Tulips, Muslims and Christians

As human beings we live in a constant state of expectancy. We expect something to happen. And if we do not expect anything to happen, we expect that the state of non-expectancy will just continue.

There are two special things all people living in Finland expect and look forward to just at present. We want to get snow. If you have not lived here from autumn until Christmas (cf. the text 12.10.2007) it might be difficult for you to imagine what it means that the days are short and dark. When we have snow, the days are just short. The darkness disappears and all your body and mind rejoice because of that.

During the short, dark days all kinds of gloomy and dark ideas just smuggle their way into your mind. And they do not just come and go. They stick. They are difficult to just hush away. We need to make conscious effort to light some lamps, candles and stars amidst the thoughts that travel through the mind and occupy it. To tell the truth, as a nation, we are now just pretending to be normal. If you do not like to deal with people who collectively pretend to be something they really are not, contact us another time, in spring. Come back at the end February, the beginning of March. The lamps, candles and stars will be seen in people´s eyes then. Come to ski on the lakes, through the snow-covered forests and fjells in the most beautiful sunshine you can ever find - especially in Lapland.

In addition to snow, we are now looking forward to Christmas time. Today I had to cancel some business appointments and had some extra time. We went with my mother to buy tulip bulbs. The ground is not yet frozen which means that it is still possible to plant them.

T.H. Elliot writes in the Waste Land that April is the cruellest month breeding out the dull roots of memory and desire. Had he lived in Finland, he would never have said that. April - to my mind - is the most inspiring and invigorating month, especially in Lapland where I grew up. Here in the south of Finland, the barren soil of the end of April and the beginning of May is spotted by colourful tulips and daffodils.

The oral traditions of the Prophet Muhammad state that in the afterlife people will do what they most enjoy doing on earth. As far as I know, we Christians believe that in the afterlife there is a special place reserved for everyone of us. There are also some duties and responsibilities attached to the place, and because of that we need to develop certain personality traits and skills during our lifetime. When we die, the learning process will continue in the eternity.

C.S. Lewis has said somewhere that from the point of view of the eighty or ninety years we live here on the earth, it does not matter that much, what characteristics we develop. But from the point of view of the eternity, it is decisive.

What Lewis says has made me think of all the consequences my own doings and activities may have, in what kind of building processes they probably take part in. I also think that Lewis has offered us a solid and fundamental argument for life-long learning. Additionally, his idea reveals what size millstones will be placed around the neck of the teachers who somehow kill the desire to learn in their pupils and students.

Anyway, according to Muslim thinking all flowers belong to heaven and the gardeners will surely go to paradise - to continue their work, they too!

For Christians the paradise was a shining city on a hill. The Muslims, coming from deserts, looked forward to an endless garden of delight, full of pavillions, fountains and flowers. The most precious of the flowers were the tulips. The Ottoman gardeners considered only the rose, the narcissus, the carnation and the hyacinth worthy to be planted alongside tulips.

Normally I buy one hundred tulip bulbs every autumn. Now I have just sixty of them plus two-and-a-half kilo of narcissi. Buying per kilo sounded a bit strange, but getting fifty percent reduction of the price makes the decision making process quick and smooth, no matter what you want to buy. The significant reduction also reveals that it is the eleventh moment to plant the bulbs. Not doing that quickly, would mean loosing the excitement of spring mornings when I get out to check how many bulbs really come out to greet the sun.

As to tulips, it is very interesting to think of various cultures and their knowledge creation processes. The tulips belong to the special expertise of the Dutch people since the 1550´s. I need not tell you that the tulips and narcissi I bought come from Holland. It is self-evident.

Mike Dash has written an excellent description of the cultural and economic history of the tulips, Tulipomania, The Story of the World´s Most Coveted Flower and the Extraordinary Passions it Aroused (ISBN: 0-575-40250-4). The story is worth knowing, especially if you are interested in the futures market, a form of speculation in which a dealer gambles on the future price of some commodity.

We are approaching Advent. I have arranged a special parking place for angels that are going around.

When writing these texts, or anything else, I need to stop every now and then to look for ideas and connections between them. Normally I look to the left. What I see there are some pictures of my son smiling happily on some mountains in France, Alexander McCall Smith equally happy-looking in the Academic Bookshop in Helsinki, plus two small coloured graphics I have bought in Slovenia.

If you always do, what you have always done, you will always get, what you have always gotten.
I need now new sources of ideas and encouragement. Small changes result in big consequences. Instead of looking for ideas on my left-hand side, I want to learn to look at the right. What I see then is this special parking place for angels - golden, shiny angel wings resting on a stick. It´s a pitty, my camera is travelling around the world. I have no control over its movements. If I ever get it back and under my own control, I´ll add here a picture of the angel wings so that you will be able to see the same I see now.