This is the warcry, stories from the battle front about a modern warriors search for Knighthood, stories of an epic loved affair lived out on a raging battle field.

Intergalactic towel day 2008

Saturday, May 24th, 2008

It’s that time of year again, to don our towels and march out proudly and celebrate Intergalactic towel day!

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy makes the following statement about towels

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical
value – you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you – daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

The bible has the following to say about towels:

“Stay dressed for action1 and keep your lamps burning” (Luke 12.35)

compare to

“He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him.” (John 13.4-5)

So my challenge to anyone that aspires to be Christian or Chivalrous is to celebrate intergalactic towel day. Get a towel, wrap it around your waist or hang it over your arm like a waiter ready to serve and go out and serve others. Here are some ideas.

  • Polish some ones shoes
  • Dry some ones tears
  • Wrap the towel around some one to keep them warm
  • Put it under some ones head to make them rest comfortably
  • Give it to a homeless person
  • Clear out some ones spilled mess
  • Wave it about in celebration and worship like a flag
  1. Keep your loins girded, ie. wrap a towel around your waist [↩]

24.05.2008 Chivalric values, Christian life, Social action, event, serving, worship View Comments

Walking the walk.

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008

As Christians we know how important it is to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. Hanna has therefore bravely decided to help raise funds for breastcancer research through walk the walk. Hanna will, together with two other cadets in our session, do a Moonwalk, a late night walk through town in their bras.

Please help support Hanna here

Here is an excerpt from the walk the walk website:

This will be the night that Bollywood meets Rock n Roll… the night when 15,000 women and men will pound the streets of London in their decorated bras… and it could be the night that you take your first step to better health, fitness and making a difference! In 2007 we raised in excess of £8.5 million to be granted to vital breast cancer causes… with your help we could make an even greater difference in 2008 …

Walk the Walk is the grant making, health charity behind the famous MoonWalk events in London and Edinburgh and the SunWalk in Bristol. To date the charity has raised in excess of £35 million for vital breast cancer causes, with the 2007 Playtex MoonWalk raising almost £5 million to date.

Walk the Walk is dedicated not only to promoting power walking for fitness, but raising awareness of breast cancer and encouraging people to adopt a healthy and holistic preventative lifestyle.

Please help support Hanna here

30.04.2008 Battle report, Extreme sport, Hanna, London, Mission, Social action, Support requests, The world View Comments

SPLODGE

Sunday, November 11th, 2007

We are doing our social placement this week at Springfield Lodge (Splodge) and so far it has been a great experience. It is good to be among youth again and (Un)Normal people. People here at the college are just far to grown up for me. But then again to classify our session as normal is a bit of a stretch seeing that we are all barking mad.
Just getting a foot out in the “Real” world and, if only for a week, forgetting about Harvard referencing systems, Doctrines, Patriarchs, essays and word counts.

It’s been a blast and we feel revived again. Maybe we will survive the month of November after all with one major piece of work due every Friday until Christmas break.

11.11.2007 OS, Social action, serving, youth work View Comments

Happy Towel day!

Friday, May 25th, 2007

Proposed as a tribute to the late science fiction author Douglas Adams it has been proposed that may 25:th should be proclaimed intergalactic towel day!

In his legendary sci-fi classic The hitchhikers guide to the galaxy Douglas Adams describes a towel as:

A towel, it says, is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitch hiker can have. Partly it has great practical
value – you can wrap it around you for warmth as you bound across the cold moons of Jaglan Beta; you can lie on it on the brilliant marble-sanded beaches of Santraginus V, inhaling the heady sea vapours; you can sleep under it beneath the stars which shine so redly on the desert world of Kakrafoon; use it to sail a mini raft down the slow heavy river Moth; wet it for use in hand-to-hand-combat; wrap it round your head to ward off noxious fumes or to avoid the gaze of the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal (a mindboggingly stupid animal, it assumes that if you can’t see it, it can’t see you – daft as a bush, but very ravenous); you can wave your towel in emergencies as a distress signal, and of course dry yourself off with it if it still seems to be clean enough.

 

More importantly, a towel has immense psychological value. For some reason, if a strag (strag: non-hitch hiker) discovers that a hitch hiker has his towel with him, he will automatically assume that he is also in possession of a toothbrush, face flannel, soap, tin of biscuits, flask, compass, map, ball of string, gnat spray, wet weather gear, space suit etc., etc. Furthermore, the strag will then happily lend the hitch hiker any of these or a dozen other items that the hitch hiker might accidentally have “lost”. What the strag will think is that any man who can hitch the length and breadth of the galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through, and still knows where his towel is is clearly a man to be reckoned with.

With this I do not only concur but I also extend the invitation to all of you Christians out there who know that Christians should not only wear their towel every day but that we should also be using it every day!

As we all know the Bible explicitly tells us to wear a towel and to be ready to use it (Luke 12:35) and as disciples of Jesus we are honor bound to follow His example (John 13:4-5).

We are called to wait upon the Lord, and as my good friend Raunard Brown told me, What does a waiter do? In terms of this article, how does he wear his towel? The answer being blatantly obvious, a waiter waits upon his charge, he wears his towel about his person or over his arm to announs a state of readiness, readiness to serve.

So today lets all pick up our towels and let servanthood, mercy, grace and love be our weapons as we go into battle against injustice!

Heres a few tips on how to celebrate towel day!

  • Wear a towel about you all day
  • Shine peoples shoes (the modern equivalent of washing feet) and wipe with towel
    go into the bank, post office or train station where peoplw are sitting and waiting anyways
  • Wash peoples hands and dry with the towel.
  • Give it to a homeless person and go home and get a new one.
  • Lend it to a mother whose child has made a mess.
  • Dry someones tears with it.
  • Use it in any way possible to convey Gods love and care!

Happy Towel Day!

25.05.2007 Books, Christian life, Disciple Knight, Social action, event, serving View Comments

We do so little!

Monday, May 7th, 2007

Yesterday I was struck with this thought, All our corps have such a large base of volonteers and people freely giving funds to our work and yet we have so little impact on the community around us.

I am talking about the local corps here and not the Army as a whole. When I worked for the Guardian Angels we had a much bigger impact on the local community with just a handful of teenagers now I ask myself what is the difference?

Well here is what the Angels did….

  •  Most of the Angels time was spent on the streets in uniform, giving the community at least 20 hours exposure a week to our uniformed presence.
  • The angels where well trained in basic communication skills. Say hello to everyone you meet. At any opportunity give the ABC rap (ABC rap was a basic pitch of who we are, what we do, and how you can support)
  • The angels where 100% dependant on the support of the local community (that is where the money and food came from)
  • Every Angels was made to feel like they where super heroes when they donned the uniform therefore they acted like super heroes.
  • The full time volonteers worked full time with no pay and where motivated by their passion alone.
  • The Angels where always in the press, running press campaigns against injustice and violence all the time even after the first hype had died down.

These are some of the things that made the Angels successful I wonder what we could use in the SA corps to make an equal impact in our community.

07.05.2007 Christian life, Church, Guardian Angels, Mission, Ponderings, Salvation Army, Social action, serving, youth work View Comments

Going about…

Friday, April 6th, 2007

I am preparing a teaching for tuesdays youth meeting at Metro. I have been asked to preach on time, how to plan it what to do with it. As I am exploring my Ideas of Gods time or the art of becoming, I ran across this fantastic poem written by Toyohiko Kagawa, a Christian and a lay leader in Japan during the early part of the twentieth century.

I read
In a book
That a man called
Christ
Went about doing good.
It is very disconcerting to me
That I am so easily
Satisfied
With just
Going about.

So many of us become the restless wave of the sea James is talking about1 content not to make any choices but merely float on the river of life and let it lead you. Just going about our business, doing what we always have, like we have always done it. Days becoming, weeks, weeks becoming months, months becoming years, years becoming decades. Without change, without purpose, without direction.

Where are you going? And what are you going to do?

  1. James 1:6-8 [↩]

06.04.2007 Battle report, Christian life, Faith, Patrik, Poetry, Ponderings, Social action, event View Comments

Blood and fire in Self defence course

Saturday, March 3rd, 2007

I am just back in Riga from a two day trip to Stockholm to teach a self defence course for FASI (Salvation Army Social Institute) and to tie up some loose ends, like preparing to sell the car etc.

Preparing the course I made some amazing discoveries. The first one being that I could teach all our grip breaking techniques and takedowns based on Fiore Dei Liberis four unarmed poste. I also discovered later that teaching the techniques from Fiores poste sped up the learning process significantly.

On friday morning the FASI course on threats and violence in the workplace started with a theoretical overview held by Rut Baranowsky followed by a legal overview held by Peter Baranowsky. After Lunch it was my turn and I held a three hour basic WSD course.

I had thirteen students wich made us fifteen with me and Peter, ages ranging from mid twenties to mid fifties. Working at various homes and shelters for drug addicts and alcoholics. Everyone was eager to participate and took on all the drills with gusto. I was surprised to find that they displayed an unusual amount of passion in the DTL (drawing the line) drills. They where full of fire and passion making it a joy to teach the class.

We had some minor scrapes like on fat lip and a minor nosebleed, not that the students where not careful….

All in all it was a good day at Lännersta and I hurried of to the airport to come home to my girls. The trip cost me tho because I can now feel my sinuses throbbing from the airplane and my returning cold.

03.03.2007 Fiore Dei Liberi, Patrik, Salvation Army, Schola St. George, Social action, WMA, WSD View Comments

A matter of uniform

Wednesday, February 21st, 2007

The Salvation army uniform is obviously an issue that has been debated to the bitter end and back again and previously on this blog I have posted one or two articles about uniform issues as well. Either way I have some new experiences that I would like to share.

As I was in Malmö last weekend I walked the entire city in full uniform (including the hat) and got various different reactions. The most notable reaction was from any and all people older than 60 that smiled and seemed comforted by the presence of a “young” salvationist. Once I reached “Möllan” I met a few immigrants of various nationalities that seemed to be irritaded or disturbed by the uniform (I do not know whether this was due to their muslim faith or the fact that they come from countries where war is a very real thing, and the military is cruel and ruthless, I suspect the latter). At the funeral the uniform simply fit in as formal wear and a fitting tribute to my grandmother. It also seemed that it had a comforting and reassuring effect on the rest of the family. The oddest reaction however was that of my brother. He said:

{{“WOW, what a cool hat, clearly the coolest hat I have ever seen, can I have one to?”}}

After this he wanted me to wear the uniform as we visited with his various friends who also seemed to think that the salvation army uniform was not only ok but “cool” and deserving of respect. This coming from the hipp and in crowd in Malmö, the ones that hold the V.I.P. passes to all the nightclubs and are considered the people to be with if you are anywhere between 16 and 26 years old.

Isn’t it odd that the same group of young people IN the Salvation army are the ones aeguing that the salvation army uniform is outdated and a reason for ridicule. But as you look at other similar uniformed professions they don’t look ridiculous, pilots, air stewardesses etc.

I also found myself wishing we had been in the salvation army uniform as we stopped the assault in kingston as that had been a great witness to all the people who where standing around not daring to interfere with these heinous acts of violence. Having said that, I do get Hannas point, How would I ever have been able to do anything with high heels and a skirt?

While I percieve that the uniform still is a great witnessing tool and the trademark of the Salvation Army, there is a lot to be said about its practicality. And a pair of navy BDU’s with a navy pullover and a beret would promote the military metaphor but offer the practicality needed out inb the streets actually reaching out to the the poorest of the poor. What we would loose was the image of the SA soldier that has been worked in as our trademark for so many generations.

21.02.2007 Battle report, Malmö, Patrik, Salvation Army, Social action, uniform View Comments

Adventures in Kingston town.

Sunday, February 18th, 2007

Hanna and I went to Kingston with Frank and Elsebeth Jakshoj to relax after a very demanding weekend. We visited the Disney store to Angelinas delight. After that we had a delicious mocha at Starbucks and then we went to get some takeout at a nearby japanese restaurant.

As I am placing our order I here screams right outside, I come out to see two girls kicking a third girl on the floor in the head, without thinking I go straight in and pull the one girl of. Hanna come in right after me and take the second girl.  The girl whois being attacked is screaming for somebody to help her. She is bleeding and we later see that she wet herself during the attack. As we are intervening them there are more than six people standing by the side watching.  Nobody does anything not even calling the police.

The girl who’s face is being kicked in gets up and  yells for people to call the police just before getting jumped again by the second girl who managed to sneak around Hannas back. As we go in the second time to separate them I see the security guards arriving and I think that finally they will take charge of the situation and detain these violent girls.

NOT! The security guards stand by the side and watch us struggle to keep these wild girls of each other. When we finally get the aggressors of  the poor girl they idly watch the two girls who mugged and assaulted someone while they where watching walk out of the mall.

Thankfully Frank and Elsebeth took care of Angelina and Anja and managed to shield them from the overt violence, even so Angelina seemed to be a bit shaken when we came back to the restaurant to pick up our food.

Frank and Elsebeth looked at us and said, well it’s certanly never booring when you are around.

In retrospect I regret not making a citizens arrest and assuming that the security guards would do their job but at the same time it was good to see that both Hanna and I still got it and that we still work perfectly together in a tight spot.

18.02.2007 Angelina, Anja, Family, Hanna, No Fear, Patrik, Social action, The world View Comments

Compassion on wheels

Sunday, September 3rd, 2006

One of my pet peeves is that the church seldom produces quality promotion material wich sends the message that our message is not really that important, not so with this fantastic video

It really sends the message of the army, sends the underlying message that this is important/professional and it spells out, WE CARE! and we are good at it!

03.09.2006 Church, Salvation Army, Social action View Comments

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