Stillhet i Oslo domkirke

Ceiling of Oslo domkirke.

The Holmenkollen Chapel is beautiful. Unfortunately, I've lost all those photos. Or rather, I'm too lazy to retrieve them. Went there in the night, and I think it's a lot more magical than its daytime appearance.

A pity Holmenkollen Chapel was locked up and I couldn't see the insides. Built in 1903 as a chapel, it was dedicated as a church (Evangelical Lutheran) in 1913, and rebuilt in 1996 after a fire. The dragestil wood carvings are intricate and besides being seen on excavated Viking ships, they are also a mark of stave churches. Serpents and dragons. With imagined bits of wave, froth and churn. Love.

Would have loved to check out the neo-gothic structure of St. Olav domkirke, but I wasn't quite passing that way. Went to Oslo domkirke instead. It's a Dutch baroque cruciform church that was consecrated in 1867 and has been reconstructed many times, closing for four years at the last one and re-opened in 2010. But the altar piece, ceiling mural, pulpit and organ remain the way it used to be, spruced up.

Gloria in excelsis deo. There was thanksgiving to be made; for answered prayers for the well-being of loved ones who had procedures successfully done at the hospitals. I wasn't particularly worried. Too used to these sort of stuff. All is left in the hands of skilled surgeons, and God. Faith sustains me, always. And a steady Skype connection to talk to the loved ones. Sat down among the pews. Salmene 41:1-3. The Bible was in Norwegian. OH, okay. Psalm 41:1-3. Psalm 41. I know it by heart. So I dutifully copied the Norwegian version in a notebook and matched it to the English in my head and read it softly to hear how it sounded. 

Salig er den som akter på den elendige; på den onde dag skal Herren frelse ham. 

Herren skal verge ham og holde ham i live; han skal bli lykksalig i landet, og du skal visselig ikke overgi ham til hans fienders mordlyst. 

Herren skal understøtte ham på sykesengen; hele hans leie forvandler du i hans sykdom.