My desk in the office is a big mess. But it is not a random mess, it's the mess of my job.

If you were to come by, you would find these items on my desk:
- a Bible
- two Bible commentaries
- plane tickets to Valencia
- a pile of essays I need to grade
- my TED Talk (or, as they call them, Journey Talk) for Valencia
- my Bible study workshop text for Valencia
- Greek text book
- Greek 'let's get ready for the exam' excercises
- a book titled Women and Ordination. Biblical and Historical Studies (not quite sure why this is here)
- time table of Valencia programme
- a birthday card from my cousin
- a bag with gym clothes under the desk

There is clearly too much going on, and at moments it's suffocating. On other moments it's exhilirating because that pile tells me I'm getting closer and closer to my dreams. (Or maybe I'm living them already?)

The youth congress in Valencia - which starts in a week's time - is obviously the big looming event which takes up most of my mental and desk space these days. I don't remember any event in recent past which I both dreaded and looked forward to with such intensity. I am well aware of the fact that this is a once in a lifetime opportunity for me. The list of plenary speakers is short, the speakers come both from Europe and the US, and in some mysterious way I'm on it too. This must be the doing of the Almighty, no doubt. At the same time I don't know if my prep is enough. For about two weeks now I have practiced my talk daily, I know it by heart by now. But my insecurities, those ugly little monsters, are in the back of my head and they too are working hard these days. But it's also good for me - to be thrown out of my comfort zone like that. There's an immense potential of growth for me here. The air is thick with opportunity. There's a chance the courage and hard work will pay off and will create something that's bigger than I am.

Last week my desk was clean though. I spent 4 days in a bush with our conference's youth, camping. It happened so that one of the two ladies who were asked to cook for the camp couldn't come, and I volunteered to cover for her. So for the better part of the last week I chopped carrots and cucumbers and washed dishes, from early morning til late in the evening. It was a good break from the usual desk mess (although I did walk around my tiny room during kitchen duty breaks, practicing my Talk every day).

I think there must be a balance between being a Mary and being a Martha. Sometimes kitchen duty does good to you, it keeps your feet firmly on the ground. Keeps you real. But I did get a little bit anxious by the end of these four days because the Mary stuff was waiting again. And honestly, I really can't cook. :P

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Ah, here's one picture of me preaching at the Pathfinders camp two weeks ago. I think it's a lovely picture. You can tell from that photo I love preaching.

I'm thinking about a song - Lana Del Rey's Summertime Sadness. In a way it pretty much describes the summer feeling of these past weeks, on the other hand there's really nothing to be sad about so I'm not quite sure why this song came to my mind. But even if there is no sadness, there sure is a lot of summertime melancholy. Days go by slowly and without much fuss, I'm stuck in my patterns and circles, which, again, isn't necessarily a bad thing. It feels like this summer has lasted forever and will continue to last forever. It's a still life, that's what it is.

There has been some family business. I've visited my dad, I've visited my auntie, just this past Sunday morning I visited my uncle whom I don't see that often (we had pancakes and a long conversation which really was more of a monologue from his part and I left with quiet sadness, knowing that we see life from very different viewpoints). I've visited my mum's grave for the first time since Christmas Eve and I've taken some long walks in the tiny town of Türi where my mum grew up and where she is now resting. And all these pictures and memories from my early childhood flooded back, and I thought a great deal about my mum and my granny, and how my identity and self are firmly grounded in their love. Oh, and we celebrated my little brother's 30th birthday in the beginning of July, and that added more melancholy still - to see your brother you've always thought as small all grown up and manned up is awesome and yet equally perplexing.

It's quiet at work. Everyone else is either on their annual leave or camping in the bush with our pathfinders or they're just not coming to the office these days. So I'm here all by myself and I don't get that much work done. The conference's library is still waiting to be sorted out, there's always a sermon that needs to be written, preparations for Valencia need to get done soon. This morning I'm translating Greek sentences and going through the text book word by word as I am teaching in Riga again on Thursday. It is strange how even the Riga lecturing trips have quietly become the part of my usual summer routine. I go once every three weeks and although they are long and tough days, I enjoy them very much. Later today, when I'm done with translations, I reward myself with Anne Lamott's TED Talk. Little treats like this do good to one's soul. There were some things I had become very excited about over my traveling weeks - new contacts, possibilities of new opportunities. But nothing has come of them, the emails I was so impatiently waiting for after returning home never arrived, new initiatives never took off. I guess it's one of those seasons.

I'm reading Kathleen Norris' book The Cloister Walk and even that book fits in the general mood perfectly. It's slow and deep and beautiful, that book. And when I'm not reading that, I'm reading the book of Revelation in the evenings, and although Revelation is anything but quiet and calm, even this book can tear me up these days with its beautiful opening and closing chapters.

Some evenings I'm meeting up with friends, and when I'm not doing it I either go to the seaside or to a new nearby market to get fresh local strawberries and tomatoes.

It's a still life alright.

At K.'s birthday bash.

Visiting the pathfinders camp last weekend. I preached there on Sabbath.

Tea at A.'s.

I had been traveling so much I had somehow forgotten what the usual, non-traveling everyday life looked and felt like. But once I had settled again and unpacked my suitcase and was also back emotionally, I realised – with a rather unpleasant surprise – that everything was really same old, same old. And that all the things that had triggered my breakdown in April were still very much present and actual. None of these things had miraculously evaporated over the traveling weeks. So these past weeks I’ve done my best to balance between the light and the shadows, between joy and sorrow. Sometimes I’m doing well, sometimes not so well, the most important thing is that I’m balancing.

And so it was that I looked forward to Dr A. N.’s visit excitedly, almost impatiently. She’s one of those people who has always managed to speak light into my life, and I was hoping for it to happen again. So on Monday when I knew she’d arrive, I could barely sit still during the conference’s executive board marathon meeting. She did come, she sat me down in an Old Town restaurant, and she spoke a lot of life and light and sense into my existence. Again. But we didn’t just sit in restaurants for three days (although we did a fair amount of that too) but we also went to an art museum, looked around Tallinn, and then headed to Pärnu for about two days. I had so organised things that my dad would join us for a day and take us to the best bird watching locations on the Western coast. Both my dad and A. N. are fanatical bird watchers. So yesterday we drove around the coast from early morning until late afternoon and it was rather funny to see how both of them switched on the bird watching mode and ran around with binoculars and consulted the books and were totally excited about seeing this or that bird. I tagged along, kicked stones, and took pictures. I was clearly left out of their world haha! A. N. would joke that not all people are lucky enough to be born with the bird watching gene. I suppose she’s right. But it was a lot of fun still to hang out with them and have a little glimpse of this hobby of theirs. Great times. And then we would do some more restaurant visiting and would endlessly talk about life and academia and people and Newbold and GC and books. 

A. N. just left an hour ago, heading back to Newbold. It all feels like a deep breath of fresh air. 

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And here’s the traditional blog news: music and books. I’ve been listening to Kirk Franklin a lot, especially on those days when I’m not doing very well. His music helps, My Life Is In Your Hands in particular (and it’s not only the song itself that I like but also the unfading memory that goes with it – how me and B. would blast this song on Thursday evenings in Newbold student centre when setting up for yet another Experience). Book wise – I’ve just finished Thomas Keneally’s Schindler’s Ark (book no 22 this year). I had seen the movie – Schindler's List – a long time ago but I wasn’t quite prepared for the book. The book is so much more detailed and intense and sickening than the movie (although I think Ralph Fiennes did an excellent job playing the Nazi lunatic Goeth) but it is also somehow more inspirational – the audacity and absurdity of the idea of saving lives and the elegance with which Herr Schindler pulled it off against all odds is just breathtaking. It’s equally terrible and terrific book.

I think I've met more new people over these two weeks than I usually do in a year. It's been intense.

Last week I was in Denmark, preaching and teaching at their Union's camp meeting. It was the first time for me to speak at a bigger gathering like this, so it was all wonderfully new to me. I realised somewhere half way through the camp meeting that when you're the invited speaker, you have a full-time job. It's not only about preaching sermons and having workshops, it's equally much about being aroud people, socialising, listening, smiling. For someone as introverted as me, it can be terribly tiring. I was glad we stayed in a rented summer house with M. and A. a couple of kilometers away from the camp site so I could escape there every now and then and just be alone.

But I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong. It was also immensely rewarding, being with people, getting to know them a little and seeing their heart-felt gratitude. I don't think I've ever heard so many kind words and thank yous as I did there. Something really seemed to touch their hearts, and if you asked me, that something was a miracle of God. Given the state of my health as well as my limited preparations plus the never ending sleeping problems, it must have been magic that happened. I didn't feel I had much to give, but people seemed to receive a whole lot more than I gave. It reminds me of the story of five loaves of bread and two fish. I gave crumbles, people seemed to receive a whole meal. It was the invisible miracle of the Kingdom of God that must have happened.

I also had a privilege of meeting two other guest speakers, pastor Bill Knott and pastor Matthew Gamble from the US. M. G. was the speaker in the youth tent, he's the kind of guy who can make anyone laugh at any time. Unfortunately I never got to hear him as we spoke in different tents to different audiences and also our workshops overlapped, but I heard good things about him. But I got to spend more time with pastor B. K. who must be one of the kindest and friendliest people I've ever met. We could sit in the dining hall during the lunch time and discuss homiletics and literature and women's ordination endlessly. He also encouraged me to take writing more seriously, and I'm infinitely grateful for this encouragement. Just today I happened to pick up an issue of Adventist World magazine, and this time I read its editorial differently. Suddenly there was a real living person behind the title of the executive editor, a person I dare to call my new friend.

With B. K., M. and M. G. Or as we joked - ABBA

And this week it's Slovenia. I'm attending the GC's Education Summit. Part of it is interesting and useful, part of it not so much. But I guess that's always like this with conferences. I'm staying in the same hotel where I stayed a number of years ago at the European Pastors Counsil. Memories flooded back that evening I got here - I remember that event so clearly. It was the summer when I was half way through my MA program in Newbold, the last summer my mum was well, the last summer life was easy-breezy-beautiful. It has been bittersweet being back here. But what once again balances the sadness is people, inspiring and wonderful people. It's the first time for me to meet the real power ladies of the SDA church. Today I had lunch with Ella Simmons, I sat very quietly and listened carefully to this graceful and fierce lady who, against all odds, has made her way right to the top of the church's administrative hierarchy. I've also met Andrea Luxton and Lisa Beardsley-Hardy, the president of Andrews University and director of Education at the GC. Truly admirable ladies both. It is so good to have people to look up to, people who inspire and make you realise - everything is possible. Everything is possible for those who work their butt off and stand their ground.

So again and again I come back to the realisation - I have been blessed with wonderful people in my life. Some contacts are brief, some grow into friendships, but all of them are appreciated. 

Home

Things got quite a bit worse before they started getting better. I don't want to say much about these days that came after my last blog post but when you find out there is a suicide note addressed to you, it knocks you out. It would have knocked me out anyway but it hit even harder since I was only recovering from my own burnout. There were a couple of terrible days. The funeral was tough. The sleeplessness returned. I went back to work too early and against my doctor's advice. I had to change the medicine I was taking, and the new medicine did not suit me at all. I walked around pretty much drugged for about three days until I got off that medicine and decided to go through this time sleepless but undrugged.

I have been back to work, but I have not been able to do as much as usual. But slowly slowly things are getting better. The last weekend helped a great deal. And this week - although tiring - is also helping me. I asked for the weekend off and I. was kind enough to let me skip the church planting brainstorming weekend. I went to Tartu instead, and spent some quiet days there, preparing for the Homiletics intensive, sitting in the local botanic garden, visiting my relatives, and just relaxing at E. and T.'s place. It so happened that it was my birthday on Saturday, and although I didn't even want to mention it or to make a big deal out of it, Facebook gave me away. So E. and T. prepared a birthday dinner and had a gift for me, and it felt a lot like home. They are people with real gift of hospitality. I admire people who have this gift because I wasn't around when this gift was given out. Here are the keys, here is the fridge and kettle, make yourself comfortable, come join us for our family's Mother's Day lunch - things like this startle me. And yet they warm my heart and touch me like nothing else ever could. Their casual hospitality and 'you're part of our family' attitude helped me through the annual Mother's Day sadness and gave me the sense of belonging. But the best thing happened on Saturday evening after our birthday dinner when T. (a fellow minister, my professor from Amsterdam and a colleague in the Seminary, a fellow theologian, and - as it turns out - my friend) sighed contentedly and said, "Now it's time to read poetry." And poetry we read indeed, for more than an hour. He had a collection of Betti Alver's poems, I had Doris Kareva, E. chose to sit back and listen. We read and read to each other, and we kept walking to the book shelf and kept picking new books because also Juha Liiv needed to be recited, and Juhan Viiding, and Karl Ristikivi... And there was this warm feeling somewhere inside my chest that told me, "This moment, these people, these books, this quiet evening, this shared love for written word - this is your home. This is a moment and a place - as fleeting as it is - where you belong. This is who you are."

One day, there will be poetry reading evenings in my home. Not because I want to come across as some big head intellectual, but because this is a gift that belongs to me. This is the warm feeling that tells me I'm home. This is what makes me me.

And now I'm in Riga. The week I have been impatiently looking forward to for about 1,5 years is finally here. I am teaching the Homiletics intensive to the Baltic group of Newbold's Licence students. Oh, and also Greek. Things are far from perfect - the sleeping is still restless, some wounds in my heart still fresh and hurtful, my preparation for the classes not quite up to my standards. But despite all of this I get that warm feeling again and again in my chest, sometimes in the middle of the class, sometimes sitting in the hotel's dining room over the breakfast, or late at night when thinking about the next day's classes. It's the feeling that tells me that whatever else is happening in the world, whatever battles lost or won in my life, this is home. Teaching is home.

There have been losses. But there are also victories. Friends who would care to read poetry with me late at night, and lecturing to a wonderful group of students, these are mighty victories. So there is a balance. Or as U. put it yesterday when I told him about the things I've lost recently and the beautiful moments I've gained, "Jah is always honest." Things are in balance.

Silence

These past two weeks have been full of silence. It has been good silence, it’s been the kind of place where you can finally stop all the demanding voices around you and within you, stop the rushing, stop the performing and achieving. Be still and know that I am God kind of silence. There is a quiet place, far from the rapid pace kind of silence.

My mind really has been healing and I’ve got a whole lot better. The symptoms I had are slowly retreating. I wrote to The Lady yesterday and told her I felt as if I’ve come through a thick mist and am finally in the clear again. Or maybe I haven’t arrived quite yet but I’m on my way out to the clear.

I don’t know if there is any need for me to list all the things I have done and been able to do. Most of these things aren’t terribly special, they have been quite ordinary. But in each of these things there has been some healing for me. I went, for example, to my cousin’s summer house for a couple of days. The weather was horrendous, there was rain and hail and snow and sunshine almost all at once. After having been caught in a serious hailstorm once I didn’t do much walking outside. But I heated the sauna and dipped in the lake (that’s when the weather doesn’t matter to the least) and read and just watched the lake from the window. I have had lunch with several friends. One evening I stayed at my Baptist friends’ place where, before going to bed late at night, we read poetry. I finally bought a CD I had been wanting to have for some time – that of a classical guitar – and have been listening to it excessively. I’ve written emails and I’ve taken my medicine. I’ve been to a jazz festival where I had a privilege of hearing and seeing Dianne Reeves in all her genius and glory. It seemed as if she was made of pure jazz. On Friday I sneaked to my office and even managed to work for about two hours until a friend found out about it and told me quite severely to get lost from there. I’ve been also hanging out with my church youth as there happened to be a tragic death last week – a young girl from my church took her own life. And so we’ve been together, numb with shock and grief, not quite knowing how to react or what to do. So we’ve been doing what we could which is being together, eating pizza, laughing and crying, voicing our regret and anger, sleeping over so that no-one would have to be home alone.

I haven’t arrived yet, like I said, if there even is a destination to arrive at. But I’ve appreciated this time because it really has done something to my hurt and brokenness.

And I’m reading Frederick Buechner once again. He’s brilliant beyond all measure:

The question is not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God’s things because, of course, they are both at once. There is no chance thing through which God cannot speak – even the walk from the house to the garage that you have walked ten thousand times before, even the moments when you cannot believe there is a God who speaks at all anywhere. He speaks, I believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of our selves and of our own footstore and sacred journeys. We cannot live our lives constantly looking back, listening back, lest we be turned to pillars of longing and regret, but to live without listening at all is to live deaf to the fullness of the music. Sometimes we avoid listening for fear of what we may hear, sometimes for fear that we may hear nothing at all but the empty rattle of our own feet on the pavement. But be not affeard, says Caliban, nor is he the only one to say it. „Be not afraid,” says another, „for lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” He says he is with us on our journeys. He says he has been with us since each of our journeys began. Listen for him. Listen to the sweet and bitter airs of your present and your past for the sound of him.

I try my best to listen. Silence is a good place to start from.

Burnout And Birth

I wouldn’t have taken the whole thing so very seriously but fortunately others did. I came back from the UK last Tuesday and after having dropped my suitcase to my apartment I went straight to the office. I thought I was well enough to continue working just like before and that I could ignore the fact that I still wasn’t sleeping nor eating and that I had to battle dramatic mood swings daily. It was my auntie who raised the issue and spoke to I. (without me knowing about it) and called doctors and was generally very upset and concerned. I preached on Saturday morning in a small church and realised in the middle of my sermon that I was utterly empty, I didn’t even feel the usual adrenaline rush. OK, I took a mental note, it does feel like I might need a break. By Sunday I had come up with a plan and had summoned enough courage to ask I. if I could take the following weekend off. We’re not talking about a weekend here, I. replied, you need to take two weeks completely off, you need to go and see a doctor, you need a sick leave, and you need to deal with your problems. We’ll reschedule all your preaching and other work-related appointments, he said, and you are off to a vacation. He sounded quite resolute.

So here I am. I’m on a sick leave for two weeks with a burnout diagnosis. Never has this happened to me before.

If you had seen me on Monday morning, you would have laughed. I sat on my bed in my pajamas, totally serious and in a business mode. I had my phone in one hand and my calendar and a pen in the other. OK, I thought, how do we deal with this? This is serious burnout business here. We need a plan. So. First, call your GP. Second, call the psychiatrist your auntie has recommended you. Third, write a masseuse. Fourth, write your cousin and ask if his summer house is free and available over the weekend. Fifth, see if any of your friends are able to hang out with you or speak to you. I did all these things and now I have a glorious strategy to tackle my burnout and also to make the best out of these two weeks.

I will have the appointment with my GP on Friday (which really means that the length of my sick leave is still unsure). I have seen the psychiatrist (it just so happened that she had had a last minute cancellation and she was able to see me in two hours instead of two months – this is what I call A God Thing) and I’ve got the medicine I needed. I’m going to a masseuse tomorrow morning – as I hear from M, he’s the best masseuse in the entire world. :) I have been hanging out with my friends (or calling the ones who are far away) every day. Yesterday a friend invited me over for a lunch and I decided to walk to her place. I knew it was far – on the other side of the town – but I didn’t quite realise the distance until it had taken me more than two hours to get there. It was 15 kilometers, Google Maps told me later. But that was fine because I apparently have ALL the time in the world in my hands now, there is no need to hurry. I read books I brought with me from the UK. I try to eat. Tomorrow afternoon I’m off to Tartu, getting there just when my cousin’s family is leaving the country. They have gladly promised to give me the keys of both their lovely Tartu apartment (my home) as well as their summer house (my paradise). I intend to spend the whole week living there.

Burnout is a terrible thing for anyone to happen. It is a place of darkness and despair. Future seems a big black hole, meaningless and hopeless. Voices in your head keep telling you you should have been stronger, that you’re weak and unworthy, and in the end, no-one really cares. You shout to God and hear only silence. You struggle with the most simple daily things, like eating a breakfast. But it is also a time of rebirth and rediscovery – once again you realise that many actually do care, that people love you and pray for you. It is also the time for you to realise that the world keeps turning without your help. Things get done without you pushing yourself to the limit. And even if some things are left undone, no great harm comes from it. It is the time you rediscover the pleasure and beauty of simple things – of a couple of hours of deep sleep, of your favourite music, of a phone call from a friend you haven’t seen for too long, of long walks, of the strength of your muscles when you are well enough to hit the gym again (this morning). Of a friend who doesn’t say one condemning word when you call her on Good Friday and tell her you’re not up to going to church that evening. Of an auntie who calls you every second day. Of good books you can drown your sorrows into for a couple of hours at a time. Of God who keeps suffering with you.

Do say a prayer for me. But also, be glad for me. Rebirth is a reason for gladness and gratitude.