Anniversary within reach - refreshed version?

One of many beautiful windows of the Gustaf Adolf church. 

Goodmorning!

I have been travelling again!! I will just add a few words about this little trip. The pictures you see in this post are from a town called Borås. Borås is known for its textile industries, so is the entire county. You will find it east of Gothenburg and Borås is part of Skara dioces. In this dioces one can find traces of the first kingdoms and also of the first crusaders. We saw two churches only this time, the Gustaf Adolf that most interiors are from, built 1902 and Caroli, represented here only with the metal ornament on the wall. That church was built in the 1660s, but before that there was a 13thcentury church in the same spot.

This beautiful wall was painted by the swedish master Pär Siegårdh.

The churchorgan harbours some 3400 pipes

So, why this trip? Well, this year is my 20th as a minister and some of my anniversaryfriends wanted a meeting with as many as possible from our studygroup. Six of us couldn't make it but most of us where there to share life and experience, memories, laughter and sentiments of all kind. We also spoke of our different dioces, 6 represented. We spoke of concern, identity and issues of importance for the future of the church of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Some of you know I never publish pictures with people, but this was published on Facebook so...these are the blessed people, 6 absent, who where ordained 1996, at least 5 different dioces represented.

I took the train although that can be a bit of a risk nowadays. First stop was the vicarage of my best friend. In the large house there is right now room for two refugees as well and since I stayed overnight, we had a great time with these two young men, newly christened and very happy about that. They were both from Iran...The evening ended with prayers and hymns. They are learning swedish hymns and pick them as they appear in the prayerbook so this night we sang christmashymns!!

Two days in Borås went by quickly and the journey home was not a laughing matter at first but after three confuced trainchanges and delayed buses, I was at last safe on my way home, having spent an unexpected extremly nice hour with two strangers, strangers to eachother we all were. Those meetings are my favourites, and we solved most of the problems of today and enjoyed different views and references. Tired but pleased with the trip, I returned to homebase!!

Ironornament on the outer wall of Caroli

Borås is a town loaded with streetart. Mostly sculptures but this year there were wellknown painters decorating huge walls, here is Kobra with his image of Alfred Nobel.

In the center of town, close to the river Viskan, you'll find the Gustaf Adolf church, built 1902.

In my next post I'll try and guide you through those precious days 20 years ago, but also the years before that finally brought me to the dome to be ordained.