In the movie Mary Poppins, there is a scene where Mary and the children come across Bert who has been painting pictures on the sidewalk. After some discussion the children plead with Mary to have them pop into one of Bert’s paintings; they do so and go around the countryside having a merry time.

That is how I feel here in Sweden- we go from one landscape painting to another.
Monday we started our journey at the cathedral in Strängnäs. We wandered around the church yard looking at rune stones and meandered around the interior of the cathedral looking at various graves, religious symbols, and ancient relics. We left at noon just as the female pastor in jeans began giving her sermon. I’ll have to try and wear jeans next time give a talk in church.

We made the short drive from the cathedral to the Gripsholm castle, which overlooks Lake Mälaren. One of my favorite rooms in the castle was the theatre. One of the Kings had built a fully equipped theatre into the top of a tower. The theatre includes lower seating, two levels of boxes seating, and a fully equipped stage. We all just sat there looking around at the beauty and elegance.

Tuesday we made the three-hour trip to Falun to see Carl Larsons house, which was an interesting trip. I was more amazed at the river and lake outside his house. I wanted to get a fishing rod and just kick back and fish for a few hours. We had lunch and visited the old copper mine in Falun. After 800 years, the mine had more than 50 miles of tunnels beneath the surface of the earth; it was finally closed in 1992. In the 1660’s the upper third of the mine collapsed leaving a hole in the earth 600 meters deep. Eight hundred years of mining is pretty amazing.

We went out to a sommar stuga (summer house) for an afternoon snack with some family and we walked into another painting. The sommar stuga sat on a lake with small rolling hills surrounding it. I spent a lot of time sitting on the edge of the dock just looking at the green hills, the white clouds, the sparkling water, and the birds that flew around. The beauty is just amazing, man can do all kinds of wonderful things, but what the Creator has done is always more awe inspiring.