totally off. It said “02:14″. I thought that was odd – there must have been a power outage or something – so I went to look at the big clock on the wall. It said the same thing.

At this moment, a hint of dark suspicion began to rise in my mind. I went to check the alarm clock beside by bed. It said “02:14″.

It took a few moments before the realization dawned on me that the reason why this night went by unusually fast, was not because I had slept so deep, but because it was still in the middle of night, and here I was fully clothed and ready go to work.

This does not happen often to me.

For a moment, the thought occurred to me that I might read a little in bed until morning, so I wouldn’t have to undress and go back to bed, but then a follow-up realization suggested that I had only been asleep for two hours and it was five more until I logically should wake up.

I went back to bed.

It took a while before I fell asleep again, mostly because I couldn’t stop laughing in the darkness, at the silliness of the situation. At point I felt rather thankful that I didn’t have a girlfriend – I suppose she would have looked rather curiously at me as I stood there by the bed, fully clothed, eating from a pack of youghurt at 2am in the morning.

Thank God for small mercies.

Blev precis uppringd av Telenor som gärna ville erbjuda mig lite rabatterat bredband via 3G fram till påsk.

Nu reser jag nu nästan inte alls, men jag tänkte ändå på något sätt, att det kan ju vara kul att leka lite med, eftersom det är gratis i 30 dagar och det var tydligen enkelt att returnera det inom den tiden. Och 79 kr i månaden fram till påsk är ju heller inte så farligt. Så jag sade ja via telefon och sedan började vi en liten avtalsinspelning.

“Ägaren till abonnemanget godkänner alltså … [tum-de-dum, diverse avtalsinfo uppläst, jag svarar "ja" där det behövs] … gratis 30 dagar med returrätt, avtalstid 24 månader med 3 månaders uppsägningstid och inkopplingsavgift 200 kronor…” … ehupp?

Vadå inkopplingsavgift? Det sade han inget om?

Dumt nog så godkände jag, efter en sekunds tvekan (det kommer nog låta roligt när man lyssnar på inspelningen sedan) – eftersom det var inspelning på gång, och jag hade ju ändå sagt ja tidigare…

Visst förstår jag att det blir lite pengar i kostnad och administration att skicka donglar tvärs över landet, så jag förstår ju deras sida av saken. Men jag tycker ändå att det är lite, lite oschysst att ta upp just den där inkopplingsavgiften först under avtalsinspelningen. Helt plötsligt så förbyttes min glada känsla av att “oj, kul grej, den kan jag leka lite med och se om jag vill ha den” till “oh, crap”.

Nåja. 200 spänn är ju inte så mycket när allt kommer kring. Och medan jag väntar på dongeln så kan jag ju alltid sprida lite dålig PR om Telenor via facebook och min blogg.

Some impressions from the capital.

• Everything in Stockholm is expensive, in everything from food to living.
• Many in Stockholm work far too much.
• There is so much concrete, so much steel, so much asphalt. It is a jungle of gray stone, rising out of the ground, and forming an artificial, constructed wasteland where nothing green thrives. Identical rows of square, concrete towers, house thousands of little people in little square boxes, with little windows that peer out into an artificial world. It must easily crush the human soul.
• If you like shopping, Stockholm is probably the place to go; stores are everywhere and selling everything. And yet, there seems to be little warmth in the hearts of men.
• Yesterday we went to a mass at Adolf Fredrik’s Church. It was full of the ceremonies of the protestant church, completely anachronistic, and insanely beautiful. Among lit candles and a warm, diffused sunlight that fell through the windows on the ornaments of the church, a small choir sang psalms with a harmonic precision that made my heart tremble.
• I’ve been eating way too much restaurant food over the last days.
• Today I saw a young, loving couple in the subway; the guy was holding his hand around her back as they went up the escalators, and they were looking at each other. It was a very warm, unexpected sight, in the middle of this ocean of concrete, people and noise.
• The Stockholm subway is efficient, super-smooth, and with a rather affordable 24-hour pass, extremely convenient. But it’s not much fun on late Friday or Saturday evenings.
• Quietness is a luxury. As is time to be alone and think.