Inside the Rock

"Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock . . ." In the book of Isaiah, the prophet indicates that God consider himself the Rock, the solid base for life. Inside the powerful grotto that the Lutheran Church has built in Helsinki, it is easy to see how wonderful a place it must be to worship. The feeling of strength is clear, the sound of quiet strength is massive. Light pours in through the skylights and reflects onto the copper ceiling, a work of art of its own.

In the tour guidebook, it sounded like an interesting oddity. In actuality, the Rock Church was another in a series of wonderful, positive surprises we found in Europe. A poem:

ROCK IN HELSINKI

Neighbors accepted the proposed church in Lutheran Helsinki;
Arguing only that they preferred not to have a tall cathedral
Right in the middle of their downtown. Problem was solved
When they blasted one out of the solid granite under the city.
Inside on a sunny summer midday, all the congregation gone,
Buses full of tourists file through to see the creative result.
This fortunate parish wound up with a big-city Lutheran grotto,
A holy place where we were proud to light a candle.

Next post: chasing wild geese in Helsinki.

Rock Church

The story, as our tour guide told it, was that a new church was planned in the north section of the city of Helsinki. Residents had no complaint about the location of the church but were not happy if the facility were to be a tall building with high visibility. And the area where the Church was planned was an area of large rocky formations. Sounds like a real controversy until you arrive to see the result.

Apparently, everyone won in this situation as they blasted and dug the Church out from inside the rock. Called the Rock Church, this Lutheran Church runs a full slate of services every week in Finnish and also offers a 2:00 PM service in English. If our tight tour schedule had allowed it, I would have been most pleased to attend that service. If occasion sends us back to Helsinki on a Sunday in the future, the service will be pre-planned on our schedule.

What they have built is a beautiful hollow grotto in the rock. We will look at a couple more photos from the Rock in the next post.

Sibelius & the Sky

We looked at the traditional viewpoint for the Sibelius monument in the previous post, but I think the reason I remember the monument so powerfully is that it is inviting and open to exploration. As I climbed up and through the pedestal, I saw the bright blue sky and some wispy Sunday clouds as the background. Some monuments are nice enough to look at but this one wants to show off the sky, the openness, and the beauty of the area.

Tell me another composer who has a monument so active and so alive; if you can do so, I will put that city on my travel list!

Next post visits a Lutheran Church in a special location.

Olympic Park & Composer

A short bus ride away from downtown Helsinki took us by the park area where Helsinki hosted a Winter Olympics. Interesting to see the site but of course from the bus this photo is the only vista we saw. Closest I have ever been to an Olympic venue, though; perhaps that will change in 2016 if Chicago hosts the summer games.

We were on the way to another park area, a rambling beautiful park area teeming with tourists and citizens alike on a Sunday morning. The focal point of the park is a creative and interesting monument to the classical composer Jean Sibelius, certainly the most famous musical artist in Finland's history. Sibelius died in 1957 at the age of 91, an icon of a time of fierce nationalism in Finland despite Soviet political domination. I have an excerpt from his most famous work on my iPod; the title is FINLANDIA.

This sculpture, reminding me of a bright silver set of pipes for a massive outdoor pipe organ, is eye-catching and wonderful. And worthy of another visit in the next post where we can have a few closeups!

Senate Square

The downtown area we saw in the previous post is literally two blocks from an open air market, where items of clothing, lots of trinkets and souvenirs, and several booths of food are for sale. But we could not take the time to visit there for long, as the town itself is perfectly beautiful. In the bright Sunday sunshine, we saw statuary and fountains, shops and cafes, all along cobblestone streets and walks surrounding Senate Square.

And we kept crossing several tram lines, knowing that we had plans for a special tram ride after noon, one that we had seen on a Travel Channel visit to Helsinki featuring Samantha Brown. We knew we had a few things to see first, but the tram ride would certainly be worth it. Our next post will be away from downtown at a powerful memorial sculpture. We will return for a cold one on the tram after that.

The Good Czar

On a brilliant Sunday morning, our trip into Helsinki started at Senate Square, a public square right along several of the tram lines. The square is dominated not by a government building as the name might suggest, but by a Lutheran Cathedral atop of mountain of steps.

But in the center of the square itself is a statue to Czar Alexander II, the so-called "good czar." His image was erected in Senate Square as a protest to another czar, a wise strategy for Finland to take. How could a group express displeasure with a powerful monarchy, do so in public, and not be disciplined in any way? By building a monument to the predecessor. Apparently everyone on every side knew the intent, but the selection was perfect. No one could complain. And now Alexander II stands tall over a free Finland and its beautiful Senate Square.

More from Helsinki in the next post.

Flock Welcome to Finland

Stepping onto the balcony of our stateroom in Helsinki Harbor, I noticed a flock of seagulls. This is not uncommon in cruising, and the gulls often mass in huge flocks obviously looking for food. This flock was fed by several people out on the balconies and they came much closer to the ship than most do.

Grab the Nikon and start shooting! Truly, if Richard Bach is considering writing a sequel to the photo-studded JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL, he could negotiate with me. I think I have enough photos to support another novel, and some of them are among my favorite bird photos ever.

My backlog of Europe photos was so huge I just gravitated to double posts most days in August. Now that September is here I plan to get back to the single post most days. Tomorrow we head into Helsinki.