I have better people in my life than I deserve. Far better.

I moved out from my apartment on Thursday, dad came to Tallinn and helped me move. It was a sad and strange day, I felt like breaking down in tears the whole day. Then M. sent me a message on Thursday evening and invited me out to lunch the next day. And so it was that when I met her and we headed to the Old Town for lunch on Friday I hadn't eaten anything for 24 hours. I think she saved me from an eating disorder (it's probably not true but it sounds so wonderfully dramatic, lol!)

Then on Friday afternoon S. called me and he basically invited himself as well as H. and K. to my place. I wouldn't have thought of inviting them over because in my head I thought I would have to unpack and settle and get used to the new apartment before I can let anybody in. Fortunately they didn't think the same way so after I had sneaked out of Friday evening prayer meeting in the church (don't tell anyone) we all landed at my place. It was so good to have them there I could have hugged them the whole evening haha! And it was so funny. I realised that I had run out of moving energy on Thursday afternoon when I got to the kitchen so I had only grabbed a couple of plates and tea mugs and pretty much nothing else. So when they brought all that food we didn't have any place to put it. We had a bottle of some fancy fizzy drink on my table and next to it some bread (gladly I had the plates for salad), and as I didn't have a kitchen knife, we literally broke the bread as we ate. I was joking about us having our own communion service around my kitchen table. But as I walked to church this morning to preach I kept thinking about that bread. I think it really was a communion we had last night. I don't know what are the theological requirements for a communion service but it all looked a lot like the very first breaking of bread we read about in the Gospels. There was drink and bread and other food, there were the most important people around that table, there was the presence of the Almighty, and it all took place in the middle of life's inevitable pain and beauty. If this wasn't a communion, I don't know what is...

And five minutes ago I received a phone call from I., my senior pastor who just invited himself and his family to my place tonight.

So if God loves us through the love of other people, I've been soaked in love these past few days. Even in my misery, I am a very happy girl.

Breaking of bread.

Things have been going wrong lately.

There are some things over which you know you don't have any control - like long-awaited Newbold lecturer getting ill and not being able to visit Estonia. You may panic and may have to reschedule important things but in a sense you know you could not possibly do anything about it. But then there are things that go wrong and you know you could have done something about them or should have done. I found myself in the middle of a rather serious conflict a couple of weeks ago - there are some people who are certain I have neglected some of my responsibilities as a pastor. And they may be right. It's a terrible feeling, a nagging feeling. And then in the middle of it you realise your conflict solving skills are at the level of a five year old and you have no idea how to grow a skin a little thicker (I was in touch with Dr L. T. the other week as I'm trying to get him to come and lecture in Estonia next year, and when he asked how I feel I have benefited from Newbold education I told him the course of surviving conflicts and growing thicker skin is very unfortunately still missing from Newbold's curriculum).

I have managed to create yet another disaster in my personal life (it's actually the old disaster from last November but I have been so wonderfully smart to prolong it for another four months).

And I have to move out from my apartment. Tomorrow. Because the conference needs this space for other things now.

Bloody hell, I say.

But I find a lot of comfort in seeing other people do well. It's somehow so heartwarming and comforting - even more so now when I have hit the rock bottom myself - to see beautiful things happen and life moving on for good people. Like, I received a wedding invitation two days ago, U. and C. have invited me to celebrate their love and happiness with them (oh, I wish it was as simple as getting on a plane and flying to California!). My auntie told me on Saturday that my cousin got accepted for the PhD program... in Harvard. Some beautiful news from H. and S. And a good old friend seems to have bumped into the love of her life.

So good stuff still happens. Good things, good people.

But say a prayer for me.

I've had some very meaningful encounters these couple of last days. I've spoken to friends who are going through very different phases in their lives, and all of them have touched my heart in a way or another.

I just finished a phone call with a friend who lost her daughter to brain cancer last week. She was eleven years old and had battled the ****ing disease since she was five. I've sat on the bed side and have watched helplessly the most important person in my life losing the same battle. But it must be very different to lose one's child compared to a parent - it's even more unfair and unnatural. There weren't many things I could say to her (not many words are needed, that I also know from my experience). I said what I could. And my heart goes out to her and her family for now they need to build up a life very different to the one they've known so far. It is a hard hard work, this building up thing. Heavens, do I hate death!

Earlier today I had a long conversation with another friend who is also going through a massive change in his life. He's a guy who has been sort of married to singleness for a long time. And it was a life, a reality he had gotten used to. I think there was some resignation from his part because frankly, he isn't that young any more. And now, totally unexpectedly, this amazing young woman has appeared out of nowhere and he's so in love and she's in love and the funniest part is that he's totally confused... About his future and work and possible marriage and his future studies (we'd been talking about PhD studies for quite some years now, encouraging each other to get started). We have never been close friends but for some reason he felt he wanted to talk to me about it, so we talked today. I'm so happy for him. And the best advice I could come up with came straight from the garden of Eden lol! - it is not good for a man to be alone. (I should know)

Yet another friend called me last week and appeared on my doorstep. She has tried to get going with her PhD studies twice and it just doesn't seem to work out for her. The uncertainty and anxiety has lasted for so long that she seems to be battling depression now. She's the kind of girl who never complains so I was very surprised when she landed on my sofa and pretty much broke down. I think her work and her studies have become the basis of her identity and now that things are shifting and shaking and crumbling, she's not quite sure who she is any longer. I prayed with her, it wasn't much but it seemed to be all I could do to her at that moment.  

Last week on a bus on my way back home from a small group gathering I happened to sit next to a shy teenage girl from that group as we were going to the same direction. I had seen her in the church for a couple of times but we had never properly talked. And now she was like, Oh, I'm so glad we get to sit on the bus together for a half an hour because there's something I want to talk to you about - I really want to get baptised. I looked in her eyes and saw the thing, the joy and excitement and longing that can only come from discovering Jesus. It was so clear she had been surprised - or maybe hit - by this joy and peace unknown to this world. A high school kid, wanting nothing more and nothing less than a life with Jesus... It must have been the happiest bus ride in my life. Or maybe in both of our lives.

And carrying all these experiences and encounters with me, all I can think of is Frederick Buechner's quote, Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid. 

I have this friend. Her name is A. and we have known each other for more than ten years now. It so happened that we started studying the same thing - linguistics - in Tartu uni, two rather shy just-out-of-highschool girls. She says it was her who came and sat next to me in a Latin class one day. I myself have forgotten how the friendship took off.

But off it took, as unexpected as it might have seemed. We were different, she liked piercings and leather boots and mini skirts, I, uhmm, didn't. I came from a family as Christian as they can get, she came from a completely religion free background. But a bond was formed and over the years it only grew stronger. I remember standing on a particular street corner for endless hours after our classes, chatting about life (we used to joke that one day when both of us were be A-listers someone from the city council would decide to put a nice plate on the wall of that house in front of which we always talked, saying that right here on this spot A. and M. would always have their post-class conversations). We mostly discussed her life as she managed to make hers terribly complicated and I never seemed to be able to make mine complicated enough (or complicated enough to be worth mentioning). But we also had many things in common, not the least of which was the ability and willingness to study hard. When we both earned distinction for our MA degree, we were happy and proud. The professors referred to us as the top of the crop, and occasionally took us more seriously than some other students. We were young and beautiful, but what's more, life was young and beautiful.

But then. I remember how terrified I was when I first called her after her father had died of a sudden heart attack for I knew not what to say. And I remember that hers was the only phone call I accepted the day my mum died, the rest I ignored. I remember so clearly how she cried on the other end of the line and how I didn't, because I was in a state of shock. Life was no longer young.

She did what was expected of both of us - she continued her studies right after we graduated while I abandoned the ship and the career that was waiting for me. As I moved to England, we saw each other a lot less than we had used to. But every time I went to Tartu I tried to catch her and have lunch together with her. And in this respect, nothing has changed - I still call her each time I'm there. We have swapped the street corner for more comfortable cafe sofas but the hours fly by just as fast as they used to back in out street corner days.

And today I received a nice big package from the mailman. It was a signed copy of her doctoral dissertation, straight from the press. I was so happy for her and her accomplishment. And then I opened it and read the the ending bit of her preface:

I might have shed a tear.

Congratulations, A., my dearest friend!

About two weeks ago I decided to stop praying. For reals. I reached the point in my life where most of my prayers had turned into narcissistic lamentations about the complexity of life and of myself. And one gets terribly tired of thinking about and talking about oneself all the time. So I stopped. It was a rather relieving experience, but what more - I think God was hugely relieved too.

I didn't stop having prayer time though. I know better than this by now - you don't stop with most important spiritual practices without a danger of getting into some serious trouble. As Lauren Winner puts it in one of her books about Jewish and Christian spirituality, "The essence of the thing is doing, an action. Your faith may come and go, but your practice ought not waver. Indeed, Judaism suggests that the repeating of the practice is the best way to ensure that a doubter's faith will return." I believe she speaks truth here, not only for Jews but for Christians as well. There are times for doubting and times for silence, times when the best you can do is to shout at God (or swear, as my own darkest experiences have shown) but there are some practices that should not end. So this is what I did - I limited myself to praying Psalms. I would read Psalm 4 every night and Psalm 5 every morning (because as Eugene Peterson suggests, they are essentially an evening prayer and a morning prayer). That's all. I would not add anything to the words of the psalmist, or if I was tempted, I would cut myself off. Like I said, it was a liberating experience.

Two other things happened roughly the same time I stopped praying. I think in some mysterious way they were very much connected to this prayer fast of mine. First, I stumbled upon a book. It's quite a story in itself how I got this book but I'm not interested in telling it here - one day I just held Frederick Buechner's sermon collection Secrets in the Dark in my hands and that was that. It has turned out to be one of the most beautiful Christian books (or any books, for that matter) I have ever read in my life. These sermons are so good, so real and so hurtful I could not read more than one or two at the time, sometimes I would have to stop right in the middle of a sermon and give myself a whole day to take it in. Quite often I would well up or literally weep while reading. After two weeks I'm still not done with the book, and in a way these sermons have turned into my prayers. And I can say this - they are healing prayers.

The other thing I noticed had to do with music. For some weeks now I have been listening to Arvo Pärt's brilliant choral piece Te Deum. Almost obsessively. Hardly an evening passes when I don't listen to it. Once. Or twice. Or maybe three times... Never mind. It is heavenly music (quite literally, when women sing Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus in the very end of that piece I always think that's what heaven is going sound like). And I think this is the other way I've learned to pray now. Through music.

It's almost time for Te Deum and Psalm 4 now. It has imperceptibly turned into the best part of my day. :)

Last week dad came over to my place. We both took a day off and headed out, he took his bird watching equipment, I dusted off my camera, and we drove along the coast for the better part of the day until it got dark. The views were absolutely picturesque - now that the whole world is covered in snow and the photos are everywhere it's not a big thing. But it's something that's an essential part of any Estonians life. Estonians need snow. We need some real winter. We need some cold. Last week we had all of those things, thank heavens. :)

Bird watching

On a cliff. Breath taking.

Fifty shades of gray.

Needles.

A frozen waterfall.

It was quite a sight. Tons of frozen water.

And then we ended the day in a wondrous restaurant in the Old Town with dad and brother K. It was a good day indeed.

When it comes to New Year's resolutions, generally I don't do very well. Over the years there have been a few I have been able to keep but usually not much happens. For example, let's take 2015 - I did make a promise when the year began. But, uhmm, let's just say I still don't have the driver's licence. So I didn't bother with any resolutions this year (and as I was preaching just three hours before the new year came and was generally exhausted by midnight, I didn't have energy for lofty ideas anyway). I sort of expected everything to continue without any changes.

But surprisingly enough, after the first week of January I realise that changes - non-resolutionary changes as they are - have still happened. And there's one word that keeps coming back to me when I think about this year and what has happened so far. The word is 'simplify'. I don't know if it has been a conscious or rather a subliminal choice but it seems that I have set out to simplify my life this year. I tried working myself to death last year and although that way of living certainly has its perks and pros, I doubt I could pull it off in a long run (which is a paradox in itself now that I think of it, lol). So what I've done instead is that I've thought very seriously about my priorities. After the new year's eve I was was sick in bed and isolated from the rest of the world for two days so I've had time to engage in some serious thinking business. And this is what I've come up with:

Don't try to do everything at once. Don't think you're some genius who can waltz through the PhD studies while working full time. Nah. Simplify! So after some consideration I have decided to put my studies aside for a while. I'm not flying out to Amsterdam next week. I just can't do everything and I might just as well admit it. I am prioritising my work this year. I want to visit more people. I want to give myself more time for lecture prep - Newbold's Licence teaching is coming up this summer in Riga and I need to deliver there. New Testament Greek in the Seminary as well. Do it and do it well! And take some other stuff seriously as well. Take actual days off! (That's a real struggle - last week I held a Bible study and took almost two hours to help I. with some book stuff during my free day...) Spend more quality time with friends (I have done wonderfully well on that front during the first week of this year, and I will do my best to keep it up). Visit your relatives more often. When you have your annual leave - leave the country! Accept one or two preaching invites from abroad. Go to a concert to listen to classical music - I've already chosen one concert, that's a start. And if a guy happens to show up and to show some serious interest in you, firstly, don't panic, secondly, consider it seriously, and thirdly, enjoy the thingy even if it doesn't last (i. e do everything diametrically opposite to the way you did it two months ago - and regretted it bitterly afterwards).

And man, I want to write a book! That's probably something that would make my life not simpler but a lot more stressful but I can't get it out of my head. I had such a good time at M's place last week who's one of my few friends who's actually written a book with everything that comes with it (publishers and fan mails and all:) and she was so nice and supportive when I told her about it. I really need to consider it seriously. There's a good chance I don't really have it in me but if I don't try I'll never find out. Hmm. We'll see.

But honestly, sometimes the very best use for your life and the very best you can do it to be a pillow to a friend's dog. That's also part of life, simplified life.