Thursday, May 17, 2012

Freedom!

                                         What is freedom to you? To me?To others?

When I woke up this morning, I am thankful that I can sleep in my own bed and not in a jail as some did. And it means that I have freedom.
Today  is Norwegians national day. It is day where the Norwegians celebrate their freedom. As a foreigner, I celebrate with them because I am now a part of this country.

But when I look outside through my window, I saw rainshower coming from heaven. Then I thought, we are going to be wet, we who are going to see the parade and those that are going to be in the parade. But again, we are free to do it or not. That is also freedom for everybody.


17th of May – Norway’s national day

Although 2005 was the centennial of Norway’s full independence, the country’s constitution dates back further. It was, in fact, adopted at Eidsvoll on 17 May 1814. The celebrations commemorating this event centre around the children, with school bands leading processions of children waving flags all over Norway.

Everywhere one can see the colors of red,white and blue symbolizing their flag.

like this flower bouquet
I bought this from a mom and a daughter who sells flowers in the neighborhood to support their group.


                                 The celebration always begin at the church. So I went there first.


This is the church in our place!

Our priest
He talked about  why we celebrate national day. He said that when their forefathers started,  it always begins at the church and do the parade and go back to the church again. But now, it only begins at the church but afterwards, there will be no more church service. The people are free to go whereever they wanted to go after the parade.
For me it is freedom too that we take for granted. In other countries, one can be beaten to death by just going to church.


 The music team " Kornett" played the music during the service. Freedom to choose to do a good deed that day!


I met my sister and brother-in- law after the service. I took a picture of them together with the mayor of our place.


Me and my sister inside her mother-in-law's apartment while waiting for the parade to pass by:)


And now first of the parade. " The russ" wearing red,white and blue attire. This is the last day they are going to use this attire after 17 days.  To the right is my youngest daughter:)


And the rest of the gang! The blå ( blue) russ were with them. They are graduating too.


The mayor of our place leading the parade. As you can see, most off them wears raincoats coz it is raining . 


One of the highlights of the parade. Majorettes!


The kindergarten with their parents!


I saw a friend!


National dresses!


The small ones in the elementary school!


Different kinds of national dresses, especially worn in national day.


Some dared to wear short dresses in this cold and rainy weather. Freedom to choose!


Then the grown ups parade!


And my favorite of all! They are so cute:) 

After the parade... dinner with my sister, brother in law and his mother!


Most of the people eats at the restaurant this day, but me, I was lucky to be invited by my sister and brother-in-law to have dinner with them . 



My youngest daughter was with her friends. It is her choice. Freedom

Here in Norway, freedom is a natural word. Everybody has the freedom to choose their own religion or not to believe at all. The children has freedom of speech and right to choose life that they wanted to live. Freedom that many takes for granted. 

But who will decide when enough is enough. Freedom can be misused. Like children whom they had given freedom of speech. They don't know the word respect anymore. Cursing is just a natural word for the youths. Freedom to have sex whom ever they want to has gone too far. If they want to, they can just have sex with friends or someone they just met and didn't even know the name.  Freedom to abort a baby if it does not suit the mother. Freedom to vote or  not. They forgot that before, they fight just to be given the right to vote. And the list is endless. And it seems that the more you do wrong things, the more you get respected. But of course, not every body is misusing their freedom. One thing is for sure, without God we are all lost although we have freedom or not.

1 Corinthians 6:12 Everything is permissible for me, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is permissible for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.

                                      The secret:
You my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to endulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.  Galatians 5:13

So let us enjoy our freedom...freedom to do good things:)
Linking to:






















5 comments:

  1. Happy Norwegians to you Joy, I agree with you, our Freedom makes our life easy but hoping it will use in proper way.Have fun dear

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thank you for sharing this special day with us. The pictures are fantastic.
    Blessings,
    Charlotte

    ReplyDelete
  3. Happy Norway Day to you, Joy.... Looks like you all had a fabulous day.. We here in the USA also have those freedoms you speak of... Thanks be to God for that!!!! Don't know what we'd do without our freedom.
    Hugs,
    Betsy

    ReplyDelete
  4. Awesome Joy! Happy Norwegians Day to you and your family. Thank you for sharing in pictures. Blessings.

    ReplyDelete
  5. What an awesome experience! Thank you for sharing it with us...the photos really brought the whole day to life!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for dropping by and your comments are very well appreciated. It is like a cold glass water in a warm sunny day! Blessings.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...