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The well
At the Well we meet Finnish spiritual adults, three times with each one.
Today we have our first meeting with Salme Blomster,
an author, therapist, editor and educator from Espoo.
Salme Blomster has written numerous books
dealing with sexuality, self-esteem and restoration.
Her latest book deals with human identity and was published in 2008.
Salme Blomster is the mother of an adult child and has one grandchild.
Welcome to the Well, Salme Blomster. - Thank you.
Let's hear in your own words who you really are.
That's an interesting question - who am I really?
I would nowadays define my identity by what I am in relation to God.
The most important definition for me is that I'm a child of God.
I'm His daughter.
What are you learning right now in your life?
I'm trying to learn something that used to be very difficult for me.
To love and appreciate myself. I thought this would be wrong.
But I have learnt that you can't love others
unless you also care about yourself.
This type of schooling is still going on.
What kind of dreams do you have?
I have a dream that concerns this country,
but not only this country but in general people
who are in bondage, people whose spirit is still asleep.
People who are psychologically so bound or ill or distressed
that freedom, peace, joy and unity
have not become realities in their lives.
The things that are currently most important in my own life and
the most important thing in teaching
is a message of love of this kind.
What are you sure about?
Well, I was about to say that
since I'm from Ostrobothnia I'm sure about everything,
but I'm giving up that kind of sureness.
What I'm sure about is God's love, that's what I'm sure about.
Many people know you through the many books you've written.
Books that have passed through many hands.
And you are also an educator.
But where do you come from? Where are your roots?
Well, I'm partly so rootless that it's taken me quite a while
to find these roots. I was born in Kokkola in Ostrobothnia.
My father was in the army, so I have travelled to different parts of Finland,
but I mainly went to school in Ilmajoki.
At some stage I grew up even in the United States.
So in addition to having lived in very different places,
I have also been looking for myself in very many different areas.
What I'm going to be when I grow up
I'm stillnot completely sure about.
What kind of memories do you have from your childhood?
Not many, not many at all. My memories come from later,
mostly from the time when I was already living in Ilmajoki.
I was then a bit older and my memories are related to
children living at the military depot. There is a study available
of children of military depots compared to other children ... .
so we lived in our own world there.
Do you recollect anybody talking to you about God when you were a child?
No, my grandfather was the only person
with whom I sometimes sang hymns.
To my knowledge, he is the only Christian besides myself
in our family, and maybe it's because of his prayers
that God started to call me.
I spent lots of time with my grandparents.
I used to sit with my grandfather on the steps to the attic
singing hymns.
In what way and at what stage did God start to call you?
Now afterwards, when I have been in a sort of therapeutic prayer
during which the Holy Spirit takes you into the past,
God has spoken to me about situations and things
I would not even have remembered.
After checking them later, I have found them to be true.
When I've been praying, He has told me that
He was with me and that I have even escaped death traps
ever since my early childhood because of His protection.
But actively He called me when I was a teenager and
attended a camp with my friend. There I was born again
at the age of 16 after confirmation classes.
What kind of situation was it? Did anything special happen?
It was a very intensive event all in all.
We were isolated from everything else for more than a week,
and this naturally started to affect us.
I remember at the time I started to experience a different kind of peace,
something I had never experienced before.
Somehow I would think that it was the first touch
with another kind of world, something with rest and peace.
I still didn't understand much about it, but I did understand a bit,
because I can remember that from that time on I was
most distressed by certain types of music and TV programmes.
These had never bothered me before.
I became suddenly aware of the restlessness surrounding me.
This I remember vividly, because when I came home and
turned the radio on, I could not stand it and had to turn it off.
You were around 16? - Yes, I had just turned 16.
How did those around you react? What kind of impact did it have?
And your life, did it get a new direction?
Yes, definitely, and poor things around me, especially my school friends.
There were two of us who went together to convert people.
We played the guitar, sang songs acting like real converters.
We went from home to home talking about Jesus
and even managed to get some people to come along.
But there were, of course, also those who couldn't bear it.
We were as absolute as newly converted persons can be.
What kind of dreams for the future did you have at that age?
Yes, I wanted to become an actress.
It was my first idea of what to do as an adult.
I had acted since I was a child ...
also at a teenage theatre and even at a "real" theatre.
I thought this would be my career, but then at some stage
I came to my senses wondering whether I could earn my living
from this career. My vocational adviser at school
suggested I consider becoming an editor,
because I was good at writing.
Did you keep a diary when you were young?
I have always kept a diary as far back as I can remember,
starting when I was 9.
When I was 10 I started to write a paper and
it was published for quite a long time.
What kind of paper was it?
I called it Tremble. I can't on earth remember why.
In this paper I drew pictures and wrote serial stories and news
and all kinds of stuff from real life ... also some fairy tales.
But then you really became an editor?
How did it start? You went to school and ..?
Yes, out of all these alternatives even my parents thought that
acting was not perhaps a proper profession and
that I had better go to university. So I went to study
the Finnish language to lay a foundation for my writing.
But I soon found this to be far too long a road.
I didn't want to become a teacher, even if I have always liked teaching.
As a substitute teacher, I found that repeating the same things
over and over again is not for me. So in the midst of my Finnish studies
I applied to the newspaper publisher Sanoma Corporation
for a place at their editorial school
and that's how I ended up as an editor.
You have worked with newspapers like Ilta-Sanomat and Suomen Kuvalehti?
The first post offered to me was that of a society reporter.
I was shocked and didn't accept it.
I suggested the evening paper Ilta-Sanomat,
because a quick tempo suited me well. I got the post.
What was it like being a reporter?
It was actually very interesting.
One advantage at Sanoma Corporation was -
at least as far as my future was concerned -
that they gave you a lot of training, further training, etc.
I was given a wide range of duties - working with folding,
as an editorial secretary and as the chief of the weekend paper.
I was also given an opportunity to write, and to attend different classes.
In this way I was given a chance to grow and to develop.
Thinking back, everything was quite nice
apart from having to get up very early.
Did God and talking about God
get any space in the secular media at that time?
It would not have been tolerated there at all.
You had to be a bit quiet about that.
We did have Christians among us and others knew that.
But it was more being Christ's fragrance than
actively talking about it.
I could almost say that Suomen Kuvalehti was ..,
at least my co-workers were more Christian
than those at the evening paper.
It has been my most Christian working place,
although I worked for a while with the Kotimaa newspaper.
You did not stay in the newspaper world?
Something happened? Why are you sitting here today?
One thing that clearly happened was that - since I always had been
interested in psychology - I started to study it alongside my job.
I first thought that it was because of my own neurosis.
I was seeking help for myself, but then it started to interest me
to such an extent that I wondered if there was something in it
that could be of help to others too.
The first therapeutic direction I learned about was new in Finland,
but at the same time so popular
that it drew lots of people to the university.
It started to interest the publishing company WSOY.
They knew that I had been trained in this and asked if I was willing to
write a book on the subject.
This book "Tunteista voimaa" (=Strength from feelings) (1989-1990)
was my first and I noticed that was what I wanted to do.
This kind of writing requires a bit more sustenance but
I can write through my own life and my own experiences
something that is real and might help somebody else.
I also began to realize that this was where I could
combine the education I had received.
And then, gradually, after my sabbatical,
which I had taken for this book,
I thought that a freelance writer is what I wanted to be.
I had had supervisory duties for a long time and didn't like them at all.
But I wanted to write.
So I left and have not regretted that decision for a single day.
"I noticed that I can write something real that might help others"
You write about very heavy topics.
I know several people who have read your books
and been able to read only one page or two at a time,
because they are so heavy
dealing with themes like shame, fear or hatred.
What have you had to go through yourself
to be able to write stuff like this?
Yes, I have been through it all.
And it's true that many people say they read them
one sentence at a time. This is very interesting,
because I would say that these themes were given to me by God.
When the publisher Karas Sana asked me to write a series of books
dealing with feelings, I prayed about it -
and had already been praying about it for some time
because I had a group which met on Monday evenings
for prayer, worship and teaching.
Then I clearly heard God tell me to talk about shame and guilt.
And in this context, a book dealing with shame started to emerge
through my own experiences.
By shame, I mean not being good enough.
I don't mean embarrassment, but a personality feeling shame
is a person whose self-esteem is so low that he really
can't believe that he is good enough or loved.
Has there been any such painful decisive thing in your life
which after being solved has enabled you to reach out...
or God to reach out his helping hand through you to other people.
What was it? Do you want to tell about it?
There have been many such things.
I feel that being an obstinate Ostrobothnian person
plus an editor who straightens everything and
a bit of an I-myself type of person, because I have had
to care for myself from early childhood,
I have had to learn lessons about giving in and
even about breaking down. God has had to use or to bring
things such as exhaustion, even burn out into my life.
I have had several tough illnesses, cancer being perhaps the toughest.
And then a lot of very painful experiences of being rejected
that has led to an inability to really care for myself.
I have always been very good at taking care of other persons' affairs,
for instance as a chief trustee,
but very poor at defending myself, taking care of myself.
Then afterwards books have been born out of these processes.
How long is needed before it is possible to write -
so that it does not hurt any more? What would you say?
At the writing stage I don't feel that pain any more.
It has been lived through and I don't relive it while writing.
Sometimes I have even to try to recollect how it really was
on the emotional level to capture it.
But then there are certain things that live all the time,
like the experience of being rejected.
I think that will be there with you all your life and
so will the inclination to experience distress
when you are rejected or when you think you will be rejected.
What would you say? What is your calling?
Have you found it and what is it?
Yes, I feel very strongly that I have.
I find it interesting that God has sent men from abroad
to bless me to be a teacher and to free people
from depression and inability to live into a closer relationship with God.
I feel as if I'm calling people, together with God, into His love.
In a way helping people to find the means by which they can
pass through their own emotional locks and pains into freedom.
I find it very sad that even Christians are so distressed.
These people who should be free in Christ live in bondage.
All the training you give in seminars, and then write about ...
what kind of pieces do you combine?
Your therapeutic education, your own experiences, your own life.
How much the Bible?
The Bible is with me all the time. One of my branches of study
was Christian psychiatry. This training I got in Denmark.
It combines psychology and theology
without any kind of ecumenism So unless we had had Freud,
we would understand that taking care of the soul
is psychology and theology. You can't separate them because
a human being is spirit, soul and body.
In this way these all belong together.
What I talk is all the time based on the Bible,
although I also use psychological terms.
Also in the Bible the "soul" is - apart from being a human being -
sometimes "spirit". But it also means will, feelings and mind.
And this is what taking care of the soul means.
The soul is the one that doesn't recognize God.
The spirit recognizes God, but for the soul, God's speech is strange.
So the soul must be helped to enter the kingdom of God.
What kind of book is the Bible in terms of caring for the soul?
An excellent book. If you think of any story in it,
for instance the story about David, and you consider it properly,
you'll find that David suffered from deep depression.
When you study further, you'll see how David is healed
and finds peace with God trusting that there is nothing to fear.
I arrange so called "Inner child" days,
where we learn to meet our own feelings and to take care of them,
"the child" being our emotional life.
David uses the same technique when he says
"Why are you depressed my soul? Wait for the Lord. He will come".
He speaks to his soul. This is a therapeutic means to help people.
How well does the Bible as a book understand the pain of a human being?
It certainly understands it well, but uses different wording.
Of course, those of us who do therapeutic work
may express ourselves differently.
At that time people were not diagnosed in the same way.
But the starting points are similar.
Many factors can be found there that clearly sets apart
some matter as sin or as psychic pain.
You are really not afraid to combine psychology and theology,
but combining these two is sometimes a red rag for some people.
What would you say about this?
Fortunately, I face this very seldom nowadays.
However, I can remember when years ago
a vicar came to one seminar.
He was sitting there right in front of me
with his Bible opened and kept asking me:
Where, Blomster, where is it said in the Bible?
But then afterwards he agreed that it really is said in the Bible.
It just depended on the words used. There is no problem here.
A human being is just such an entity.
Freud did the actual trick by claiming that
religious people are neurotics
and in this way divided these two into different worlds.
Nowadays, Finland is a really backward country in this respect.
Elsewhere, for instance in the United States,
Time Magazine wrote several years ago that
Freud is dead, let new courses live on.
But even in Europe a Christian psychology of this kind is known.
Yet, in Finland we don't have it at all.
If we think of psychology only,
is there any space for the Christian view in the mainstream -
the Christian view that a human being is spirit, soul and body and
that his deepest need is to meet God?
Yes, it's significant that this is starting to raise its head.
In my training seminars there are a lot of doctors
and professional helpers and some even get credits for attendance.
The biggest surprise for me was that last spring,
when I was talking at the Psychotherapeutic Association
about my way of working, the reception was very warm.
If I compare our time with that of 15, 16 years ago,
this kind of reception would have been unheard of.
At that time I was even asked if I was absolutely sure that
my work was scientifically worth-while
as I was mixing such nonsense in it.
Questions of this kind are not asked nowadays.
The last question.
Salme, what do you think is the purpose of this life?
The purpose is to come back onto God's palm,
to the place we started from -
back to the unity we lost because of our stupidity in Paradise,
back home to our Father, our Heavenly Father.
Our home is there.
Next time we'll talk more about your journey.
Thank you for this conversation.