liv | Itinerant preacher returns to Stockholm

So the Progressive community I used to work with in Stockholm have been working on a siddur for 10 years. Which means they started when I was still living there. And when they completed it they invited me to come and help them celebrate the siyyum.

The trip back was the most perfect it could have been. Firstly because

jack and

ghoti_mhic_uait agreed to come with me, and Ghoti brought the children. So I got both a nostalgia trip with

jack to the place where we started our relationship, and a chance to show

ghoti_mhic_uait an important part of my life. And I reconnected with many of my Swedish friends and it was wonderful.

We got in mid afternoon Friday, by budget airline to a random town in the middle of nowhere. Sweden is not the best place for autumn colours usually, but this particular weekend it was completely spectacular, just at the exact transition between green and flame colours. And there was traffic coming into Stockholm (not exactly a surprise at rush hour on Friday evening) and a bit of faffing getting checked in to the hostel, so we ended up being late for the start of the Friday night service. I completely failed to slip in discreetly at the back because half the community were wildly delighted to see me.

So there was a ridiculously lovely service, a bit heavy on the guitar and drums for my ideal tastes but it was so lovely to be surrounded by my people and everybody singing and being happy about their siddur. Somewhere in the middle I realized that among many old friends was someone who moved to America years ago whom I didn't at all expect to see. I spoke a bit about how a book of fixed prayers is like a social protocol: you use a set formula when you greet people or wish them happy birthday or give condolences. It would be infeasible to think of something totally original to say in every circumstance, but the point of the protocol is to make it easier to build a genuine connection where you can say what's really in your heart.

After the service we had a knytkalas or bring-and-share meal, and I got a chance to catch up properly with everybody while the children made friends with random Swedish kids (who weren't born last time I was in the area) and played downstairs with minimal adult intervention. And we walked home across the city, lovely crisp autumn night, and looked at the lion statues, and I felt delightfully and perfectly home.

Saturday there was another service;

ghoti_mhic_uait took the children to Skansen so they didn't have to sit through more foreign language prayers. Again, it was a lovely service, with storytelling and communal singing and thoughtful meditation. Quite a few children present, which is always a happy thing. And a great chance to put the new siddur through its paces. It's a completely lovely book; the title is a pun, 'the voice of the soul' which is a homophone for 'every soul' in Hebrew as in the Psalm כֹּל הַנְּשָׁמָה, every soul shall praise God. It's set with three columns, Hebrew, Swedish transliteration, and a beautiful, gender-neutral original Swedish translation. A little bit of commentary but not enough to make it unwieldy to use. Plus it has a really good index. We are excited about the index, oh yes. I read Torah, the very first bit of Genesis. An elderly lady (who always counts herself in with the children) came up to me after, a bit disappointed that I didn't chant, and sang a few verses of the trop to make up for my musical deficiencies.

We had a sumptuous kiddush, shared with the larger Conservative community, who were celebrating a Bat Mitzvah. And then the formal ceremony presenting the siddur itself. I gave a talk about the early history of the siddur; it was pretty much ex tempore, but lots of people were very pleased with it and asked me to write it up. So in a bit I'll put it up here. Another founder member of the Progressive community, who now lives in Israel, was also a special guest, and he talked about Reform and Progressive prayer books, ie the most recent 300 years of history to follow on from my Bible to Mediaeval times story. The long retired Con rabbi was able to join us and it was nice to catch up with him too – I learned quite a bit of Talmud with him back in the day. I think most excitingly of all, one of my favourite people from the community showed up to the ceremony. She was already quite elderly and frail 10 years ago, so when she wasn't there on Friday night I was nervous to ask after her. But no, she's fine, just even more frail. She said jag saknar dig varje dag ('I miss you every day'), and I just about broke down.

jack and I got to have a long lunch and gossip with SA after the service, and hear about her life with her toddler whom I hadn't met until now. Then we met back up with

ghoti_mhic_uait and the kids; they had had a good day but not quite managed to be in a place that was selling food at lunch time. So we went to Max, the Swedish burger chain, and had dinner. I didn't frequent Max much when I lived there because I'm not a huge fan of that kind of fast food, but actually I think I'd like to go back there some time when I'm hungry (as opposed to straight after a late lunch!), they had some really nice veggie options, much more exciting than McDo or Burger King.

And then we had a completely lovely evening just hanging out in the (really cool) hostel room, playing phone games and reading and chilling. Lovely comfortable family time going flop after a day of tourism for them and being on with preaching and being a community leader for me. Some of us are into the delightful phone word game Alphabear 2; still very much enjoying playing it with the children, though it's a bit harder than the original Alphabear and a bit frustrating for a child who's not yet completely comfortable with spelling.

Sunday

jack and I had a long leisurely breakfast and catch up with EBH, the chair of the Progressive group who organizes everything, and whom I love very much. Then we joined up with

ghoti_mhic_uait and the children to have eco-friendly lunch at the science museum where they'd spent the morning, which involved a breathtakingly beautiful walk across Djurgården. We then moved on to the Vasa museum, build around a famous shipwreck, which is one of Stockholm's main tourist attractions and I'd never made it there while I was living there. I think people were a bit disappointed that you can't actually board the ship, but it's still pretty cool an interesting. Stockholm is beautiful in many weather conditions, but Strandvägen in the last of the afternoon sunshine, glittering under bright blue skies, is something else.

And home with no transport doom, for the first time this year.

I didn't take pictures, but by fortunate coincidence

nanila was there at the same time and visited many of the same areas, and is a pretty great photographer. Check out her pictures of central Stockholm and Skansen.

It's hard to describe how happy I am to get a chance to go back, to have such a perfect weekend with people I love. I miss Stockholm a lot, and I feel very good being reminded that it's still there. And my Progressive community isn't just still there, but growing and developing and thriving, and full of people who are just really happy to see me. Andreas wondered if I'm famous, based on the reception I got. I said 'locally famous', but basically I'm just really well liked there, and that's a precious thing.