Sunday, June 8, 2008

Pianisimo

Posted by at

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi Kristina!
Freedom. A word used and understood in so many ways. This struck me especially when I in periods of my life live outside the place and the culture where I grew up. This spring term I live in USA, the promised land of freedom for so many who had to flee from whatever restraints they experienced in their land of birth, whether it was poverty or religious persecution.

A couple of days ago I visited Ellis Island in New York and wandered in the steps of many immigrants who poured into the US a century ago - some of them my grandparents' sisters and brothers from farming families in Trondelag, Norway. I remember how my grandmother always talked about her sister Lovise, who left, and how she would treasure the letters from her. In the 1950s my father had an opportunity to visit America - a rare opportunity in those days, and i remember how he told about visiting his and my mother's relatives there, what he told about their lives in "the promised land".

The promised land became the home land, and a new culture grew out of that. Or rather many cultures in the meeting point between the new and the old from so many places.

Each and every one of those people pouring into Ellis Island brought their own hopes and fears and longing for freedom. They had to give up much when they left - however hard the conditions were. Did they find freedom in the new land? The answers are probably many, depending on what they sought, what they left, where they settled.

Is freedom a life without laws and regulation? Or is freedom a life within chosen laws and regulations? To what extent can we enforce our laws and regulations upon others? How do we meet other ways of thinking and doing? Is freedom "only" a way of settling in, finding a life within the boundaries of a society? When is it necessary to break out of these boundaries? What happens when we meet conflicting values and boundaries, which is often the case for people "on the move"?

Mamma Jorid

June 8, 2008 at 3:56 PM

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)