Home Alone

These days I’m like Kevin from Home Alone. Well, minus the silly burglars. Thankfully, no-one’s trying to break in. J

What I said in my last post I feared the most – spending the Christmas alone – came true, of course. But for different reasons and with a very different attitude from what I had anticipated. The story is quite simple, really. I had promised to participate in the recording of the conference’s online church service for the last Saturday of the year, I had promised to preach there. At first, all looked good and merry but at some point the whole thing started to disintegrate since so many people from the media team or the worship band were locked up because of Covid. So they postponed the recording day and at one point it started looking like they could not pull it off at all. And I knew my role became critical as I couldn’t allow myself to have a random contact with someone with a positive Covid test and be locked up – without a sermon they would have had very little to record. So I told the media guys I’d self-isolate until we got the sermon recorded. And I did. We recorded the sermon yesterday afternoon and then it was already too late to make any Christmas plans for the evening. So home alone I was.

I don’t think I’ve ever given up so much for a single sermon.

But there’s nothing heroic about it. It’s just that I am learning things about myself through this experience – for instance, what I think is worth certain sacrifices, what I think comes first. And I’m surprising myself. After the terrible spiritual burnout of the last 1,5 years, after a year when I’ve barely spoken to God, I never thought I’d care so much about preaching the Word…

The self-isolating bit is fine, actually. Once I realised I would not meet up with anyone this Christmas, I just calmed down. Even more, I had this inexplicable and surprising peace in my heart, and that, I believe, is pure and direct grace of God. I’ve only cried when thinking about missing my niece and nephew and godson. All else is well. And I’ve realised something over the past week or so: things that are usually nice Christmas extras have become bare essentials. I need candles and I need good Christmas music. I need good books (rereading Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory at the moment – a book made of pure beauty), and long walks in my favourite, Kadrioru park. Just like this morning – the three first things I did when I woke up was to take an ice cold shower (that’s not a Christmas routine, though, that’s just a life routine), put on my favourite Christmas CD and light some candles. On Christmas Eve, on top of these extras-turned-into-essentials, I also painted my fingernails and put on a pretty dress before watching the online Christmas service, had some cake and phoned my dad. And I really was fine.

So with gratitude for good things and with hope for better ones – Merry Christmas, dear friends!