A narcissist is a person who has a very frail ego. He will do a lot of weird stuff to promote the idea of his superiority over others, especially their spouse or girl friend. Now let’s imagine for a while, that (the Christian) God is a person, who enters your (God’s bride you,) life.

You are having rough time in your life, and that is usually when God appears. He comes in as your saviour, tells you that he will make everything better, because he loves you. You poor thing made a mess out of your life without me, but now I am here, to make it all better. It will be very special between us, I love you, you love me, and we forsake all others.

He does make everything better. The Sun seems to shine brighter for you and you feel so loved and special. You focus fully on your new love, and you tell everyone how happy you are, and how much in love you are with this special man. Your friends are a bit on the hesitant side, most of them don’t really believe that you are for real. They warn you a bit about the dangers of going into the relationship head over heels.

God, your man, will now tell you that you have to ignore your friends, because they are not good enough. They haven’t been touched by love like you are, they don’t know. They are not experienced enough to give you advice. You would be better off without them anyway, at least give yourself some space from them, and concentrate on US. Just ignore what they say, they don’t know what they are saying. How could they know what a special relationship we have?

God will then slowly introduce some rules into the relationship. He likes his bed made the certain way. He doesn’t like you swearing. He doesn’t like you being too slutty, dressing up too slutty, as that will arouse other men. (Yes, narcissists do that, exactly.) If you enjoy sex, it has to be with him, and with him you have to be ecstatic, it’s God Sex, woman! You have my blessing here! Moan and groan, woman, it’s me inside you! One day you buy yourself a dress you think your man will like, but he will turn away from you, and says he hates it. Too sexy. It must be that you don’t love me! You want to attract other men, you want that dirty sex that other men give you! Not the divine and pure sex we have! You whore!

He will tell you that he insists that you have to eat healthy, but buys cakes and chocolate for you. He places them in front of you and waits. When you eat some, he will tell you what an disobedient horrible person you are! He will tell you that you have to respect these people, but then manipulate them behind your back to behave in a disrespectful manner, just so that you would slip up again and you demonstrate how you don’t respect them. He takes great pleasure in trapping you. Once you have been humiliated like this, he will then insist on having an intimate moment with you, to strengthen the bond you share.

When you silently think that you want out of this relationship, he will threaten you with the hell he will put you through if you don’t comply with his rules. He will not only make your life a hell, but your childrens as well, he will make your children pay for your sins, regardless, sure, they are his children as well, but your sins will be paid by your son. There’s a reason for you to stay put! Besides, wouldn’t it be embarrassing to leave? God was so good to you to start with, and you were so silly going into the relationship telling everyone about all those wonderful things he did! How could you admit to them, that it wasn’t as good as it seemed after all? God tells you, that nobody will ever love you the way he did anyway, and you should do anything for love like that, shouldn’t you? You don’t just cast away happiness with both hands like that! You will never be happy again if you leave me, I should know, because I’m God, right?

Sure… This image of a God is the one that exists in the unedited version of the bible and old testament. But how far are we supposed to “edit” God and still think it’s the same bloke? A lot of people will say, that God is really not like that… And all wives of narcissists have said the exact same thing at some point or another. “It’s not how he is, he’s just misunderstood.”

So if you really know what God is like, what do you need a church or the Bible for? That’s what I decided long ago, nobody was going to tell me what God likes or doesn’t like, I was in as good of a position to know Gods will than anyone else. So I left the church, and I have never looked back.

There’s currently 2 discussions about the handsomest / most beautiful blogger on BlogCatalog.com. This made me think about the importance of letting your readers know what you look like. I don’t know if it is that important to other people, but to me it is… For one thing, you can tell a lot about the person by the photo. The age, the style, the gender - you might be surprised how often people think you’re the other gender if you don’t have a photo of yourself! Some topics are gender biased, like… Environmental issues, girly stuff. Fashion, definitely girls, technology, boys, without question… If a blogger doesn’t constantly tell you that “I’m a guy” the visitor will create an image which will effect the way they read your posts.

I know it is daunting to put your photo up there. I chose to use a series of photos, as currently, after having shaved all of my hair off when I turned 30, I am now growing my hair and I bloody well hate it. Having a series of random photos up there, will give me the satisfaction of telling people that I haven’t always had bad hair! Anyway, I would still put my image up there even if I was’t happy about the way I look, or have ever looked, because it gives people an idea of who I am, and why I think this way. Believe it or not, the way we look will also have an effect on how we view the world. “All men are pigs” will sound different when women looking different say that, don’t you agree?

If you have the looks, don’t hide it! You should not underestimate the value of good looks when it comes to attracting readership. People will deny that they would read blogs based on the good looks of the blogger, but deep down we all know we do… Not that it would be nearly the only thing that matters, just that it has an effect that is important enough to take a note off. Let’s put it this way; having the right meta tags will not bring you as many readers as your good looks.

One more thing that speaks for portraying your image; trust. If you have the guts to put your photo up there, and still say what you say, it gives the impression that you do stand behind what you say. We all know what anonymity does to you online. When you comment on discussion boards or to an article, if you are ashamed of what you say, you won’t be posting that thing with your name attached to it, let alone a photo. What ever you say with your name and face attached to it creates trust. Quite frankly, I don’t really give a damn about what some flower or cartoon character says on a discussion board, but I will take a good look at posts that are decorated with a real face.

If you want them to take you seriously, show them your face.

This here is my dog. Cute, isn’t he? Looks very friendly and cuddly, doesn’t he? Most of the time, that is exactly what he is too. He is the most loving and friendly dog with adults and over 7-year olds or so, which would be all that he should be fine with in his every day life. He is not at all used to young children though, especially toddlers… And that is where we constantly get into trouble.

Now, this would not be any kind of a problem if people would just listen to me… But here’s what happened today - and this is not an isolated incident.

Me and the dog were sitting outside at a café minding our own business, when a father carrying about a 2 year old son came to us. Without warning or questions, he shoved his kid into Primo’s face. I told him to be careful, as my dog isn’t used to kids, but the father smiled with the most heart warming smile and said “that’s fine.” Now I repeated myself, putting my hand out in the gesture, that to most people say “stop, stay away, don’t come close” and told him again, that my dog is not good with kids, and that he might bark. “That’s fine”, said the man, and pushed his kid closer, while Primo was escaping further down under the table. “He’s not used to kids” I said the third time, and he repeated, for the third time, that it was fine, and moved closer following the dog towards the depth of the table. I heard Primo letting out a low growl as he was pressing himself against my leg, so I informed the man, who I wasn’t sure heard it from the general noise. I can’t recall what he said, but my guess would be “that’s fine”. I expected that the announcement that the dog is growling, a generally understood message of aggression, would make him go away but no.

I was trying to speak calmly to the father, and reason with him and make him understand that the situation was not “fine”, because I didn’t want to scare the kid by starting screaming myself. Obviously that is what I should have done, because at that point Primo was already freaking out, and let out a huge German Sheppard size bark, that is supposed to say: “Get the fuck away from me before I bite your freaking head off!” The kid got it. He certainly got it. He started screaming, and I could make out the words “he will bite me”. All I could say was “that was what I meant” and look at him apolitically. “That’s fine” he said again, and continued to the kid “That’s fine, he’s just not used to kids…” (Like it would matter to a two year old WHY the big bad dog barked at him.) “Oh, you heard me after all?!” I thought to myself, but just clenched my teeth and tried to smile for as long as he went away. What I wanted to say, was that “No, you stupid idiot, it’s not FINE. It’s not even in the same ball park as FINE. If it would have happened, that my dog would have bitten your kid that you shoved in his face regardless of my warnings, it would have been my dogs fault and he would have ended up dead in this FINE situation. It is not FINE, because your kid will now grow up thinking that dogs hate him, when in fact it is nothing but their uncertain movement that makes dogs nervous.”

Dogs react to toddlers differently to other people. Toddlers are almost without an exception scared of dogs at some level, and therefore they approach with hesitation, even when they do it themselves. That makes the dog assume, that the kid is up to no good, and he wants to HARM ME. That is when they can react unexpectedly, by barking or by biting, and neither one is a good outcome.

What I have found, is that this is so very often a situation with men with their sons. For some reason, I’ve noticed that little boys are more scared of dogs than little girls are, maybe because it’s a male thing to see animals as beasts instead of cuddly toys, or possibly because their dads keep shoving them into faces of strange dogs. Is it some sort of a male ego thing, that you have to force your toddler to pat a dog he’s terrified off? “No kid of mine is scared of a spaniel!” And at the same time the twit makes things worse… And then they have to get out of the situation with a bit of an embarrassed look on their faces as they must admit that their kid was, after all, afraid of a spaniel. (Mothers usually ask if it is fine for the kid to pat the dog and when I tell them “probably not a good idea” they move away, which is all I’m asking.)

I was already thinking of getting a fucking pepper spray to protect my dog and their kids from stupid fathers with a point to prove, but I think I’ll just have to find that tone of voice that says: “I am fucking not kidding, man, keep your kid away from my dog or I will bite you.”

Spurred by the comment I received to the Obama-post, I started thinking about what a war is like to most nations apart from USA. Most nations, when they say their soldiers protect their nation, actually do mean that. USA has had what… One attack on their own soil, and that was hardly a military attack. They are STILL terrified of it. American civilians, thank God, have no idea what a war is like. I can say much the same for myself, thank God, but I can’t say the same for my family members, of whom some are old enough to have fought or lived through our two latest wars, the Winter War, which was fought at the same time as the World War II, and/or the Continuation War. By “us” I mean the Finns.

Finns do not have a hired army, apart from some staff members that stay on duty the whole time. If there should be a war, it would affect every family in Finland. Virtually every male, between ages 18 to 60 will be sent off to protect our borders. That excludes those who are incapacitated and includes men who refuse to carry a gun but will serve in other duties, and some women who serve in arms on voluntary basis. That guarantees, that there will not be wars that are of selfish reasons by the government leaders, as they will be sending their own sons to the slaughter just as they send those of the common citizen. Nations like that usually fight only when it is absolutely necessary, and not because some reason made up by the government to justify spending tons of money on an army.

This was the case when the Soviet Union led by Joseph Stalin attacked Finland on November 30, 1939. The reason was, that Soviet Union (now Russia) wanted to protect their capital of the time, Leningrad from Germans, as it situated too close to the Finnish border. They were worried, that Finland, despite it’s neutral position to WW2 would still allow Germans to attack through it, or could not stop them from doing it. Finland refused the request to use the land for military purposes, so SU attacked.

Now imagine. You sit peacefully in your home, listening to the news on the radio, and you hear that your country is being attacked by a country of a massive size, with an army 4 times the size of yours, and that is only counting their strength in soldiers sent your way. (If it was USA, it would probably mean something like the combined forces of all European countries, Russia, and probably South-America as well, and I don’t think it would still create terror similar to that of Finns.) You know that Sweden, on the west side of your country, has agreed not to join the war on your behalf in exchange of a promise by Russians that they won’t cross their border when they get there. WHEN they get there, they say. They are planning to walk all over your country in two weeks, and there is nothing stopping them, but an army of 250 000 men shooting pea guns. An army including your husband, your sons, your father and your brothers, and not only them, but every man you’ve ever known, unless they are over or under that age limit of 60 or 18. You thought they went to military rehearsal, but now you know they were sent to the border in case there is a war.

If you would live in Helsinki, the capital, you would know to expect bombing. You would know exactly where the bomb shelters are, and how many seconds it takes for you to collect your kids and run to the shelter. You would sleep with your clothes on, so you wouldn’t have to run to the streets in your nightie. The city would be sitting in a total darkness at nights, and what long nights they are in the winter, so that the army can misguide the Soviet bombers to bomb an inhabited island before the actual city by lighting little fires in there. Other towns were not as well protected as Helsinki was, and I used to live in a house that was one storey shorter than it started out with, the Russian bombers had shortened it a bit. At least it was still standing. The attic, where I dried my laundry, once was the top floor, now blown to pieces. Someone had lived there. I hope they heard the warning sirens in time and ran to bomb shelters before that happened.

You would eventually decide that it would be better for your children to live somewhere safe and you ship them off to Sweden to be raised by people you have never met, and to be treated like second class citizens all through their childhood and young adult life. You, and many of your friends would never see the children again, and some of them would never learn to speak your language. You would no longer work at what ever you did before, but you would be making clothes for the army, or filling shells of bullets with gun powder. You would go to the store hoping they had something to sell today, as you ran out of food a week ago. My grand mother once told me how she spent her last money on a bowl of pea soup at the bus station knowing that the next time she would get paid was a week from that, and she would not have a thing to eat until then. And that was after the war.

Should you live close to the Russian border, you would have left in a big hurry after the news… A little before possibly. You would pack everything you can on a horse carriage and take that last look at your home knowing that it might not be standing the next time you see it. You might not ever see it again, because your home village would be overtaken by Russians and you could never return. If you decided to stay regardless, like some people did, you wouldn’t know what would happen to you. There are no rules on a war path.

It was an impossible war, but the Soviet Union never made it to the Swedish border. Now look at the statistics here and understand why it was a miracle that Finland survived.

We received help from USA in the form of clothing and food, which we paid back before scheduled. (How ever did my grand parents and their generation ever managed that I don’t have an idea off.)

(Click on Read more to find some videos of the war, in English aired in USA.) (more…)

“His parents took him to the town when they found out he was ill. He didn’t get too bad while he was still here. I paid for it, actually.” He replied sounding slightly proud of himself.
“I didn’t know.” Florence said silently. “Thank you for paying for him, dad.” She then added. “I wish it would have helped – why didn’t you tell  me he died?”
“I thought you’d be terribly upset, dear. I didn’t want to upset you.” He replied and patted her hand.
“Well of course I would have been upset, but I kept looking for him for months after he was gone. I went to every place I could imagine to find him… I went to his house too, to find him, but there was nobody there.”
“You went to his house?!” Her mother interrupted her with a screechy voice of sheer terror. “Those people, his village… They could have… Oh dear!” All blood run off her face as her posture collapsed on the chair. (more…)