1/19/2020

Hate & Books

I'm on a ferry from Helsinki to Tallinn and since I forgot to bring a book with me on the trip, I can pass the time by writing a bit.

The Christmas time and the New Year passed like a blink of an eye. I got to spend time with family and some close friends and for some reason, I kept thinking of something Hemingway says in his brilliant Paris memoir A Moveable Feast. He's talking about spring time in Paris but by kneading and paraphasing it a bit, it can also be about Christmas in Estonia, "When Christmas came, there were no problems except where to be happiest. The only thing that could spoil a day was people and if you could keep from making engagements, each day had no limits. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as Christmas itself." This is exactly how I felt. Except for these few peeps I actually wanted to see and spend time with, I tried to stay away from people. By the New Year's Eve I had turned into a real secluse, staying home, just cooking and reading (A. N.'s Christmas parcel of books arrived just on time!) and barely getting up from bed, going out only for walks, trying to avoid conversation and eye contact. Somewhere beneath that lies the real problem - I am way too introverted for ministry, and my work makes me to be around people way too much - and only when I have time to wind down I understand the scope of that problem. But that's something I don't want to mull over too much as I'm afraid I might come to some very uncomfortable conclusions...

Anyway, it took me a while to get over myself and get back to work (I wrote to A. N. after the first week of January, "I'm back to work although I still hate people" lol). Now everything is running smoothly again, meaning that I run around preaching and giving lectures and, like I said, ignoring my core problem.

I'm just on my way back home from Helsinki where I preached and had a weekend seminar on preaching. I had agreed with S. V. that I would speak about what preaching is and how to prepare sermons, and we were supposed to have five hours in total for that, two hours on Friday evening and three hours on Saturday afternoon. The Finns said there would be translation needed so I prepared material only for 2,5 hours, knowing the translator would take the rest of the time. Just about 20 minutes before boarding the ferry on Friday afternoon I got a message from S. saying that they had made a last minute decision about using simultaneous translation instead so that I could have all 5 hours to myself and wouldn't have to be slowed down by translation. I had no extra notes or PP slides with me... With the notes I had and with a little improvisation, I managed to speak for 4 h 45 minutes. I got back to my hotel last night, totally brain dead. Ate fast food in bed and watched some British crime series without a single brain wave crossing from right to left (or left to right, for that matter). Phew!

I usually give out my personal Booker Prizes (with uttermost value) in the beginning of each year. Unfortunately I don't have the list of last year's 40 books with me right now but what I can say even without my list is that last year was an exceptionally good year for biographies and travel books. I love them both deeply so it was a really good reading year! As to the traditional Top 5, the best ones were:

  • Ryszard Kapuscinski, Imperium
  • Ryszard Kapuscinski, The Shadow of the Sun [it is not difficult to guess who was last year's rock star for me. I fell in love with Kapuscinski!]
  • Shiva Naipaul, North of South
  • Eva Hoffman, Lost in Translation
  • Ernest Hillen, The Way of a Boy: The Memoir of Java
I warmly recommend all these authors and books!

Anyway, happy new year to eveyone! Here's a random video from our Christmas Eve. My dad and my cousin having fun at the piano.